Sometimes books come to you that promise you new places, others that inspire you, some that tell you about life's adventure from a totally different perspective, and a few that embody all of the above characteristics. Fortunately, Light in the cracks, by Ricardo Martínez Llorca It is one of them; a testimonial story that substitutes self-pity for acceptance, dreams for reality and turns the literature of our life into one more protagonist than it was Uneven Literature Award 2016.
Light in the Cracks: Silver Surfer, Ransome, and an Author Had Something in Common
The protagonist of Luz en las Cracks was born with a heart bigger than the rest of the world, which conditions a life that is not without dreams and goals to fulfill. In fact, it seems more obligatory to comply with them. It happened to Silver Surfer, Marvel character, who stopped being a slave to become a captive of the Earth yearning for the nostalgia of the life that he would never have, to Ransome, character in The Shadow Line by Joseph Conrad, who cultivated the art of knowing when to rest while respecting a weak heart, and also the protagonist of this story, who reveals to us the perspective of a physically limited person and his adaptation to such circumstances: in the morning in the schoolyard, at a Tyrant brother, to a beloved second, to the constant tests, to the interrupted nights or the passion for two challenges such as climbing and travel so opposed to a conditioned life.
But throughout this story we are not alone, since Llorca relies on his love for literature to discover his first approach to writing, the books that inspired him to get out there and those that feed the narrator's days in an apartment overlooking a highway of dim lights that ensure nights of thousands of stars. Because Light in the Cracks is a hymn to life, but especially to books.
Travel is also present: from a lost town in Brazil or Campeche to the Alps that the author climbs, passing through the exoticisms of the East, of those handicapped men who tell stories in a cafe in Laos; of a world in which each person consumes their time choosing the air they want to breathe.
Ricardo Martinez Llorca
Ricardo Martínez Llorca (Salamanca, 1966) graduated in Fine Arts and worked as a waiter and publicist until he became a high school drawing teacher, a job he currently performs and combines with his work as a literary critic in media such as ABC Cultural or La Línea del Horizonte, in addition to directing the section Books and Travel of Culturamas.
His experience in different professional areas would result in a passion for reading that would in turn lead to a prolific career as a writer, with nine works published by Llorca so far: novels. So high the silence (his first novel and finalist for the Tigre Juan award), The empty landscape (Jaén award), The chime of the winds, After the snow (finalist of the 2015 Desnivel award) and the last one, Light in the cracks, which won the 2016 Desnivel award. These works are followed by the book of stories Sons of Cain, the anthologies of traveling stories Copper belt y To the other side of the light, or the profile book The price of being a bird.
You can follow Llorca on her blog, So high the silence, and take a look at Light in the cracks so that you too may be readers of this testimonial work of which I still have a moment: that of the protagonist facing the elements of the Altai massif, in Mongolia, during a traveling night. The perfect example of that constant struggle between man, his limitations and nature. In this case a quiet, considerate fight. As defining as any other.
Have you read Light in the cracks?