They remember the FIL’s Almudena Grandes, a ‘word and word’ woman

Mexican writer Benito Taipo, fondly remembered with other authors at the Guadalajara International Book Fair (FIL), the recently deceased Spanish writer, asserted that Almudena Grandes was a “woman of words and words”.

“Almudena was a woman of words and words, when she gave her her word she gave everything, her word was worth more than anything else and I’m not talking about her novels, I’m talking about how he mortgaged her to the things of the world,” he said .. a journalist also.

Friends and readers remembered Grandes, who died last Saturday of cancer, in an intermittent tribute in which they highlighted not only her ability to narrate, but her intelligence and joy.

Excited and “chilled,” Taibo revealed that he considers the narrator to be part of his family and said that with her poet husband Luis Garcia Monteiro, they are united by an “inevitable friendship” and “passionate” because they are “convinced of the same things” and because they said the same poems out loud.

Mexico’s Ángeles Maestreta recalls the afternoon she met the Grandes at a dinner at the home of singer Joaquín Sabina, where they exchanged songs and laughter, during which she got to see a “smart and eloquent woman” up close.

Journalist Carlos Puig said that the author of The Ages of Lulu (1989) told him about his family’s past in exile and some of the reasons why stories about the Franco regime were not told enough.

“She was absolutely convinced that the times of the Franco regime and its terror were not sufficiently counted, or at least not counted, because she thought they should,” he said.

Readers have shared some of their personal experiences with Grandes’ books. The tribute was the final touch to Joaquín Sabina’s “Wedding Night,” the same song that Grandes requested to be buried, and this happened Monday at the Madrid Civic Cemetery.