San Francisco Luxe – WORLD NEWS
load time so fictionalized history but as little as the protectorate of Spain in Morocco vertebra the third novel by journalist and writer Olga Merino (Barcelona, ??1965), Dogs barking in the basement (Alfaguara). Merino, who goes these days in the presentation of his book in several cities, says he chose the stage for his work because “it is far from being exploited in Spanish letters.” “Anything else in regard to war but almost nothing of everyday life then. Faced with the English and French, who themselves have written about their colonies and are proud of that past, we seem to have a low self-esteem and we wanted to set aside that period of our history, as if disturbed. ” A fact that explains Merino because it is a stage “refers to the military Africanists, who then staged the uprising and Civil War.”
dry and poor that territory north of Morocco, in Tetouan, plant Rodiles family Merino, who runs a shoe shop and orthopedic sandals that are made for the army and legs are molded plate, a world of fabrics , tools and odors with exquisite precision described by the writer. “That family and his workshop is a metaphor of that Spanish colonial project, which was false, false, a territory in which there were no roads,” says the author by phone.
family that owns the book’s protagonist, Anselm, who recalls the years spent in Tetouan before Moroccan independence in 1956. In addition to the uprooting of those who, like the Rodiles, had to leave that place, Anselm suffers his own, that of a gay man who tries his luck as a dancer. At first it is a hedonistic world where money is made. “Those artists were laborers of flamenco, flamenco clubs encouraged by the Franco regime, exempt from some taxes and in which censorship is something waded night.”
“bad head”
However, “bad head” of the protagonist will have to Aboca bad life in a variety of bad company which carries death, people to people, their decline at the end of Francoism. “In this second part of the novel I tried to tell through that troupe, with characters from different backgrounds, that Spain desnortada trying to jump-start, coinciding with the death of Franco,” says Murphy.
Barking dogs in the basement, tells how during the Franco regime homosexuals were pushed to “having squalid, furtive, to live in an underworld.” “A stage-remember-where Merino was said that ‘before I’d rather see my son dead fagot’ and in which electric shocks were applied to cure them .” Anselmo Rodiles have to hide their true desires are those dogs that bark in the basement and referred to the book’s title.
this third novel of the above are red ash, 1999 and Spurs paper (2004) – the writer, who was a correspondent for El Periodico de Catalunya in London and Moscow, traveled to Morocco to document how was the day to day living in the Spanish protectorate. It also helped him a lot an association of former residents of the North African country, perhaps because of the story is tinged with nostalgia. “They told me that the Moors were disappointed with Franco, who had helped in the Civil War but later abandoned them. While the Spanish of Tetuan, Larache, Alcazarquivir … had a postwar less harsh than the Peninsula. Besides, I was Tangier, where he had contraband and could find anything. Finally, with the independence of Morocco, these people suffered a diaspora. “
Despite the tone of defeat that moves the book and harsh personal circumstances, death of loved ones and a rare-Merino suffered during the gestation of the novel and that permeate the work, the writer does not believe that all black is Barking dogs in the basement. “Anselmo is not a being self-pitying, he wanted to be an artist and fulfills the desire. Certainly it is a book of losers, but they are losers who have dignity and courage. ” As for the impossibility of achieving a lasting relationship with the beloved, Merino agrees that the beings of his novel “will not last long on love but do not delude themselves, they know what is.” In that thread, “the difficulty of getting the love and keep it with this life we” throw the author in her next novel.
Exploded
A literary map of the protectorate and homosexuality
Olga Merino has embarked with Barking dogs in the basement in part of Spanish history just narrated, the Protectorate in Morocco (1912-1956). “Spain came late to the colonial division and accounted for a very poor area.” In addition, Murphy in his book the life of a homosexual in Franco’s Spain. To become a literary map of both issues, the author mentions the following readings:
on the lives of homosexuals: the biographies of writers like John Cheever and Thomas Mann.Portrait of an artist, by Jaime Gil de Viedma, and against nature, Alvaro Pombo.
military protectorate: Magnet, from Ramon J. Sender and The Forging of a Rebel, of Arturo Barea.
daily life in the colony: the work of Juan Goytisolo, bread naked to Mohammed Shukri, Life of Juanita Narboni dog, to Angel Vazquez and <=”” em=”” style=”margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; “>Maria Dueñas.
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