Muntsa Alcañiz: "Just as the Bible disappointed me, I recommend reading Thomas Mann"

Barcelona"For me, entering La Central is like entering a candy store. I go there to look for sweets!", confesses the actress Muntsa Alcañiz. It was during one of these excursions that, "patapam!", she stumbled upon the first two volumes of the tetralogy Joseph and His Brothers by Thomas Mann, which Comanegra has published in Catalan with translation by Ramon Monton. "They stick to my fingers", assures Alcañiz, who is a great reading enthusiast. Only the study of her theatrical roles can take her away from books, such as this summer's at Heartbreak Hotel, Factory, but once she has memorized them, she returns to her daily reading. "When a book grips me, I like to get up very early and, as soon as it gets light, I'm already on the rooftop reading. I really enjoy listening to the birds and reading", she explains.

"Thomas Mann has always fascinated me, but I was unaware of this tetralogy", admits the actress. The German novelist, a disciple of Goethe and Nobel laureate in literature in 1929, is best known for The Magic Mountain (1924) and Death in Venice (1912), made popular by Luchino Visconti's film adaptation in 1971, and even Buddenbrooks (1901). But among his works, the most ambitious literary project, to which he dedicated almost 20 years, is this "divine picaresque novel" –in the author's words– which takes the Old Testament story of Jacob's favorite son as its narrative axis to reflect on a host of issues.

"What surprises me are these privileged minds that handle so much data, so much information, to talk about the Bible, about who this one and that one were. I, due to my age, had a Christian education and I am quite familiar with all these gentlemen. Mann explains the relationships of one brother with another with such subtlety... It's a whole universe, a cosmogony. Just as the Bible disappointed me greatly, because the priests stuffed it so much during mass that the reading afterwards seemed dry to me, in this case they are known characters but with a dimension, a brain, behaviors... I highly recommend it".