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The poetic prose that (possibly) resonated in the mind of Camarón de la Isla

2022-11-24T11:29:59.378Z


The book 'El sabor a sangre no se me de la voz', written by Javier Santiso and illustrated by Lita Cabellut, tries to get into the skin of the legendary Cádiz-born cantaor


Shrimp from the Island in a painting by Lita Cabellut, which forms part, as an illustration, of the book 'El sabor de sangre no se me de la voz', with texts by Javier Santiso.

It was not a question of telling the biography of Camarón de la Isla with hair and marks (there are already numerous books dedicated to his figure, and even the film

Camarón

, by Jaime Chávarri) but of telling Camarón himself, the man behind the myth, of to enter his head, to imagine how he thought.

Nor was it a matter of being exhaustive, of giving the big picture (there are only 64 intense pages), but of seeking the subtle poetic brushstroke to understand the figure in a more intimate way.

At least as the author Javier Santiso (Saint Germain-en-Laye, 53 years old) has imagined it, the poet who searches the inner life of the greatest flamenco legend.

More information

Podcast: Camarón sings better every day

This literary artifact is

El sabor a sangre no se me de la voz

(La Huerta Grande), whose title is inspired by a phrase by the artist Francis Bacon, and which is written in torrential, breathless poetic prose, in a literary flow in which the points disappear and the commas of thought are given way.

The inner monologue.

"The first version of the text was written in one go, in a few days, it's as if I had gotten into Camarón's head, into his life... and life doesn't have many punctuation marks," explains the author.

In this poetic mission, he is accompanied by illustrations by Lita Cabellut, a highly valued Spanish painter living in The Hague, which are more like the paintings of a series that the artist had produced before even writing the text.

Javier Santiso at the headquarters of the publishing house La Cama Sol.Luis Sevillano

This year marks three decades since Camarón's death and his image has not fallen into oblivion, but perhaps has grown larger over the years: the

shrimp

They are everywhere, scattered throughout the country, still moved by that voice that tastes of blood and organizing frequent tributes.

Tributes like the one that could be considered this book, which poetically recreates some scenes from the life of the man from Cádiz, chosen here and there, from the luminous sensations of Camarón's childhood, in his native San Fernando, to the gloomy surroundings of the death (“as long as I keep singing like this, death will never be able to catch me”, says the Camarón poetized by Santiso), going through the discovery of his immense talent.

“Many times it is thought that a book has a predetermined structure, that everything is planned, but there are times when one writes out of pure necessity, because you cannot do it any other way”, says the author, “you are completely overwhelmed:

the fuse has lit and all the writing has jumped”.

It shows in this book.

But what lit the fuse?

Although Santiso was already well acquainted with the figure of the universal cantaor, the epiphany came with a television report on his life: those images, especially his voice, made him write.

When he got the text he sent it to Cabellut, who is one of his best friends.

"She has the particularity that she dances while she paints," says the writer, "and when she does it best, she... it's her with music by Camarón."

It turns out that Cabellut (“I want to paint like Camarón sings”, she has said on occasion) had already painted a series of large-format canvases inspired by the man from Cádiz.

"When I sent her the text, it took her a while to reply, I thought she didn't like it, but the reality is that she was very excited, given what Camarón means to her," explains the author.

So, given a chance that seemed inevitable, those images ended up illustrating the book: everything fit together.

The objective: “To understand what can make someone sing in that way”, says the poet, “that voice goes straight to your heart, knocks you down, kills you and revives you”.

Santiso, who was born near Paris, the son of Spaniards, in what was the house of the writer Michel Tournier, and who is bilingual in French and Spanish, with Frenchified literary tastes and dual nationality, claims to treasure thirty unpublished books in his drawer. (between books of stories, novels or collections of poems), which would not have begun to publish had it not been for the intervention of the late poet Joan Margarit.

He was the one who urged him to open that drawer and let his literature flow through the minds of the readers.

The painter Lita Cabellut in her home-studio in The Hague (Netherlands), in 2021. SOFIA MORO

His previous published novel,

Vivir con el corazón

(La Huerta Grande), also focused on a great figure in the history of culture: the painter Vincent van Gogh, a figure to whom the text approaches through those who surrounded him. and that they did not pass to posterity.

“There are eight tiny lives that, in the style of Pierre Michon, help to build Van Gogh's capital life”, the author points out.

In addition, Santiso is the creator of the publishing house La Cama Sol, created with the purpose of translating the work of the French writer Christian Bobin into Spanish or publishing books such as

An Older Woman .

, which combines the poetry of Margarit and the art of the Portuguese Paula Rego, who recently died.

One of the interests of the small publishing house is precisely to carefully edit books where plastic art and poetry are mixed.

Examples: the poet Eugénio de Andrade and the sculptor Tadanori Yamaguchi.

The poet Luis Alberto de Cuenca and the artist César Galicia.

The poet Pere Gimferrer and the artist Antoni Tàpies.

And so on.

A curiosity: he makes intense books, the kind in which you have to cut the sheets with a letter opener, not suitable for people in a hurry or for excessively perfectionist characters.

At Gallimard, the famous French publisher, Santiso publishes a novel in March.

"Written directly in French, not translated," he clarifies.

Javier Santiso has the particularity of living

for

poetry, but living

from

an occupation that in the shared imagination may seem diametrically opposed.

He is an economist, educated in Paris, Oxford and Boston, and founder and CEO of the

venture capital

fund Mundi Ventures, which manages 500 million euros, as well as a member of the board of directors of PRISA (publisher of EL PAÍS).

There are some poetic things in his mutual fund, mind you.

For example, a few words from the poet TS Eliot on his website: "Only those who risk going too far can discover how far they can go."

And the fact that he invests in technological unicorns (

start-up companies

that reach a value of 1,000 million dollars without going public).

For those who understand business, this will make sense, but for the layman, the unicorn thing sounds like a pure dream.

“I don't think this duality of mine has anything special,” says Santiso, “everyone has to do something to live.

Margarit was an architect.

Fernando Pessoa, accountant”.

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Source: elparis

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