Letter from Spain #41
Election in Galicia, a missing US citizen ... plus TBC notes & research.
One area of Spain that I’ve never visited is Galicia, but I’d like to and I plan to. It is, apparently, one of Spain’s most ‘conservative’ regions, but that’s not why I’d like to go. I’d like to visit the region for its shellfish, crabs and octopus, the Albariño wine, and what must surely be hundreds of stunning coastal walks, let alone the routes of the Camino de Santiago. With the heat that will certainly hit the rest of Spain again this summer (and every summer from now on), I imagine we’ll all be heading to the cooler, north-western region of Galicia in due course, to its lush green hills, rushing streams and Atlantic Sea breeze.
I learnt about the Gallego ‘conservatism’, however, during this past week, with the build up to the regional elections held there yesterday, Sunday 18 February - or ‘18-F’, as they label these things in Spain.
Galicia, I discovered, was the birthplace of the dictator Franco. It was also the birthplace of his right-hand man Manuel Fraga, as well as the former People’s Party (PP) prime minister Mariano Rajoy … not that I’m drawing any direct links to the PP and Franco (you can Google the ‘People’s Alliance’ for all that).
The right-wing PP - okay, many people refer to them as just ‘conservative’ - has governed in Galicia for all but four of the past 35 years - and continuously so for the past 15 years, winning majorities in each of the last four elections under Alberto Núñez Feijóo. He left the region in 2022 to become the national leader of the PP - currently Spain’s main opposition party. I’ve given my views about the PP and their disastrous handling of the Catalan situation in a previous post, and so I won’t repeat it all here. I thought Feijóo’s recent comments about pardoning Carles Puigdemont would really affect the PP in yesterday’s election, however, and I even spoke about this on Talk Radio Europe last week (link below, if you’re interested) … but in the end, it didn’t happen.
Instead, the PP’s hold on Galicia is going to continue for at least another four years following yesterday’s results. They won 47.36% of the vote, giving them an absolute majority of 40 seats in the 75-seat Galician parliament. It’s two seats less than they won in the elections back in 2020, but it’s still a comfortable majority.
The PP’s Alfonso Rueda now becomes the new president of Galicia - while Feijóo has reinforced his position as the PP’s national leader, much to the frustration, I imagine, of the party’s regional leader in Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, who’s clearly waiting in the wings for him to simply fail again in whatever.
Polls in recent weeks had suggested that the results in Galicia would be much tighter than they finally were. They’d even suggested that the left-wing Galician Nationalist Bloc (BNG) and Pedro Sánchez’s PSOE socialists could together possibly secure an absolute majority to oust the PP from power, if Sumar and/or Podemos also won a seat. But again, it didn’t happen.
The BNG did improve its own results, getting 25 seats (6 more than in 2020), with 31.57% of the vote, at the expense of the PSOE, which only won nine (5 less than in 2020). Led by Ana Pontón, the BNG made language a key issue, campaigning on promises to boost the use of the regional Galician language in public education and civil service.
The good news is that the far-right Vox party failed to win a single seat. Which is another good reason to spend time in Galicia …
Missing US citizen
Ana Maria Knezevic, a 40-year-old American originally from Colombia, has gone missing in Madrid. She came to Spain from South Florida in December, reportedly ‘to get away for a while’, due to a long divorce process that she has been going through with her Serbian husband.
Her whereabouts in Spain have been unknown since 2 February.
According to reports, shortly after her disappearance (now over two weeks ago), a man wearing a motorcycle helmet disabled the security cameras at her Madrid rental apartment by spraying paint over the lenses of the building. The next day, two friends received separate text messages from her - one in English, one in Spanish - which said she was running off for a few days with a man she had just met.
Knezevic's friend, Sanna Rameau, has told the media that she was highly suspicious of the English text message sent from her friend's phone.
‘I met someone wonderful!!’ the first message read. ‘He has a summer house about 2h from Madrid. We are going there now and I will spend a few days there. Signal is spotty. I'll call you when I get back.’
‘Yesterday after therapy I needed a walk and he approached me on the street! Amazing connection. Like I never had before,’ a second message read.
‘First of all, that is not how she writes,’ Rameau told the media. ‘Everything is very strange with that message. It’s not something that she would do. It’s not at all like her. It was written in a sense that I didn’t recognise it. Ana is my best friend. I know how she expresses herself, I know how she writes. And it just did not sound like her at all.’
Messages in Spanish were also sent to a close friend of Knezevic in Barcelona from her phone. The messages were described as ‘very, very odd’ and that they ‘looked like they’d been [put together] by Google translate’. Knezevic herself speaks and writes fluent Spanish.
The police in Madrid and the FBI in Fort Lauderdale have launched investigations on each side of the Atlantic.
Spain’s Missing Persons Association (‘SOS Desaparecidos’) has posted Knezevic’s photograph around Madrid - image below.
Here’s a link to my chat with Giles Brown on Talk Radio Europe from Wednesday 14 February, if you’re interested:
The Barcelona Connection - Research
Chapters 88 and 90 of The Barcelona Connection see Benjamin back in Figueres at nighttime, before heading to Cadaqués at dawn. The bus stop in Figueres is near to the photos I posted in Letter from Spain #35 - as ‘he finally located the bus terminal opposite the train station, just off the square where he’d borrowed - okay, stolen - a bicycle earlier’ …
I had fun researching the timetable and route of the ‘orange and red sarfa bus’, how Benjamin might board it, and how and where it would eventually drop him off in Cadaqués - and a few images are posted below. Next week, I will conclude my research notes of the book with all my images of Cadaqués itself, the location of Josep’s studio and the police activity …
Previous links to my research notes are here:
Chapters 78-87 in Letter from Spain #40 (Passeig Marítim de la Mar Bella, El Poblenou & Port Olímpic).
Chapter 66 in Letter from Spain #37 (Séverin and Hendrik).
Chapters 59 and 63 in Letter from Spain #36 (Benjamin visiting the Dalí Museum in Figueres).
Chapters 50, 52 and 57 in Letter from Spain #35 (Benjamin on the train to Figueres).
Chapters 48 and 51 in Letter from Spain #34 (G20 Spouse Party, museum visits and ‘art attacks’).
Chapters 48 and 51 in Letter from Spain #33 (Picasso Museum).
Chapters 39 and 42 in Letter from Spain #31 (Hotel Arts & Port Olímpic).
Chapter 36 in Letter from Spain #29 (Hotel Arts & Port Olímpic).
Chapter 29 in Letter from Spain #28 (Nîmes to Barcelona and tollgates).
Chapters 28 and 32 in Letter from Spain #27 (Pedralbes and Jaume, the Marquès de Guíxols).
Chapter 26 in Letter from Spain #26 (pijos and Beltrán Gómez de Longoria).
Chapter 25 (again) in Letter from Spain #25 (Benjamin’s thoughts on Púbol, Figueres and Port Lligat-Cadaqués).
Chapter 25 in Letter from Spain #23 (Benjamin and Elena on the Passeig Marítim).
Chapters 22 and 24 in Letter from Spain #22 (Plaça Sant Jaume & Nîmes).
Chapter 21 in Letter from Spain #21 (the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya - MNAC).
Chapter 18 in Letter from Spain #20 (Nîmes).
Chapter 16 in Letter from Spain #19 (Marta Soler visiting the offices of La Vanguardia).
Chapter 15 in Letter from Spain #18 (Sants, Les Corts and the Plaça de la Concòrdia).
Chapter 14 in Letter from Spain #17 (introducing Inspector Vizcaya and Marta Soler).
Chapter 13 in Letter from Spain #16 (the painting - the possible study of The Hallucinogenic Toreador by Salvador Dalí).
Chapters 10 and 12 in Letter from Spain #15 (Isabel Bosch and Lieutenant Trias).
Chapters 8 and 11 in Letter from Spain #14 (Benjamin at Girona Airport and finding the Marqueses’ home in La Bisbal).
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
Links to reviews & articles
A review of The Barcelona Connection by Michael Eaude was published in the October 2023 edition of Catalonia Today.
‘Short, fast-moving scenes and the deft joining of two completely different plots … the novel is not just breathlessly rapid and action-packed, but overflows with humour and satire.’
‘The excellent plotting, the local knowledge, the surreal humour, the political satire and the speed of events … it’s an admirable and very readable crime novel.’
A review of The Barcelona Connection by Dominic Begg was published in La Revista, a publication of the British-Spanish Society.
‘The Barcelona Connection is a fast-moving page-turner with a helter-skelter plot.’
‘The background to this thriller is realistic and familiar to those who know Barcelona well. It’s a world of cynical, ambitious politicians; civil servants promoted via enchufe; friction between Spanish and Catalan investigators; disruptive anti-capitalist activists; bumbling US dignitaries and security guards; the continuing influence of old supporters of Franco; the soulless 21st century, exemplified by apartment hotels seemingly without human staff-members …’
Here’s a link to a review of the book by Eve Schnitzer published by the Spain in English online newspaper.
‘Tim Parfitt very cleverly weaves together two parallel though quite different stories, set against the background of a contemporary Barcelona that is even busier than usual with major international meetings.’
‘Two plot lines interweave, with some highly ironic as well as suspenseful results … this book has a lot to offer the reader, from pure entertainment to solid information and, possibly, a fuller understanding of the complexities of Spain and Catalonia in particular.’
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.
You can also click here for the Kindle edition of A Load of Bull - An Englishman’s Adventures in Madrid.
For professional enquiries and foreign rights for The Barcelona Connection, please contact my agent Justyna Rzewuska at the Hanska Literary & Film Agency.