An amusement park where the flame of literature comes to life

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Carlos Robles Lucena presents this Wednesday in Murcia ‘Cerbantes Park’, a novel in which he proposes a world where more lives can be lived through writing

An artificial sea full of islands where you can live like Odysseus on the island of Ithaca, a folkloric forest that transports visitors to fairy tales like ‘Hansel and Gretel’ or ‘Little Red Riding Hood’, a soundtrack with robots and a Chocolate and candy house created by Jordi Roca, who won the award for best pastry chef in the world in 2014. These are some of the attractions that the fantastic park imagined by the Catalan writer Carlos Robles Lucena (Terrasa, 1977) would have in his first novel, ‘Cerbantes Park’ (Navona, 2022), which he presents this Wednesday at Libros Traperos de Murcia (Ronda de Garay, 39 B), at 7 p.m.

The author, a humanities graduate of the Pompeu Fabra University of Barcelona and professor of linguistics and literature, worked in the hotel industry during the years of the great economic crisis in Spain (2008-2009) and every morning, after a long and hard the working day he spent near the Parque Cervantes in Barcelona, ​​​​​​“a normal park with its flowers and plants”, always imagining changing it for the better. “To an amusement park,” he says. This idea was embodied in the story ‘Cervantes Park’ and over time it was further developed until today it became a novel where the ‘v’ changed to ‘b’ since the legendary writer signed his documents as ‘Miguel de Cerbantes Saavedra’.

The book is about a resident of the neighborhood of Vilaristeca de Terrassa, a municipality in Barcelona, ​​​​​​who was given the opportunity to study and after many years spent abroad and returns from his hometown as a successful curator of art exhibitions with the intention to change the situation of the place where he spent his childhood. A marginalized neighbourhood, with many young people who are unemployed or without study and where there is a lot of room for improvement. The construction of an amusement park “has the peculiarity of being a literary park”, the author describes. The aim of the book’s protagonist is to introduce park visitors to the world of reading through rides and fun, so that “the flame of literature is kept burning”. “All in a clearly fictional universe,” he emphasizes with a laugh.

In the course of the story, there is a confrontation between the fictional world “full of possibilities” and the reality of the neighborhood “riddled with conflict”. During this tour of attractions and in the midst of music, dance, sweets and lots of fun, the big difference between stories and the park is presented: “The animals are real, you feel like they can attack you and it’s scary”, explains the author, the way he awakens the reader from the fantasy he lives and brings him back to the reality of the neighborhood.

Carlos Robles Lucena is passionate about literature, he sees it as a way to live more lives than his own, and he confesses that it has been one of the things that has given him the most joy and saved him from the greatest sorrow. He also points out that “one of the saddest things about getting older is realizing that you can no longer live everything you imagine, but you can always live it by writing.” One of the hypotheses of the book’s protagonist is that Spain is doing badly because its readers have misinterpreted ‘Don Quixote de la Mancha’, the novel by Miguel de Cervantes. On the other hand, Robles believes the work is so broad that “it allows for many readings, it’s what classic books have, adapting to the times and the realities we live in.”

According to the Catalan, if Cervantes were alive, he would have a “very smiling and optimistic” view of the current situation of literature. During the handover of the invisible friend gifts organized by his fourth-year ESO students, the teacher noted that several were very happy to receive a book on this occasion. “Reading is back in fashion, I call it ‘postuleo’, attitude to read,” he enthuses.

He has been visiting Murcia continuously for 20 years because his partner’s family is here and he is very happy to present his first novel in this country. «I feel very close to the city of Murcia affectionately». In addition, he believes that the region has good writers and quotes Ginés Sánchez, Miguel Ángel Hernández Navarro and Leonardo Cano.

Source: La Verdad

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