Letter from Spain #14

Election results, plus TBC research & events

At the time of posting this, just before midnight Spanish time on Sunday, and with 99% of the votes counted, it seems that although the right-wing PP have won the most seats and votes in the general election, they haven’t won a majority to govern, not even with the far-right Vox party. And I personally think that’s good news. Pedro Sánchez has some negotiating to do in order to secure the support he needs to continue in government for another four years, but he’ll do it. More on that next week, but in the meantime below is a link to a full report of the results:

The Barcelona Connection - Research

For those of you following the research behind The Barcelona Connection, I’m now combining Chapters 8 and 11 - as they both relate to Benjamin staggering from the service station to Girona-Costa Brava Airport, in between flashbacks of him meeting the Marqueses de Guíxols at their home near La Bisbal d’Empordà, the night before.

The service station itself, as explained in #7, is El Gironès, just near the airport on the AP-7 motorway, direction towards Barcelona. I’ve been to the service station many times (I know I’m mad), checking how Benjamin could walk to the airport from there, timing the distance from Nîmes and on to Barcelona, the toll tickets involved (at the time), how he could see the control tower of the airport across the field, and the gate he pushes through to finally stagger down the lane towards the airport itself. In Chapter 11, he finally reaches the airport terminal, and I even checked out the ‘e-Point’ Internet booths that he uses to locate his iPhone (and hopefully his hire car) in Barcelona. I’m not sure if these booths are still there, and my photos aren’t great … but here they are, near to the car rental desks …

With the flashbacks of Benjamin arriving in La Bisbal d’Empordà the evening before, and then trying to locate the masia of the Marqueses de Guíxols (already pictured in #8), I’ve also done the same journey. I know exactly where Benjamin parks, the bar he visits to recharge his phone, down a beer or two and call the Guíxols home for precise directions, and the ‘Antic i Fonos’ antiques shop with old gramophones in the window where he has to turn left and follow the route towards a hotel called Castell d’Empordà (more on that in a future post), and then how he has to continue on ‘down a hill and winding track, for two kilometres in the direction of Peratallada’ …

Next week we can look at Chapters 10 and 12 …

Previous links to my research notes are here:

• Chapter 7 in Letter from Spain#12 (Séverin and Jürgen).

• Chapter 5 in Letter from Spain#11 (Elena in Girona).

• Chapters 3-4 in Letter from Spain#9 (Marcos Constantinos in Hampstead, plus Benjamin at the UEA & Stansted).

• Chapter 2 in Letter from Spain#8 (the home of the Marqueses de Guíxols, not far from La Bisbal d’Empordà).

• Chapter 1 in Letter from Spain#7 (Benjamin waking up at the service station).

The Barcelona Connection - Reviews, News & Events

Details of the event at The Secret Kingdoms bookstore in Madrid on Thursday 28 September are now confirmed. I’m going to be chatting about The Barcelona Connection and A Load of Bull - An Englishman’s Adventures in Madrid with Ann Louise Bateson, radio producer, former BBC contributor and presenter of the English language programme, ‘Madrid Live’. Drinks and snacks will also be served, and although the event is free, places will be limited - so if you’re interested in coming along, then it would be wise to reserve your place by clicking on this Eventbrite link. It will be a fun evening and I hope to see you there!

Another date for the diary, this time in Barcelona. On Saturday 28 October at 2.30pm, I will be participating in a roundtable discussion hosted by Barcelona City Council for their annual International Community Day, with the topic being ‘Discovering & Enjoying Barcelona through Literature’. The event will take place at the Museu Marítim de Barcelona. More details in due course.

The Dalí Museum in Florida is planning an event around the book, and as soon as I have a clearer idea of what it will involve, I will post details about it here.

Links to reviews & articles

Here’s the link for a review of The Barcelona Connection that came out in La Revista, a publication of the British-Spanish Society.

Here’s a link to a review of the book published by the Spain in English online newspaper.

Here’s the link to an article I was asked to write for The Art Newspaper about my research on Salvador Dalí.

You can also click here for the latest reviews on Amazon, as well as on Goodreads and at Barnes & Noble.

The book is available on Amazon or you can also click here to choose where else to order your copy from. It can also be ordered from any bookshop simply by giving the ISBN number: 978-1-7393326-1-7.

For professional enquiries and foreign rights for The Barcelona Connection, please contact my agent Justyna Rzewuska at the Hanska Literary & Film Agency.