It gets pretty drippy and indulgent, but I don't think its target readership will worry about that - in fact, that could be the key to its appeal for the middle-aged Spanish ladies who've already started to turn up in our village, clutching paperbacks of 'La Mano' as they peer into the 16th-century village church. Rather than serious history, though, it's unashamed historical romance, with a focus on individual characters and a love story at its centre. Concerning the tumultuous history following the Christian Reconquista of Spain and the forced conversion and integration,persecution and partial exodus of the last remaining muslims, it's a convincing evocation of a fascinating place and time, with resonance for the modern relationship between the islamic world and the West. It's a long book for people who want their money's worth from a long book, with a lack of serious literary merit balanced by a wealth of fascinating detail and a rollicking, relentless pace.
I'd got about a third of the way through in Spanish, but even if you have a reasonable command of the language, its near 1000 pages are hard work, packed as they are with obscure words for obsolete concepts. In despair, he embarks on a plan to unite the two warring faiths - and the two halves of his identity.A breath-taking epic of good and evil, of love and hate, of dreams dashed and hopes regained, Ildefonso Falcones' story of the Arab-Christian conflict brims with historical detail and unforgettable characters and reflects the author's celebrated passion for rich historical detail and his flair for story-telling.Īs the opening chapters in this long narrative are set in the Alpujarran village of Juviles, where I sometimes live, I've been looking forward to reading the English translation. Then news reaches Hernando that Fatima has been murdered. But his stepfather accuses Hernando of Christian sympathies and condemns him to slavery. When Hernando meets Fatima, a beautiful girl with black eyes, she becomes the love of his life.
Despised by the townsfolk and by his own stepfather for his 'tainted' heritage, he is banished to live in the stables and becomes an expert muleteer. Caught in the conflict is young Hernando, the son of an Arab woman who was raped by a Christian priest.
After years of Christian oppression, the Moors take arms against their masters and daub the white houses of Sierra Nevada with the blood of their victims. Snared between two cultures and two loves, one man is forced to choose.1564, the Kingdom of Granada.
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