Closing session: Meeting with María Dueñas

The week was brought to a spectacular close by the presence of María Dueñas.
The author of "El tiempo entre costuras”,  had the courtesy to put an end to a week full of  very fruitful meetings, and chatted with readers for more than an hour on the genesis of which has been the best-selling novel of recent times.
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Fifth Day: Meeting with Jerónimo Tristante

"I would have loved to travel in time, have a machine like Wells, maybe that's why I decided to set my novels in the past." said Tristante during his speech.

"Reading a book is one of the funniest things in the world, and that is to be transmitted in the classroom to the students, because reading has never been, nor should it be a punishment, but an immense pleasure". Read more..

Fourth Day : meeting with Nerea Riesco

"Sometimes the lack of morals of some media is the closest thing to a modern Inquisition" said Nerea.

Nerea Riesco hasn’t forgotten her journalistic roots, and is capable of analyzing today’s news with accurate judgment, while noting the importance for the citizen to be critical of the media, and to react wondering and avoid being anesthetized by programmes that misrepresent reality

But before talking about social issues, she addressed her readers by showing the immense love she has for literature... Read More

After this lucid encounter, twenty of our students were lucky enough to share with her a Workshop of the most interesting narrative, which we hope has served to instill in them the seeds of good literature, the one Nerea practices.

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Third day: Meeting with Rubén Castillo

“Life is always much more important than literature. There are doctors who save lives every day and walk down the street with humility, and writers who think they are gods, and that's a big contradiction, so literature should be viewed in perspective”.

Ruben Castillo returned to the one which has been his home for years to talk about "The Cave of the Prophecies, a novel for young people that he was almost "forced” to write at the insistence of his two children, Mary and Ruben, and in which he included real sources, the caves in which he had played as a child and the books he had grown among, the universe of a childhood that has been converted into a literary argument.

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Meeting with Lorenzo Silva on the Second day

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 "Life is also a string of things and people we are losing on the road" Lorenzo Silva delighted us during his meeting with words that make us think, especially teens, living a crucial moment because they have to choose the identity that will go with them the rest of their lives. That’s why he advocates for a youth literature which face reality, as he stated: "In youth literature we have gone from a colored and lightweight one to a gothic literature, and that is a path we do not know where it will lead, but it's not what I wanted to, I just wanted to tell stories of young people that could live, not to lock them into alternative worlds". 
For him, youth should commit themselves, because after all life is struggle, not a collection of happy endings, and literature should reflect life, reality, and not hide it. That relationship with literature has turned Lorenzo Silva into a happy man with his job, someone who has the chance of looking out of a window which is opened to other worlds, worlds that fill us with the possibility of living other lives, not just ours. 
Of course, it is not his intention to express moral lessons in his novels, or create closed stories, because life is not airtight, and the interpretation made by each reader is vital to complete each project. 
He is very pleased that young people continue approaching his novels like "The hunter of the desert", a work that was born more than a decade ago, because a book is very fleeting and only the readers can prolong its life or finish it . He is also a man totally respectful of its audience, as shown by his words: "I am very concerned to make young people know how developed they are in some ways with regard to adults, but so innocent in other aspects of life. However, if we want to reach young people it must be done with great respect, and in a language they do not consider others, not to feel slighted."

The students of IES Mediterranean were proud to have Lorenzo Silva with them.

By Antonio Parra

Opening of the First Literary Comenius Week

 

Meeting with Luis Leante

"Literature is a memory exercise, and life is a series of multiple coincidences."

These are two of the most important messages Luis Leante has left us in his meeting with students of the IES Mediterranean apart from talking about the writer's notebook as the primary tool for collecting stories which later will become literature, notebooks where curious characters that Luis has met throughout his life abound, creatures full of literary attraction and stories which will turn into plots of future works. He also spoke of the fascination that the Sahara has had on him, so much that it appears in three of his works: "The back door of paradise", " I love you so much" and "The Sahrawi refugee camps in the early XXI ", and chance and coincidence as the driving forces of human existence, the future of the world, showing the inconsistency of man, which should unite us together to verify the extent of the powers of fate and destiny. A lesson for young readers, who have been able to appreciate not only the writer but also the man.

by Antonio Parra
This is the comment about the Inauguration of the First Literary Week, whose coordinator has written on his blog and can be accessed by clicking here. 

First Literary Comenius Week in Spain

The IES Mediterráneo celebrates the First literary Comenius Week to promote and encourage reading, and improve the use of the school library. This week is one of the activities that closes our Comenius project.
During this week meetings with authors, panel discussions, conferences and a literary workshop will be held  to enable students to develop their literary skills. The meetings will be coordinated by Antonio Parra Sanz, writer, literary critic and professor of Language and Literature at IES Mediterráneo.