Jorge Majfud is a Uruguayan-American novelist, essayist, translator, and university professor. A descendant of Lebanese and Spanish immigrants, he graduated in Architecture from the University of the Republic of the Uruguay. He has worked as a mathematics teacher and structural calculator in various countries. He is currently a professor at Jacksonville University and regularly contributes articles and interviews to various internationals media outlets. His books have been published mainly in the United States, Spain and Latin America.
He has published novels and essays that appeared in media outlets such as Milenio Diario from México, La República from Montevideo, Panamá América, Cambio 16 from Spain, La Vanguardia from Barcelona, Courrier International from Paris, Hispanic Culture Review from George Mason University, Revista de Crítica Literaria Latinoamericana from Dartmouth College, Pegaso from Oklahoma University, Texas State University, Washington University Political Review, Chasqui Arizona State University, Hispamerica Maryland University, United Nations Chronicle, UNICEF, Tiempos del Mundo from Washington, Monthly Review and Political Affairs from New York, The Huffington Post, Jornada from La Paz, El Nuevo Herald from Miami, Página/12 from Buenos Aires, Radio Uruguay, Radio Nacional de Argentina, Radio Exterior de España, Radio Popolare Roma, The Zero Hour, NTN 24 TV, Telesur and RT TV, and others.
He is a member of the International PEN club. He received the Excellence in Research Award from Georgia University (2006) and the Faculty Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Professional Activities and First Prize for a novel published in 2018/2019 from Orizzonte Atlantico, Italy. In 2012, he was chosen by Foreign Policy as «Latin America’s most influential intellectual».

In PUV (Publications of the University of Valencia) has published the following titles:

148. U.S.A. ¿Confía Dios en nosotros?
149. Neomedievalism. Reflections on the Post-Enlightenment Era
150. Perros sí, negros no: las raíces y los frutos del racismo estadounidense
151. La privatización de la verdad: la continuidad de la ideología esclavista en Estados Unidos
152. El otoño de la plutocracia americana
153. Crisis de las democracias liberales: el derrumbe de la Pax americana
154. Moscas en la telaraña: capitalismo anglosajón y postcapitalismo norteamericano

THE NOVEL El mismo fuego

El mismo fuego (First International Independent Literary Prize from Orizzonte Atlantico for a novel published in 2019) is a novel and an existential autobiography based on the author’s experiences during the last military dictatorship in his country. The actual facts, names, country, and subsequent developments of various tragedies have been altered to protect the truth. With a syntactical structure that lacks the relative pronoun «that», the novel expresses in language the same functional absences that exist in the absolute memory of its protagonist, the child José Gabriel, without preventing him from representing a world that his exaggerated memory records in detail but his understanding cannot encompass in its entirety. «One morning, the children were playing in an old wagon when a gunshot rang out. Why are we born, if we have to die? The years go by, like the trees pass by the train window; and Jorge continues searching for the answer» (Eduardo Galeano).

TEXT OF MY INTERVIEW

Good afternoon to everyone present

First of all, many thanks to Carmen Manuel for inviting me to share this table with her, with the author who brings us together today, and with Vicent Cucarella, whom I just met.
When I started reading the book, I couldn’t put it down, despite my many obligations. However, I have the immense privilege of sharing a table with the author, which allows me to know much more about it.
Since Carmen Manuel and Vicent Cucarella’s presentation of him has been magnificent, all that’s left for me is to ask questions, and I’ll try to make the most of it.

First question: The firs impact was how much it reminded me of Gabriel García Márquez. His novel tells of an immense and intense family saga that shapes the political history of Latin America. Am I right?

Second question: Latin America literature continues to be the great developer of magical realism, even though it originated with the Italian Massimo Bontempelli. Do you feel there are aspects of this narrative movement in your novel?

Third question: Fear – Religion – Power. A tria I perceive in your novel. What do you think?

Fourth question: I also notice a choral character in your novel, like Miguel de Cervante’s Don Quijote. That is, a collection of stories that form a backbone, although it also has a lot of spherical universe. What do you think?

Fifth question: the central importance of memory in your novel, in each and every one of the stories that unfold within it. Why?

Sixth question: Do you consider the passage of time to be omnipresent?

Seventh question: Are there allusions to Latin American dictatorships? This could also apply to the most recent one we suffered. Is it through allegories, like the one we see on pages 43-45?

Eighth question: Despite these intermittent flashbacks, there’s also a centrality to the present through the enhancement of the senses. It made me think of a great culinary encyclopedia applied to the story of its characters. The feminine sense of smell sands out above all. And then there’s sight, taste, and touch. Do you agree?

Ninth question: There was also a space for characters who didn’t want to take risks to avoid problems with the dictatorship, like the bookseller. These are completely real characters in any politically conflictive situation. Why did you want to give a role in the story, and why through a bookseller?

Tenth question: Within Latin American dictatorships, you’ve also given prominence to the United States of America. Because they strengthened those dictatorships for economic interests. Your novel even reveals that the so-called “great president of democracy” (Franklin Delano Roosevelt) did everything possible to prevent European Jews from landing in the country. They were suspected of radical leftism. However, the ruling classes put no obstacles in the waty of the entry of Nazis after the war. Why do you thin this aspect of the country you live in is so important?

Eleventh question: Why does your protagonist have so many names? (Gabriel, José Gabriel, Josesito…)

Twelfth question: There’s a very interesting combination in the wat the dialogues are handled. In some cases, they appear in italics. There’s alternating between first and third person. Even, at times, second person. What other stylistic aspects could you highlight, and why did you use them?

Thirteenth question: It’s very interesting how the use of multiple adjectives before the noun is very rare. Even more so than English usually does. Why is this?

Fourteenth question: I found the use of a very neutral standard register of Spanish curious. It’s impossible to distinguish which part of Latin America you’re referring to. Why?

Fifteenth question: Madness in the novel. Way out? Repression?

Sixteenth question: There’s a melancholic, allegorical tone at the end when Daniela the daughter looks exactly like Daniela the mother. What was she aiming for?

Seventeenth question: The title of the novel —El mismo fuego— has an adjective —fire— applicable to the hair color of Daniela mother and Daniela daughter. Did you this consciuously?

RECORDING OF THE EVENT https://youtu.be/zBnbm2Nj1AQ?si=205u4t3jaPeM-iSa

Last February 28, number 3 of the QUADERNS VALENCIANS DE POESIA (2025) was presented in the Espai Cultural (Cultural Space) of the Department of Philology, Translations and Communication of the University of Valencia.
The act was structured in three parts: presentation, round table and recital.
In the presentation, Marc Caballer Galcerà participed as director, Aina Torres Latorre as vice director, Maria Carme Arnau as literary advisor and Beatriz Marrodán Verdeguer as network manager.
The round table was formed by Maria Carmen Arnau, Aina Torres, Beatriz Marrodán and the poets Vicent Berenguer and Lluís Ferri. They talked about different aspects related to poetry in general and Valencian poetry in particular. Also from the DANA (cut-off low) that so seriously affected Horta Sud region in the province of Valencia.
Finally, Alba Fluixà Pelufo, Pepa Úbeda and Maria Josep Juan Ballester participed by reading their poems, among others.
The closing was accompanied by a meal.

Article about the event in the newspaper LA VEU:

https://www.diarilaveu.cat/cultura/llengua/presenten-lultim-numero-de-quaderns-de-poesia-valenciana-val-15-577637/

MY POEMS:

PRIMERA PLANA

                          A tots els perseguits

a l’alba
l’ull notarial de la càmera va enregistrar el teu cos
al cul-de-sac de la mort

al migdia
les tenebres et van barrar les parpelles en ordir un sudari
amb les teves pestanyes

al vespre
eren portada d’un remot diari estranger
les teves despulles

de nit
comparteixes ossari per sota d’una mortalla
de periòdics vells

SOLS QUAN DORMS

quan dorms
i sols quan dorms
s’exposa el teu alè
al testimoni dels meus besos

quan dorms
i sols quan dorms
s’abandona el teu cos
entre els meus braços

però quan et despertes
i sols quan et despertes
em dreces amb la llengua
un imperi entre les cames

CLAUS

et lliuro les claus
dels teus minuts i de les meves hores
dels teus dies i de les meves nits
del teu any indigent i dels meus mesos solitaris
més enllà de quimeres soterrades
també et lliuro les claus
dels teus colpidors matins
i
de les meves exigües vesprades
o
dels teus melancòlics vespres
i
de les meves deleroses matinades
on sojorna el tornaveu

RECORDING OF THE EVENT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&v=AHWD4LGZRVM&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fmail.google.com%2F&embeds_referring_origin=https%3A%2F%2Fmail.google.com&source_ve_path=Mjg2Nj

Good evening. ATTAC – PAÍS VALENCIÀ has wanted to echo the most current reflections on climate o collapse change. To achieve this, it has had three exceptional representatives in their respective branches. I will make a very brief presentation, in alphabetical order, of each of them. You can consult much more information on the Internet.

Firstly, we have had the Valencian economist and feminist CARMEN CASTRO, specialized in welfare models, European gender policies and birth leave systems, which was, by the way, the content of her Doctoral Thesis. Both professionally and academically, her contribution to gender quality and public policies, as well as gender mainstreaming, training and employment have been fundamental. In areas related to gender, she has advised public institutions and associations. She also launched the Chair of Feminist Economics at the University of Valencia. Likewise, she has made important written contributions about her field of research and pedagogy. She is also a prominent activist for a change in the social model. She is the author of books such as Claves feministas para transiciones económicas (Feminist Keys for Economic Transitions). She writes for publications such as El Diario.es and CTXT.

Secondly, we have the biologist specialized in Ecology, ALBERTO FRAGUAS, from Madrid, with more than 40 years of experience as a consultant in environmental development planning and in environmental authorization processes. He has combined his technical specialization with activism. He was Dean of the College of Biologists of Madrid, founder of the professional association APROMA and various national environmental conferences. Director of GREEN CROSS (NGO founded by Mijail Gorbachev) and collaborator of organizations such as Alliance for Solidarity, etc. He was director of the Earth Institute and advisor to the Ministry of Environment and Ecological Transition. Likewise, he is coordinator of Political Ecology of ATTAC – Spain and coordinator of the Alliance “Beyond growth”. The topic of his presentation will focus on the civilizational change that we are facing as a consequence of the crises of all kinds that we are experiencing.

Finally, we had the presence of the Valencian urban planner JOAN OLMOS, a civil engineer who joined teaching at the Polytechnic University of Valencia as an associate professor at the School of Civil Engineering. In 1996 he began as a professor at the School of Architecture of the same university until 2012, when he retired. He was Dean of his professional association and General Director of Public Works of the first Valencian regional government, until 1988. Linked from the beginning to the Valencian environmental movement, he collaborated in the creation, 24 years ago, of the multidisciplinary group Terra Crítica, a combative look at the environmental, cultural and urban conflicts of our territory, in contact with neighborhood and social movements. He publishes in specialized magazines and media and attends talks and debates. His latest project together with other professionals and activists is “La Plaça” (The Square) debate classroom. His presentation will focus on the fields that he knows so well, related to the core of the round table that I present.

LLUÍS VICENT BANYULS I FERRANDO (Valencia, 1978) is a musician and poet, better known as Lluís Vicent. He has his roots in the south of Valencia and his childhood, through nature and continued contact with his grandparents, marked him.
His first encounter with music is a broken guitar of his father that he used to play in secret. There comes a time when the guitar and song lyrics created by him are combined, already in adolescence.
At the age of 18, he began learning classical guitar. He stands out with Manuel Collado and Toni Iñíguez (Giner Musical Institute).
There is also its definitive connections to the city of Valencia and the commitment to certain groups.
He has also been in other groups and experienced other genres and currents. It would soon include poets from all lands and languages.
In 2005, “Cançons d'anar per casa” appears. But there have been more recitals and various areas. He is a member of the AELC and the Ovidi Montllor Collective.
AWARDS AND PUBLISHED LITERARY WORKS
Premi de Poesia Joan Duch uns quants cops
II Premi de Poesia Camí de la Nòria de Picanya
Primer premi de prosa “La Font de Ferro” (2009)
LIV Premi de Poesia Castellum Ripae 2009
Guardó en el Concurs de Creació Literària Puigmarí 2010
Publicació de “Les Penúltimes Paraules de Sísif”, Editorial Germania, 2012.
Premi del Colectiu Ovidi Montllor a la millor lletra “En la corda fluixa”, 2012.
Guanyador del certamen estatal de poesia Adolfo Utor Acevedo.
Col·laboració en el recull “Relats a Vora Mar”, Editorial Neopàtria.
“Quatre rius de sang”, Editorial Neopàtria, 2018.
Narrativa “El Cafè dels Somnis” (2020), Neopàtria.
Poemari “Mars enllunades de tarquim”, Ed. Círculo Rojo 2022.
Col·laboració amb Jaume Pérez-Muntaner, Francesc Mompó, Manel Alonso Català i Vicent Penya en el llibre “Les Veus de la Música” (2022)
Poemari “Ciutat Sudari”, Editorial Cuadrante, 2024.
Llibre de contes i altres proses “Mil Nits per No Dormir”, Editorial ViveLibros (2025).

PUBLISHED RECORD WORKS
Consciència Urgent, 2007 – Cambra Records
Tendres deixalles, 2008 – La Cúpula
El dia de després, 2013, Mesdemil
Segon Origen, 2019. La Cúpula
La tirania de la normalitat, 2020 – La Cúpula
Cançons d’anar per casa, 2020 – EP
Black Uprisin, 2021 – Lluís Vicent & La Free & Feelin’Band – La Cúpula
Per Versions, 2022 - Lluís Vicent & La Free & Feelin’Band
Amunt els cors i les destrals, 2024 - Lluís Vicent & La Free & Feelin’Band
Els paisatges anònims (Rare Edition), 2025 - Lluís Vicent & La Free & Feelin’Band.

CIUTAT SUDARI is a book of poems that seeks certain roots in Allen Ginsberg. I don't want to say anything that coincides with the Prologue by the poet Manel Alonso, because it is better that you buy the book and read it yourself. Also, I don't want to spoil…
In the first part, there is a return to the roots, to the search for a loss that contrasts with the harshness of the cityl. It's like that crib called “Rosebud” that apeeared in “Citizen Kane”. There is a little of that in this collections of poems. But, immediately, that past is longingly sought is replaced by the present that the city implies and that does not present any positive aspect and, above all, in linked to death.

INTERVIEW
We'll start with generalities…
To what extent have your southern roots influenced your personality and creativity?
How did childhood affect your musical and literary production?
Why did you secretly play the guitar?
What did you plat on the guitar?
Why did you want to learn classical guitar?
Whith which groups have you collaborated or do you collaborate?
Which Catalan and Valencian poets have influenced your work?
Why this “picoteig” of styles, of authors…?
Why poetry?
Why prose?
How has the pandemic affected you creatively?
Why have you dedicated this collection of poems to the Horta region?
Why this link between the city and death?
Your city is the complete opposite of the Greek polis or the Renaissance city or the capital of culture, encounter, dialogue… Why have you sought to transmit the spirit of automatons?
It is also a city that destroys all creativity. Ginsberg went through a period of “stuck”, which happens to everyone who is creative. When hi lived in India, he asked a guru how he could regain his creativity. He asked him what he wrote about and Ginsberg replied that it was about the city, but taht it no longer offered him news. Then, the guru told him to go out into the street again and try to see a different city with different eyes. That is, with a beginner's mind. He got it and created again. Could you get a different vision of the city that you present in this book?
This first part looks like a comic… Did you have it in mind?
Let's enter the second part thinking that the aura of the modern city par excellence will remove the bad taste in our mouths that the first one had left in us, but no, it turns out that it even worsens the anguish that we have had to experience.
There are really eschatological verses…
García Lorca suffered a lot in New York… Did he see the same city that you describe?
There is an intense distressing search for death…
Can you travel with poetry without having to go sightseeing?

Hello to all the people present
My name is Pepa and I am very happy to be Ana's friend. However, before focusin only on her, I want to congratulate you both. Jose, I know little about you, but I am convinced, as I have observed, that your relationship will continue to be of great quality.
And now I move on to my friend Ana, you already know that we met each other thanks to Toni, the psychiatrist who predicted that we would never get along. As you have seen, he was wrong. By the way, when you meet Toni, remind her for me…
Toni organized minfulness sessions and, in one of them, you and I met. Remember, Ana? In other words, mindfulness contacted us and, little by little, we became friends. I seem to remember that the sessions were every fiteen days in that elegant and beautiful bookstore in front of the Palau del Marquès de Dos Aigües. Was his name Leo? Then, some of us would have a cup of wine or a beer in the cafeteria of the Hotel Inglés and I would accompany you to the corner of your house and then continue towards mine. I met other people in the Mindfulness sessions, but only the friendship continued with you, because the time came when we met from time to tiem th chat and catch up on our respective lives.
When the boostore closed, I left the Mindfulness sessions, but contact continued with you and, although there have been periods in which we have seen little of each other or spoken little on the phone, the trust and security in the relationship have always been there.
I could say many things about you, but there are more people whi will want to talk… The first characteristic of yours that I admired was your enormous organizational skills. Do you remembrer those weekends when we locked ourselves in some center outside the city to have marathon mindfulness sessions? You were always the one in charge and everything always turned out very well. Also your ability to sacrifice yourself: you were the first to enter, to welcome us, and the last to leave, to leave everything in order.
Another quality of yours that I have enjoyed has been your ability to listen, being patient while listening, and energy to propose solutions. I could talk for a long time, but you never interrumped and when I finished, you started asking me questions to offer options for help. You handle active listening very well. Much more thant talking about yourself, when you have had so many reasons to do so and seek comfort and understanding.
Before finishing, I would like to tell you that you are a person who puts great passion into things and your experiences and the fact that you are very courageous despite the difficult moments that you have had to live through.
And, in closing, I want to return to Jose. First of all, Ana's friendship has been a gift that I value very much and that I will try to continue taking care of. And now to both of you: may your life be full of meaningful, rewarding and enriching moments.
A very strong hug.

Tourism, which not so many years ago was a fairly minority activity, has become the «pestilence» of the 21^st century.

A bit of history

Tourism arose thanks to the establishment of 2 weeks of paid vacation in France in August 1936, thanks to the Popular Front government. It was one more step towards the welfare state and a kind of comensatory «reward» for not receiving the salary they deserve or for working fewer hours.

From its establishment, unions, associations and religious groups tried to make the most of the workers' free time, also contributing to their education. It was, therefore, a «social tourism», which proposed activities and holiday camps for workers.

Capitalims gets in the way

It did not take long for capitalist companies to take control of tourism and expand the offer. They have turned tourism into one of the most productive businesses of the 20th and 21st centuries.

«Traveler» or «tourist»?

The first is «the person who moves from one place to another, usually distant, by any means of locomotion » . It is a minority and has always been a «rara avis» for the rich ones.

The second is «the person who travels for pleasure» or so it is assumed. Its first purpose was adventure, although it was very quickly distorted.

Travel or tourism?

The journey is linked to the «journey»; tourism, to the destination.

The first begins in our mind, begins at the door of the house and ends when we return or decide to stay on one of the «stopovers». Odysseus did so back to Ithaca, his home. The duration of the itinerary is important; as well as the discovery it implies.

On the contrary, the tourist «transplants to another place» to reach a destination. As for the time, it is short, comfortable and anodyne.

Novelty turned into a habit

Today vacations are not understood if it is not going somewhere and the obligatory question is: where are you going on vacation? No one asks: what will you do this vacation?

Tourist disappointments:

1. When the tourist arrives at his destination, he begins to think that he was better at home, although he will never confess it to anyone.
2. They will find that their last trip is very similar to the previous ones...
3. When they arrive, they will find thousands of tourists like them who remind them that they are common tourists.
4. The authenticity promised by the travel agency is false.

«Have a vacation» or «go on vacation»?

The first is a right that our ancestors fought for. It provided us with rest.

The second, a capitalist mandate that turns us into consumerist slaves but that does not bring us enjoyment and does bring us tiredness.

Adventure or chronicle of a destination foretold?

The traveler goes on an adventure without expecting anything. The tourist arrives at previously chosen and designed places where he meets other tourists. It does not aspire to surprise, but to receive a concrete service. He is not interested in cultural discovery or taking risks or going out to explore, but in being ordered, as a good consumerist, what has been programmed for him: rentals, means of transport (bicycles, skates, sailing boats, camels...). The ultimate is the «complete package».

Is there such a thing as tourist "magic"?

No, because everything is pre-arranged and your only interlocutors are waiters, hotel receptionists and tourist shop salespeople. The former go to «enjoy» and the latter to «serve» them.

Tourism models

Organized or airbnb.

The «non-places» of tourism

They are exactly the same all over the world: airports, ports, «boutique cities», theme parks, railway stations, petrol stations, motorway rest areas, shopping centres, border areas, urban peripheries where the disinherited are crowded... These are places of confinement for tourists so that they consume even more. Example: «tropical paradises».

Is there such a thing as sustainable tourism?

No.

There are more options...

To ask ourselves why this eagerness to go out, to privilege the itinerary or the means of transport.

Precisely, in this section, I would like to introduce an option that is becoming fashionable and that demonstrates the insatiability of capitalism: sexual wellness as a tourist destination. This is how the New York Times reported it on November 22...

Tourism to discover the world or to escape from your daily life (forget it)?

Let the reader answer himself in a courageous way...

The author of the collection of poems that I present today, Amparo Peris, is from Valencia and studied Law at the Complutense University of Madrid, a city where she has lived for almost 20 years.
She has worked as Coordinator of International Courses at the Valencian Library and at the Spanish Academy in Rome.
She has organized literary activities at cultural conferences such as «Ventanas» (windows) and «La Poesía está de moda» (Poetry is fashionable), at the Fine Arts Circle of Valencia and at the IVAM.
Her journalistic vocation has taken her, in «Las Mañanas de la Radio» (Radio Mornings), to «El Rincón de Amparo» (Amparo’s Corner) (Valencian Municipal Television), where she recommended books for all ages.
She was awarded «La Pluma Montblanc» from the Magazine of the newspaper «El Mundo» for an article about women.
She has oriented her creativity towards the epistolary genre, stories, thrillers, social and love genres, and poetry.
In Retazos, which is the book that has brought us here today, she shows us fragments of lives, stories and, above all, love poems, a love that goes beyond what we understand by such a word.
For Amparo, literature is a passion and, through language, she verbalizes life in moments, looks, fiction and reality.

WORK PUBLISHED SINCE 1995
POETRY
Sensaciones
Maquillaje de Noche
Las Gatas de Rodas aúllan a la luna
13 Notas de ébano y marfil
Retazos
STORIES
Espejismo
Cartas desde el andén
ANTOLOGIES
101 Crímenes de Valencia
Encuentro Nacional de Poetas en Anuesca
Tan Mortals, tan Divines (Diálogo entre la Poesía y las Artes Plásticas)
Caminos de la Palabra (homenaje a Max Aub)
El Sueño del Búho
Ventanas
Cuaderno de Viaje (Torrent de Paraules) 2011-2021
NOVELS
Café Piano
Toma pan y moja
Tengo que decirte algo
El Club de Anastasia
Ambición

I would like it to be Amparo who talks about his literary production. I think the best launch ceremony would be to do an interview that all of you who have come to join us could complete.

I start with some questions and reflections:
Your poetry, Amparo, seems fundamentally narrative to me. And I base it on a definition about it: «That which tells a story. Their length and complexity vary from one poem to another and they are not usually dramatic. The verses try to be objective and the metric scheme and rhyme are usually regular». In your case, I think the story of the emotions you express stands out… Do you agree?

It's a poetry that gives great importance to memory, often conveyed by melancholy. Why?

It also greatly values friendship…

Music and love, dance and love, tango and love… What were you looking for in that link? In the tango poem, furthermore, the rhythm is very set…

In your poetry, the poetic voice expresses itself through dialogue and continually demands a response.

Despite negative responses from the «you», despite failures, heartbreaks… the narrator of her emotions does not lose a single moment of excitement and hope for the future.

Geography also plays a role in your poetry since you link it to love and they are usually emblematic places.

Your reflection on fear as a brake on freedom.

Why Virginia Wolf, Marguerite Duras and Sylvia Plath?

Federico García Lorca is another of your references and your poem «Navegando por tu cuerpo» (Navigating through your body) seems very Lorca…

And, in philosophy, Plato…

Or erotic literature like Lady Chatterley’s Lover…

How has cinema influenced your poetry?

Your poem «Feroz» reminds me a lot of «No hi havia a València dos amants com nosaltres» (There weren’t two lovers like us in Valencia) by Vicent Andrés Estellés.

The incidence of sensual love in many of your poems.

Do you think that the biographical component is fundamental in the work of poets?

The sea is another constant in your poetry. What metaphor or symbol does it represent?

And then there is painting: Hieronymus Bosch’s paintings and Courbet’s «The Origin of the World». Why those paintings and those artists?

And, of course, the great narrator who was Guy de Maupassant…

More information: https://fundacionhugozarate.com/invitacion-charla-coloquio-viajes-sostenibles-versus-turismo-inaceptable-con-pepa-ubeda-iranzo/

Video of the event: https://fundacionhugozarate.com/charla-coloquio-viajes-sostenibles-versus-turismo-inaceptable/

Images of the event:

Video of the event

If Vicent Andrés Estellés (Burjassot, September 4, 1924 – Valencia, March 27, 1993) had been a plastic artist, I would have put him between Realism and Expressionism. Probably as prolific as he was as a writer.
Perhaps for this reason, the Estellés that Jaume Plensa sees is not the same one that admires Antoni Miró. Furthermore, let us not forget that Estellés, in the Mural of the Valencian Country, tries to pay homage to a group of writers and visual artitsts through the poetic word. Our poet already said that, during his writing, in addition to Neruda and Baudelaire, he was accompanied by Picasso's Guernica, the Poster for the Congress of Catalan Culture by Joan Miró, and the memory of the murals by David Alfaro Siqueiros and Diego Rivera.
But let's start with two Estellesian learnings from his youth, because he projected his hands on bread as a baker and on precious metals as a goldsmith before replacing them with radical realities transfigured into poetic words as a result of instinctual obsessions of sex and death.
Despite everything, we cannot ignore that the poetic work of V.A.E. it has a spatial dimension with a strong topographic component that goes beyond the literary representation of spaces and places. We can see this in the omnipresence of its spatial images and in an approach to interpretative itineraries of meanings. As well as in the poetic and discursive functions of places. There are his dazzling interpretations of the house, the urban world, the country… To articulate a poetic and political discourse.
Until now, the «plastic» Estellés. I leave the way open for an investigation of the influence of the plastic arts on the poet.
Next, the link between the Catalan sculptor Jaume Plensa and Estellés; and between our poet and the plastic artist Antoni Miró.
In 1956, Estellés composed the twenty-one poems that make up L'Hotel París, although the book did not see the light until 1974, when it was published by Edicions 62. But it was not until 1984 that one of those copies fell into the hands of Plensa, which then he lived in Berlin. He was so fascinated by the power of his verses that he decided to draw, paint and interpret them immediately. Thirty years later, he honored him by releasing an artist's book: a box that collects this very powerful text and the creations of the sculptor, Plensa / Estellés / Paris Hotel.
Plensa himself remembers how he contacted the poet through Valencian friends. Once introduced, they went to Malvarrosa to smoke and drink. The sculptor admits that he has never tried to meet the artists who have interested him. Estellés was an exception: he needed to meet the man and he has never regretted it. He assures that thew Valencian's work has accompanied him all his life and considers that Hotel París is a fundamental book of poetry. The problem is that Estellés is little known outside of home… And hidden by his leftist ideology. However, although the poet gave it permission to create the artist's book, the publisher did not give it to him. He had to wait. According to Plensa, what he has in common with the poet is the «mediterranean» which is not a country, but a place, a state of mind, an approach to the very particular reality of our environment, a place where things are not they touch, but they caress each other…
In the end, Jaume Plensa said of Estellés that, «as a good Valencian, he was a wild man and as a good poet he had no idea about art. He only knew about life».
As for Antoni Miró, I will limit myself to reading what V.A.E. wrote about him and his family:
TO THE FRIEND ANTONI MIRÓ
After recovering from the May crisis, I write
the first poem to friend Antoni Miró.
the name of friendship
I will tell you in plain words.
toni miró
sofia
ausias.
are the names of permanent affection,
of love,
of friendship for a lifetime.
I have shared bread and salt with them
and now I'm the happy man, thinking we're friends
lovers,
friends.
now I have written this and I am happy,
because I know tghat in a place of alcoi,
on the road that goes towards ibi,
they live in the «sopalmo» farmhouse, they make love,
they make bread and slice it, at the table with friends.
and I am happy about that, about their existence,
I find myself old and screwed, locked in my house,
I can't go to alcoi, we call each other often,
like that time I called him on the phone just because
sofia told me,
how to do the escalivada.
toni miró, painter,
that I met in alicante
and I tried in altea
I admire him and it's a lot
what I appreciate him as a person,
and more
as a painter.
I know how much and what his honesty is,
creo saber cuánto es su amor,
por lo que hace, I think I know how much his love is,
for the beings that accompany him,
sofia,
ausias.
and I want to leave the testimony here,
of my friendship and
my deep,
sweetly felt,
admiration.
because, painter,
has known how to do,
the best work of art.
life with sofia and ausias.
I finish, then, and close.
good day,
see you around.
any day I will be at the farmhouse.
and I will eat vegetables, vegetables products.
sofia.
good day toni.

Good afternoon to all those who wanted to join us today at La Intersindical.
I want to be brief because it is not my words that are of interest, but those of the protagonist of this call: FERRAN NAVARRO I SORIANO, born on July 29, 1965.
I will not expand on his musical career, broad and intense, nor his immense musical knowledge. You can find all this on the Internet and, above all, on the cover of this magnificent book that reveals so much information to us about our musical history in particular and cultural history in general.
First of all, I would like to quote the fragment of an interview I did with him for the Catalan magazine of cultural associations, TORNAVEU: «The book is the story of a war told from a musical point of view: how our soldiers sang, fought and paraded in the Civil War»
Secondly, I would like to briefly report on the content of the book.
There is a first part of a theoretical nature that allow us to understand the history of this compilation of music and lyrics and a second part dedicated to the SCORES.
As for the first part, it begins with an introduction by Josep Guia I Marín and a Prologue by J. Eduard Beneyto I Mateu.
Next, the author develops a set of topics necessary to understand the musical history of the book: historical background, use of double reed instruments, percussion, sound symbol of the Maulets, musical iconography, prohibitions in festivals and in music, musical ripostra, participation of Estrela Roja of Benimaclet in the Miquelets of the Kingdom of Valencia, other scores, musical and historical chronology and conclusion.
And I won’t say anything more about it because Ferran Navarro tells it much better in the book than I do…
That’s why I would like, after speaking to us himself, if you would let me ask you some questions. As a kind of «appetizer» of everything you want to know:
Why did you feel the need to write the book?
What characterizes you musically?
How did the project come about and how did it evolve?
Why has it been considered exceptional?
Who has participated?