'Winter in Lisbon' by Antonio Muñoz Molina becomes a jewel

Before being a novel,

was a title. A sound title that came to the mind of its author, Antonio Muñoz Molina, in the mid-eighties, which sat him at the desk, forcing him to fill out that text statement. And even to travel. At that time, the ubetense was a thirty-year-old civil servant without much time or resources who had never set foot in the Portuguese capital, but when he had written 150 pages he forced himself to visit it. For two days in January, the author traveled the slopes of the city to locate, loaded with a camera that helped him to sign, to later remember the places where he wanted to place his characters. After being published, in 1987,

it was a success. In sales, reviews and awards, and in turning Muñoz Molina into the author of weight that he is today. But it was also a movie, in 1991. And a soundtrack, also successful, that led to the creation of a ballet. And now, almost 35 years later and in an unexpected artistic twist, it has become a collection of jewelery.

It was Gabriel Suárez, creative director of the same jewelery house that he carries in the last name and third generation of the saga, who insisted on making this unusual collaboration; As far as he knows, nothing similar has ever been done with a novel like this (beyond something very fanciful, like

, which for many, including them, has been an inspiration) by a firm of jewels. He wanted to revisit the novel that captivated him in his youth and forced Sandra Rojo, the firm's designer, to read it. The two saw that, with hardly any descriptions of the protagonists, the hypnotic Lucrecia or her pianist Santiago, all that atmosphere of jazz, clubs, music and black and white prints were more than enough material to transform the lyrics into jewels.

Two rings and some black and white diamond earrings based on the work 'Winter in Lisbon' by Antonio Muñoz Molina and created by Suárez jewelery.

The 18 pieces (three of them unique; with prices that start at 900 euros and go up to, in a ring with a large gem, 52,000) have touches

, twenties, but not only. Its black and white diamonds are reminiscent of the dancing fringes in motion, feathers, dancing and the tapping of heels to the sound of trumpets. With echoes of the Cotton Club, the Café Society, the gleaming flaking tiles of Lisbon. “Something more abstract, with the novel as a starting point; To make it literal would be a bummer, ”explains Rojo, who immediately fell in love with Lucrecia (” even her name fascinates me ”) and who has taken two years to create a collection that has also been technically very demanding for the team, requiring the pieces a lot of movement.

All of them have been devised with the connivance of the author, who sat down with the jeweler artists - who from mutual friends first knocked on the door of the writer Elvira Lindo, his wife, and finally found him - at a breakfast that later it became a trip together to the Portuguese city. "It impressed me a lot, because of the beauty, the design and the work behind it," says Muñoz Molina about his feelings after seeing his letters turned into diamonds. “I am excited about what is well done. It gives me a sense of respect and inspiration, it gives me authority, ”he says. He did not hesitate at any time to meet those responsible for the gems, "from the beginning it was something that arose naturally", he acknowledges, during a small private presentation of the pieces, explaining that he is a curious man, interested in all the Arts.

The conversion of

into jewels is especially more striking because in its more than 200 pages it does not give an account of what its characters are like. It is based more on evocations, ideas and silences than on a specific image of Lucrecia or Santiago, as Muñoz Molina recalls. "The reader is the interpreter of my score," reflects the author, who never finishes defining whether the protagonists are blonde or brown, tall or short, white or black. And, of course, Lucrecia doesn't wear jewelry. Or he didn't use them, because now he has his own.