BookTalk
BookTalk
Book Talk
with Smiffs book & card store, Nerja
Two new history books
commend attention this
month. Published in
early August, Carrie
Gibson’s El Norte (l) is a
sweeping saga of the
Spanish history and
influence in North
America over five
centuries. For reasons of
language and history,
the United States of
America has prized its
Anglo heritage above all
others. However, and as
Gibson explains with
great depth and clarity,
America has much older
Spanish roots that have
long been
unacknowledged or
marginalised. The
Hispanic past of the USA predates the arrival of the Pilgrims
from England by a century, and has been every bit as
important in shaping the nation as it exists today. Ponce de
Leon’s first landing in Florida was in 1513, Spain would later
control the huge Louisiana territory and establish settlements
up the California coast. Other notable events in this history
include the Mexican-American War (1846), the recent tragedy
of post-hurricane Puerto Rico, and the ongoing bitter US-
Mexico dispute over cross-border immigration to the US.
Interwoven in this stirring narrative of events and people are
cultural issues that have been there from the start and remain
unresolved: language, belonging, community, race and
nationality. Seeing them play out over centuries provides vital
perspective at a time when it is urgently needed.
Columbian times,
consumed Spain in its
relentless conquest,
drove a system of
exploitation, and has
transmogrified into
Latin America’s hope for
the future. The history
of mining is illustrated
through the life of
Leonor González, a
widowed mother-of-five
living in La Rinconada,
the highest human
settlement in the world.
The sword in the title
evokes the culture of
violence: from the Aztec
and Inca empires
through the bloody
nineteenth-century wars
of independence to state
terrorism and today’s drug wars. The lens through which this is
viewed in the life of Carlos Buergos, a Cuban drug dealer who
sharpened up his skill with a knife in the Angolan wars,
imported his saviness to America, then became a police
informant. The third strand of the title – embodied in temples,
elaborate cathedrals, or simple piles of rock – is the fervent
adherence to religious institutions built in stone. Father Xavier
Albo, a Jesuit priest living in La Paz, Bolivia, who has worked
for 40 years to keep Roman Catholicism alive among the
Quechua and Aymara peoples of the Andes, who would rather
believe, preserve and revive what their ancestors believed and
did. Marie Arana (www.mariearana.net) is a former literary
editor of the Washington Post newspaper and the author of
five books including the novel Lima Nights, which we featured
previously.
We previously featured another major book by historian,
journalist and broadcaster Gibson (carriegibson.co.uk) called
Empire’s Crossroads, a history of the Caribbean from
Columbus to now. Similarly, El Norte leads off this month’s
Soltalk Hotlist of titles, some entirely new, others moving into
small paperback format for the first time or being reissued,
sometimes after years out
of print. All are due for
publication on dates in
August, with availability in
print this month or in early
September. The Hotlist
helps readers to plan and
budget for book ordering.
Four novels moving into small paperback format cover the
limited field of Spain-interest books this month and wind up
August’s Hotlist.
Michelle Davies’ thriller Dead Guilty (p) harks back to the
murder of teenager Katy
Pope while on a family
holiday in Majorca. Despite
her mother’s high rank in
the Metropolitan Police
(London, UK), and a joint
major investigation between
the UK and Spanish police,
Katy’s killer was never
caught.
The end of the month will
see the publication of
Peruvian-born Marie
Arana’s Silver, Sword &
Stone (l), a dramatic
portrait of a continent,
packed with colourful
stories from 1,000 years of
history and real lives. The
silver was an obsession that
burned brightly in pre-
Ten years later, her family
return to the island to
launch a fresh appeal for
information. They bring
with them the rump of the
UK investigating team, and
newly seconded Maggie as
the family liaison officer.
But Maggie’s first
42