The writer Jorge Molist grants me an interview (Barcelona, 1951) on his promotional tour with his latest novel Song of blood and gold (Planet). Molist developed his professional activity in large corporations, occupying positions of executive responsibility in Spain., United States and several European countries. Everything and that showed an early vocation for writing, It wasn't until 1996 when he decided to return to that passion. In 2000 public The walls of Jericho, his first novel. They followed him Omen (2003), The ring (2004) y The hidden queen (2007), with which he obtained the Alfonso X el Sabio Historical Novel Award. In 2011 public Promise me you'll be free y time of ashes in 2013. He precisely returns to the literary scene with this novel Song of blood and gold, awarded the Fernando Lara novel prize 2018. GINÉS J. VERA.
The title of your novel, Song of blood and gold, It reminds me a little of that epic work by G. R. R. Martin, song of ice and fire.
I would like to have the success that he. The song is because it is a novel of feelings and passions and emotions.; so, music transmits them better and, besides, because the protagonists like Pedro III, valencian king, He was a troubadour and his wife played the harp very well.. And the blood and gold is for the Crown of Aragon, the banner of the Crown of Aragon, bars of blood and gold. It's a song of blood and gold because it refers to that.
His novel has won the Fernando Lara award. 2018. Congratulations. What does this distinction mean and, besides, in a literary key, in a sector where it is common to hear that a lot is published but little is read?
Mine has been very important because this work has taken me four or five years of research and study., and I have been absent these years, therefore, is to return to the editorial scene again and well.
Song of blood and gold It takes us to the times of the Crown of Aragon and it is still curious that some of the issues of territoriality and state are very present these days from the point of view of current politics, what do you think?
This is a story by which a king of the Crown of Aragon, born in Valencia, was able to unite very different people, and sometimes confronted among themselves, and take them to a company that changed the history of Europe and amazed the world. There were Catalans and Aragonese nobles who were in continuous rebellion with the king, There were Valencian Muslims and also Valencian nobles, there were bandits and the famous almogávares; in the end, a very heterogeneous group of people who used to fight among themselves, Careful, and he took them all and embarked them on a brilliant company that changed the history of Europe, as i say, and amazed the world. Dante Alhigieri dedicated some admired verses to Pedro III in the Divine Comedy, which are the beginning of the novel..
The novel begins with a wedding and develops over two decades, in twenty decisive years for the history of a Spain made up of states and devastated by wars, Isn't that so?
In reality, this novel is also a great love story.. I have been very precise in the story, I have investigated you don't know how much, but I didn't want to make a history treatise, I wanted to make a novel of feelings. A thirteen-year-old girl begins speaking and tells that she has to go to a faraway place., that they are going to marry her to a man much older than her, and that she will meet him right at the altar, just before getting married. But she does it willingly. Because? Well, because he adores his father, who is the king of Sicily., he knows that he is very threatened, and that this is an alliance with the Crown of Aragon that is very necessary. The thing is that it's of no use to you., because they kill the father, the French conquer Sicily, and he is our hero, Peter III of Aragon, the one who on the day of his coronation tells him that he will avenge his father's death and that he will return the kingdom that was stolen from him. A company that seemed crazy because imagine that at that time, for example here in Valencia, It was not a consolidated kingdom.
In reality I tell part of the consolidation of the Kingdom of Valencia; There were much more Moors than Christians. The Almogávars and bandits bothered the Moors all the time., They revolted, it was all chaos.. Having a kingdom like this with total, one million inhabitants, a quarter of them Moorish, confront France with five million inhabitants, with Charles of Anjou who had many others and with the Pope. That the Pope commanded, the kings had to obey him. That is why it has been hidden a bit in the history of Spain.. It has been hidden by something that a well-known writer named Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra already said., when he said that: We have come across the church, friend Sancho.
Tell us about Constanza's role, a key woman in the map of political interests of the time; a brave and committed woman as we discovered throughout Song of blood and gold.
Obviously, Constance wants to recover Sicily, but he knows how hard it is and how dangerous it is. Constanza's first fight is for the love of her husband who had his lovers. Then I tell your wedding, their wedding night and what happened after, that in reality it was a fight for the love of her husband, that was his first fight, but he had others that appear in the course of the novel. The female characters are very powerful in the novel., They are the ones that best transmit feelings and emotions and also because at that time there were and I have come across very powerful female characters and I wanted to give them a special highlight..
They are fulfilled, besides, ten years since he dedicated himself exclusively to writing, What is your assessment of this literary decade??
The balance is very good because it is what I wanted to do when I was fourteen years old., life didn't leave me, We have taken a lot of turns and in the end we return to the origin and now I can fulfill my wishes.
