Blog del Instituto Cervantes de Dublín

The cultural activity starts this week with the book launch today at 6pm at Café Literario of La Roja, the most recent work of the Anglo-Spanish prize-winning author and journalist, Jimmy Burns Marañón. It is perhaps one of his most ambitious books, and one which goes much further than a simple narrative of the history of Spanish football. It offers a controversial perspective on the social, political, and cultural transformation of Spain during the last hundred years.

With the unique, intelligent, provocative, and objective perception of his dual nationality and eminent background, Burns Marañón invites the reader to accompany him on a journey to the heart and soul of a country from north to south and south to north. Leaving his London home one day and taking the train to Gatwick Airport, within a few hours he finds himself exploring an obscure and violent episode in British colonialism in the mines of Río Tinto. The author travels across Andalucía, passing through the district of Triana in Sevilla, among Holy Virgins, bull-fighters, and poets and, following another trail between Castilians and Catalans, between fans of Barcelona and followers of Madrid, he comes to the Basque country, where he discovers the ambiguities of certain nationalisms.

It could have been a novel, a book of travel, a book about football, but it is none of these and all of these, and a great deal more. It does not matter whether or not you are a football fan, it is a book which all should read in order to know more about a country they believe they know.