“There are two words in the dictionary that have always caught my attention because of their meaning. One is joy and the other is thanks,” César Pérez Gellida (Valladolid, 1974) told those present and the members of the jury after being proclaimed winner of the Nadal prize for his work Bajo tierra seca, which will hit bookstores on the 7th of December. February.
The novel has an enigmatic yet seductive protagonist. It is about a widow, Monterroso, who lived in Extremadura at the beginning of 1917 and who marked the destiny of those who crossed her, coloring the path she walked with passion, blood and mud. The story begins with an investigation after her house caught fire. The agents are trying to find out what started the fire and what has become of her. "She is a woman that everyone knows, but no one knows who she is. She is also very beautiful by the standards of the time and she has fought against almost everything, but her behavior will raise doubts in the reader." ".
“It is a novel that has traveled with me for years in my head and that I wanted to tackle the moment I felt the maturity of the craft.” Its pages reflect “difficult times, a lot of poverty, large estates, caciquismo and hunger, a lot of hunger,” he detailed about the plot of the novel. "Not counting the Civil War, Extremadura is the place in Spain where there has been the most hunger in the last century, the most damage has been done, but where there was the greatest desire to live, despite the difficulties."
Curiously, the synopsis of the novel is not what has attracted the most attention of the night, but the way in which its pages have been cooked. "I work with a hair dryer on from the moment I sit down until I get up. That is, between 10 and 12 hours. It relaxes me and insulates me. The device, of which I am not going to say the brand now so that everyone does not buy it en masse, it usually lasts eight months and then I buy another one," he confessed, aware that the anecdote was going to give those present something to talk about. "My job is to make people uncomfortable. It is my fundamental objective and what the reader expects."
The Pérez Gellida surnames have long resonated in literary circles and, more recently, in audiovisual circles, since last October the adaptation of Memento mori, the first part of the trilogy Verses, songs and songs, premiered on the Amazon Prime platform. pieces of meat. Or, in other words, one of the strongest literary debuts of recent times, which has allowed the author to develop a solid career in the field of literature and become one of the most recognized Spanish crime novel writers in the world. Spanish literary panorama.
Along with César Pérez, the other protagonist of the night was the journalist and historian from Barcelona Jaume Clotet, winner of the Josep Pla prize with The brotherhood of the fallen angel, a thriller based on history that goes from the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem in the 13th to the 21st century", since it goes through several historical episodes with a plot that takes place in the present day and which has as protagonists a monk from Montserrat and a police officer.
