David Uclés is on his way to becoming the great champion of Rodoro's work. Elisenda Solsona is no slouch either. Within the framework of the CCCB exhibition on Mercè RodoredaHer talk this Monday before the more than four hundred people who filled the Hall, an enthusiastic audience, has become a festival of unrestrained praise. Rodoreda as a precursor of European magical realism (earlier and harsher than its Latin American counterpart), as an eternally innocent yet malevolent child, as an author of the everyday and terror, as a dreamlike and symbolic master. How could she be a not-so-good witch? It seems that in most of her texts, witches of all kinds and conditions appear...

I've only seen David Uclés once, on the day of this year's Nadal Prize ceremony. When he gave his acceptance speech, I found that he spoke like no one I've ever heard anyone speak, that he expressed himself in a way as singular as his attire. Something unusual in our field: we're all quite original. When I was young, I used to say that I only wanted to be a "normal" writer, until, after meeting many colleagues, I realized that "normal" writers don't exist. There are mediocre ones, of course: the efficient mercenaries of the written word who churn out a book every year and produce novels like they're churning out sausages. I don't consider these writers—you'll have to forgive my professional purism, but I say this more as a reader than a writer. When I read, I want access to a consciousness, a world, a perspective on life, and an artistic work created with words and with the pieces and mechanisms inherent to literature. If I want to be entertained by stories told in a flat, soulless style, I already have afternoon soap operas. Anyway, I don't want to talk about books, since I haven't read either of the two novels Uclés has published; I want to talk about writers, the press, and all that part of the work we usually call "promotion."

Just two years ago, David Uclés (Úbeda, 1990) led a nomadic life, outside the formal workforce. He spent his summers playing the accordion in front of the Santiago de Compostela Cathedral, and with what he earned during those months he got by for the rest of the year. "If I'm short of money, I paint a picture and sell it," he said. he said shortly after publishing The peninsula of empty houses (Siruela, 2024), when that novel about the Civil War was beginning to become a phenomenon thanks to word of mouth and the author's charisma, who speaks as readily about his literary idols as about the housing crisis or the beret he's worn for almost two decades.

Spain is a nation-state embroiled in civil war. The problem is the Civil War. Clinging to the conflict like junkies. Pay attention to the latest narcotic. Congress has exploded. 1936: The War We All Lost. It wanted to be a sisterly hodgepodge of the war we all wagedThe writer David Uclés has said that he wouldn't sit next to Aznar and Espinosa de los Monteros. The two Spains, locked in a struggle with the sword and the bomb. Here's a microhistory of the War.

The writer Arturo Pérez-Reverte and the journalist Jesús Vigorra, organizers of the conference 1936: The war we all lostThe conference, which was scheduled to take place from February 2nd to 5th at the Cajasol Foundation in Seville, has been postponed until autumn. "The intention expressed on social media by far-left groups, proposing violent demonstrations in front of the venue, has led us to advise Cajasol to postpone the announced debates," Pérez-Reverte and Vigorra said in a statement reported by EFE. The conference made headlines a few days ago when writer David Uclés withdrew upon seeing that former PP president José María Aznar and one of the founders of Vox, Iván Espinosa de los Monteros, were among the speakers. "Aznar is one of the people who has done the most physical harm to the Spanish people recently, and Espinosa de los Monteros co-founded a party that denies my freedom of expression and my right to exist, and that defends values ​​I do not share and against which I fight," said Uclés, the author of the novel The peninsula of empty houses and thelatest winner of the Nadal Prize by The City of Lights.

The Andalusian writer David Uclés (Jaén, 1990), a best-seller editorial with The peninsula of empty houses (Siruela, 2024) and thelatest winner of the Nadal Prize by The City of Lights (Destino), has announced that "to be honest and true to the principles" he defends, he is withdrawing from the conference on the Civil War entitled 1936: The war we all lostThe event, part of the Letras en Sevilla festival coordinated by writer Arturo Pérez-Reverte and journalist Jesús Vigorra, is criticized because the program includes, in addition to writers, "two politicians who have violated fundamental human rights," citing former PP president José María Aznar and one of the founders of Vox, Iván Espinosa de los Monteros.