Jorge Fernández Díaz’s latest novel, “Marcial’s secret”who just arrived at the Argentine bookstores, ripped his way with his right foot. On January 6, the Nadal Prize received in Barcelonaone of the most prestigious in Spain. And then, he toured the country by the author’s hand, in numerous and emotional presentations, full of great friends and colleagues.
The central character of the novel is Marcial, father of the writer, who had already chosen as the protagonist of one of his most successful books, “Mom”, to his own mother, Carmina. Here, the story adopts different nuances, because the text tries to unravel the secrets of an unattainable personality and to travel the labyrinth of a link, that of father and son, which was not easy.
“It was an impressive tour, I gave more than 80 interviews,” he said Jorge Fernández Díaz A Newsby phone. Madrid, Barcelona, Galicia, Sevilla, Valencia, Bilbao, Oviedo. In Oviedo we made a tremendously moving presentation. People came from the people with the copies of ‘mom’ of 20 years ago, signed by me. And they came again to sign ‘Marcial’s secret’. It was a great emotion. ”
Another presentation, in Madrid, in the space of the Telefónica Foundation, brought together great figures of journalism and art. Alex de la Iglesia, Víctor Manuel, Sergio del Molino, Oscar Martínez, Sergio Ramírez, Edu Galán, the directors of the ABC newspaper and Carlos Cue of the newspaper El País; They applauded him in the first row. Days later, along with his friend Juan Cruz, Fernández Díaz maintained a long talk in front of the public where both of them reveal the themes of the novel: the links, the cinema, the secrets, the farewells.
This trip through Spain of the author and his novel is, as readers will discover, another way to close the history of the deep link with Marcial. “The most moving thing is that my father gave me lost when he discovered that I wanted to be a writer. And he always wanted to return to Spain. He gave himself the chance that he became a novel. This is very exciting for me, ”says Fernández Díaz.
Reception
Nadal’s old prestige will allow Jorge Fernández Díaz’s talent to become more visible than ever in Spain. The award, which distinguishes unpublished works, and who won great writers such as Juan José Saer and Manuel Vicentit is an unquestionable seal. And although Fernández Díaz’s novels have always had a very good reception in Spain, it is likely that this personal and reflective book will finish sealing the romance of the Argentine writer with the Iberian public. “Hopefully this Nadal award, so deserved, so necessary, makes Spanish readers familiarize themselves even more with the broad, fascinating, enormous work in quality and contents, of this great writer who honors our language and our intelligence from the other side of the Atlantic ”, defined exactly Your friend Arturo Pérez-Revertehighlighting the importance that Nadal could have for a definitive approach to Fernández Díaz with the Spanish public.
As for criticism of “Marcial’s secret”, there have been many and very good.
“It’s an excellent book. Someone who understands who his father was at ground level (…) will hardly fall into the seduction of resentment, ”said writer and journalist Sergio del Molino in the newspaper El País. “Everything fits and silence, triviality and unknowns that surround the father obtain for the author – and for the reader – his satisfaction, although he does not belong to the solar kingdom of certainties, but to the lands of the gloom of the ambiguity of the ambiguity of the ambiguity of The best literature, ”Domingo Ródenas wrote in the“ Babelia ”cultural supplement.
As his father who returned in his son’s words to the country where he was born, Fernandez Díaz dates back to his origins, armed with the best tool: his literature.
Fragment/ a page
“The short old age of my father (…) was despite reparative: in adolescence, discovering that he wanted to be a writer, but after a late reconciliation we had a series of affective approaches that completely healed those mutual lacerations. Seeing him asleep forever on the stretcher, I promised myself to review my most intimate desires -the loving and vocational -and that meant in principle dissolve my first marriage and face a new literary phase. It was also a rebellion against my mother’s mandates, which was very disgusted with divorce. That contradiction in turn unleashed a crisis among us more or less assaulted, although luckily anger did not reach older. Carmina, unlike Marcial, was always my most faithful interlocutor, and then I clearly felt that she began to die just when she ceased to be: four years before it was already noticed that senile dementia deteriorated her tremendous lucidity and that she began to abandon me. I had so many farewells since then that in the end when everything had been sewn and paid. I have written a lot of pages about my mother and I still miss her, but not once during all this new orphanhood entered my night dreams. Instead, Marcial remains a rare constant presence in them (…) ”. “Marcial’s secret”, Chapter 1.
You may also interest you
Image gallery
