With this post on Eva García Sáenz, we initiate a new section in our Spanish language school’s blog. The intention is to introduce our students to books written in Spanish during the last decade.
Spain is full of books of great importance and quality and it is our wish to make them known to our students. We know that reading in another language, just like watching films, are two complicated aspects that we are sometimes afraid to face when we learn a language. Nevertheless, reading in the original language is a good way to assimilate concepts and strengthen vocabulary.
Today, in our first article of this new session, we talk about Eva García Sáenz, winner of the 2020 Planeta Prize for her novel “Aquitania”. A historical thriller about Eleanor of Aquitaine that has become one of the best-selling planet prizes.
But before we talk about her achievements, let’s first get to know who this writer is. Eva García Sáenz, although it seems she lives in Alicante, is originally from Vitoria, born in 1972. Although she has a degree in optics and optometry, a field she had worked in for more than ten years, she has been writing short stories and winning small prizes since the age of 14.
Despite her long career as a writer, her career as a novelist began in 2012, when she published the two-books “Longevo” saga. Although these books were translated into several languages, she only became famous worldwide thanks to publication of the trilogy “La Ciudad Blanca”.
This trilogy, consisting of the books “El silencio de la ciudad blanca”, “Los ritos del agua” y “Los señores de los tiempos” is a series of crime novels set in Spain.
The book is fast-paced and gripping from the very first moment. It tells the story of how victims appear in emblematic places in the city of Vitoria, where it is set, while the inspector nicknamed “Kraken” tries to solve the mystery. The affection and detail with which he describes the settings and customs make you want to go to Vitoria and walk its streets once you have finished the novel. The book has had such an impact on the city of Vitoria that you can find tours of the places that are mentioned in the book.
Inspector Kraken is an expert in criminal profiling whose sometimes unorthodox methods will require the help of an archaeologist or ancestral rites, intermingling present, past and future, to solve the mysteries. The three books are engaging from the first moment, although it must be taken into account that the third one has a more historical theme that sometimes clashes with the essence of a detective novel.
After this trilogy and “El libro negro de las horas”, the investigations of Inspector Kraken continue with the new book “El ángel de la ciudad”, that takes us to Venice. In this book the author travels through a Venice full of legends in a plot where the passion for art and the search for one’s own identity are mixed. It is not necessary to read the previous books, as this new publication, although it maintains the inspector as a common thread, can be read independently.
Laslty, it must be said that the magic of the writer is her way of narrating, which seems to accompany the reader to places that become tangible as the pages turn. This is demonstrated by the more than three million readers who have fallen in love with her books.
If books are your passion, be sure to visit our other blog posts, in which we talk about Isabel Allende or Gabriel García Márquez.
