Writing

I may have not openly declared myself as Simon the Writer until I was on the point of publishing my first three ebooks, but of course I had been writing since long before that. 

One place where I published my writings before that date was on my Granada la bellawebsite.  The name hints at the dual nature of the city where I live, its light and dark sides, la bella and la bestia sides. Because while the Beauty of Granada is undeniable, it can also reveal itself as the Beast.

An example of how Granada succumbs to the beast in its breast can be seen in the way its Gran Vía de Colónbulldozers its way through the heart of the old city with no regard for historical or aesthetic considerations.

 

There is also a portal into my Granada la bella blog which frequently deals with the issue. 

But perhaps the most impressive aspect of the website is the chronology of events: TheLife, Times,and Works of Federico García Lorca, starting with the arrival of Vicenta Lorca in the village of Fuente Vaqueros, a few kilometres out side Granada, in 1892. Six years later, she would give birth to the poet.

The chronology ends, for the time being, with an account of recent developments in the fruitlesssearch for the poet’s mortal remains 

This failure is one of the darkest aspects of the city’s dual nature as la bella and la bestia. The city that is today happy to cash in on the glory of Lorca’s achievement and name is the same place that allowed the poet to be murdered by right-wing thugs while proving incapable or insufficiently willing to locate his corpse. 

Labrad, amigos,
de piedra y sueño en el Alhambra,
un túmulo al poeta,
sobre una fuente donde llore el agua,
y eternamente diga:
el crimen fue en Granada, ¡en su Granada!

- Antonio Machado

Free translation:“Let us build in the Alhambra, friends, from stone and dreams a memorial to the poet above a spring where the water weeps and enternally complains that the crime happend in Granada, - in his Granada!” - Granada la bestia.

 La bella./ Beauty

La bestia / the Beast