LA PENÍNSULA DE LAS CASAS VACÍA

A sort of Iberian "Macondo", a book that proposes a journey through the whole peninsula, getting to know its different peoples and cultural voices, and which serves as a historical map and a mirror for the contemporary reader.

This novel tells the story of a family during the Civil War; of an Andalusian imagined village, Jándula, and of a bleeding Iberia. A story where the real and the imaginary, the epic and the everyday intermingle to form a rich and delirious, yet vivid and credible tapestry. Covering an eventful period of history - Second Republic, Civil War and exile -, it stands out for its narrative style, from the surreal to the magical, and always in a coherent, documented, emotive and, most importantly, respectful way. La península de las casas vacías is an ode to the rural world, in that sense it has elements in common with Irene Solà and her novel Canto jo i la muntanya balla, as nature, the countryside, the telluric and the imaginary go hand in hand. The use of "magical neorealism" allows the author to play with time and space, highlighting the most powerful images of all those years and telling stories in a single family, through its different generations. David Uclés (Úbeda, 1990) a translation and Interpreting graduate, is an author, musician, illustrator, and translator. He has worked as a Spanish, German, French and English teacher in various countries. His short stories have received various awards. He won the first prize in the International Short Story Prize, «Cristina Tomi» in 2021 with La filosofa en el café y el pintor en el prostíbulo and won the second prize in the Pedro Zarco Prize in 2020 with his story Bicardio Reis. He has written for various magazines such as Actúa, Quo and Esquire. As an author, he has published novels such as Emilio y Octubre (Dos Bigotes, 2020) his first foray into magic realism, and El Llanto del León (Ediciones Complutense) for which he received the Complutense Literature Prize in 2019. In 2022, he received the Montserrat Roig scholarship, and has recently received the Leonardo scholarship of the BBCA Foundation. In 2024 he publishes La península de las casas vacías (Siruela, 2024).