Monday, 21 May 2012 17:48
The Hand of Fatima
CONTINUING LAST week’s theme of modern Spanish writers when I reviewed the Gothic intrigue of Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s ‘The Angel’s Game’, this week’s review looks at the most recent work of an equally lauded Spanish writer, Idefonso Falcones.
Falcones’ earlier work, ‘The Cathedral of the Sea’, enthralled more than a million readers in Spain alone and has since become a European bestseller in over forty countries. In ‘The Hand of Fatima’, the author again transports the reader to a historical Spain of centuries past, this time from a starting point in the 16th century up to the eventual expulsion of the Moors one hundred years later.
Each year in Spain towns and villages celebrate the expulsion of the Moors with Moors and Christian fiestas without taking into account that at the time of the much vaunted Reconquest of Spain, Al Andalus – Moorish Spain - had existed for nearly 700 years and it was the long-established Spanish Moors who did battle against the newer Fundamentalist invaders. Even Spain’s most famous knight, Guzman el Bueno, was in fact born in Morocco.
Many inhabitants of 17th Century Spain were of mixed race, as is Falcones’ hero, the young Hernando, son of an Arab mother and the Christian priest who raped her. As a result, Hernando’s childhood is brutalised by taunts and beatings from his stepfather, who despises the boy for his ‘tainted’ heritage. But Hernando is inspired by the love of the beautiful Fatima and hatches a plan to unite the warring faiths.
Falcones builds on the psychology of a half-breed youth, torn between the two halves of his identity and fills the background of his novel with the clash of broadswords and scimitars against the waving war banners of both factions. He also goes nearer to introducing the reader to the realpolitik of Moorish Spain than any other writer of the genre. Falcones is a monumental writer; as much a Sir Walter Scott of his time as Zafón is Charles Dickens. Neither writers’ work should be ignored, ever. We are privileged to live in their time.
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Author: Ildefonso Falcones /translated by Nicholas Calstor
Publisher: Black Swan (paperback)
Price: 12.15€
ISBN: 978 0 552 77646 2
Falcones’ earlier work, ‘The Cathedral of the Sea’, enthralled more than a million readers in Spain alone and has since become a European bestseller in over forty countries. In ‘The Hand of Fatima’, the author again transports the reader to a historical Spain of centuries past, this time from a starting point in the 16th century up to the eventual expulsion of the Moors one hundred years later.
Each year in Spain towns and villages celebrate the expulsion of the Moors with Moors and Christian fiestas without taking into account that at the time of the much vaunted Reconquest of Spain, Al Andalus – Moorish Spain - had existed for nearly 700 years and it was the long-established Spanish Moors who did battle against the newer Fundamentalist invaders. Even Spain’s most famous knight, Guzman el Bueno, was in fact born in Morocco.
Many inhabitants of 17th Century Spain were of mixed race, as is Falcones’ hero, the young Hernando, son of an Arab mother and the Christian priest who raped her. As a result, Hernando’s childhood is brutalised by taunts and beatings from his stepfather, who despises the boy for his ‘tainted’ heritage. But Hernando is inspired by the love of the beautiful Fatima and hatches a plan to unite the warring faiths.
Falcones builds on the psychology of a half-breed youth, torn between the two halves of his identity and fills the background of his novel with the clash of broadswords and scimitars against the waving war banners of both factions. He also goes nearer to introducing the reader to the realpolitik of Moorish Spain than any other writer of the genre. Falcones is a monumental writer; as much a Sir Walter Scott of his time as Zafón is Charles Dickens. Neither writers’ work should be ignored, ever. We are privileged to live in their time.
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Author: Ildefonso Falcones /translated by Nicholas Calstor
Publisher: Black Swan (paperback)
Price: 12.15€
ISBN: 978 0 552 77646 2
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