Gabo and the drunks
On Tuesday at five I do a reading in the library of the University of Cartagena – whose most famous alumnus was Gabriel García Márquez – and learn from one of the Profs that there is a crypt in the… Read More
Cartagena, the Inquisition and slavery, all in a day
On my second evening in Cartagena I take a stroll around the old walled city, which despite its colonial style and nostalgic elegance is sadly heading in the same direction as every other tourist destination in the… Read More
Ricardo Blanco’s Blog
- The continuing recurrent imageA couple of weeks ago, in the town of Figueres, as I was about to cross the road by Plaça Catalunya, I spotted a van which bore a familiar motif. The design was strongly reminiscent of the cover... Read More
- What can a novelist learn from a nomadic reindeer herder?In Wayfinding, by Michael Bond, a fascinating account of how people find their way in and around the world (and the perils of GPS on our innate navigational systems), the author quotes a Siberian reindeer herder on how... Read More
- This One Sky DayIn her new novel, fifteen years in the making, the British-Jamaican author Leone Ross offers the reader an imagined island, like Coleridge’s caverns, measureless to man. The novel, taken as whole, is an infectious celebration of life, and... Read More
- The Indifferent Gaze‘All things long to persist in their being; the stone eternally wants to be a stone and the tiger a tiger.’ J.L. Borges The black bear appeared out of the woods to my left and lumbered across the... Read More
- The Welsh language might cause your plane to crashA recent article by travel writer Simon Calder has launched a small blaze of controversy about the use of the Welsh language on aircraft landing in Wales. The offending piece begins: “In the unlikely event you find yourself... Read More
Ricardo Blanco, Citizen of Nowhere
