Pep Parés recommends a criminal intrigue about Ramon Llull
David Cirici novels the life of the 13th-century Catalan scholar and mystic in 'L'escala de sorra'
BarcelonaEvery day, actor and activist Pep Parés goes to bed an hour before he wants to fall asleep to have enough time to read. He likes novels and essays, especially those that revolve around thinking about contemporary life, such as the Manual of Civility, by Victoria Camps and Salvador Giner, and The Art of the Mind, by Francesc Bofill, "a former student of Montserrat, with whom I coincided in the La Claca company, who had an extraordinary culture and wrote proverbs, quotes, and aphorisms from all over the world". "It's one of the books that has marked me the most," he assures. Together they created the mythical show Mori el Merma, a free adaptation of Ubu the King with puppets by Joan Miró, "the first profane work that entered the Liceu in 1977," says the actor.
Now on his bedside table he has Everything You Need to Know About Life, by Enrique Rojas. "I don't need to tell you anything, with that title!" he says, laughing. "But it's good because it talks about couples, children, and it makes you remember things from life that you had forgotten".
But the novel that has recently captivated him is The Sand Staircase (La Campana), by his friend and prolific writer David Cirici, who was the screenwriter for the series that made Parés popular, Oliana Molls and the bronze astrolabe. Cirici's latest work is a historical, spiritual, and mystery novel "that explores what the life of Ramon Llull might have been like, mixing intrigue and detective novel with real episodes of his life," he summarizes. The novel uses Josep, a Majorcan slave of Muslim origin who enters the service of Ramon Llull, and the nun Auda as narrators. Both witness the spiritual transformation of the poet, while at the same time trying to find out who is responsible for the murder that occurred in the monastery. "I like everything David writes. There are authors I always read, like Josep Ramoneda. I studied contemporary history at university, even though I later went down other paths...", he recalls.
