La maldición de Santa Águeda [The Curse of Saint Agatha] is a new historical novel by José Francisco Buscaglia. I can’t wait to read this one (ordering as I post)!
Description: At the end of July 1897, Italian anarchist Michele Angiolillo held a series of meetings in Paris with Puerto Rican revolutionary leader Ramón Emeterio Betances. We know little of what was discussed in those clandestine meetings where a lack of witnesses would plunge into mystery, until the end of time, negotiations that would lead to disastrous events. Ten days after the last meeting, at Balneario de Santa Águeda (Santa Águeda Spa, in Arrasate, Gipuzkoa), Angiolillo murdered Antonio Cánovas del Castillo with three point-blank shots. The assassination of the head of the Spanish Government, which José Francisco Buscaglia reconstructs in great detail, would lead directly, in less than a year, to a forced war with the United States. In this exciting story of intrigue, poet Maruja Segarra and the sniper veteran of the Cuban war, Antonio Acarón, act as secret agents under the auspices of Betances to advance the cause of Puerto Rico’s independence. Its trajectory interweaves the dreams and concerns of key figures in a conspiracy that continues to work secretly at the convenience of the victors and some of the victims of the war of 1898.
This historical novel, which is also a kind of manual for the recovery of memory, is rich in reflections on art and architecture, literature and music, religion and culture. [Buscaglia’s] characters travel through a vast geography of public and secret spaces in France, Spain, Cuba, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and even on the high seas, to reveal a wide range of projects and failures. Faithful to the tradition of Caribbean classics such as The Black Jacobins by C.L.R. James, and El siglo de las luces by Alejo Carpentier, Buscaglia offers his readers direct access Buscaglia offers his readers direct access to the evils of despotism and slavery in the Spanish Antilles, constructing an in-depth record of the vices of the subjugated, and situating U.S. imperialism in its founding stage. [. . .]
Description above (translated by Ivette Romero) from https://www.jfbuscaglia.com/espa%C3%B1ol/la-maldici%C3%B3n-de-santa-%C3%A1gueda
For purchasing information, see https://libreriasiglo.com/214212-la-maldicion-de-santa-agueda and https://www.todostuslibros.com/libros/la-maldicion-de-santa-agueda_978-84-1136-137-8
[Photo of the author by María Luisa Pesquera Salvá. See more on the author at https://www.jfbuscaglia.com/jfbuscaglia.]
La maldición de Santa Águeda [The Curse of Saint Agatha] is a new historical novel by José Francisco Buscaglia. I can’t wait to read this one (ordering as I post)! Description: At the end of July 1897, Italian anarchist Michele Angiolillo held a series of meetings in Paris with Puerto Rican revolutionary leader Ramón Emeterio