Santiago Posteguillo, winner of the 2018 Planeta Prize with a historical novel: Yo, Julia.
I, Julia is a historical novel set in the Roman Empire and starring a woman. Women have been denied their fundamental role in the history of this exciting time and the subject of so much research and novels, and Santiago Posteguillo focuses on one Julia, a woman that decided the future of the Roman Empire.
I, Julia, Santiago Posteguillo, Winner Planet Award 2018 will be released on November 6 with a first print run of 210.000 copies.
The plot
Yo, Julia starts at the year 192 When five men dispute control of the Roman Empire. Julia is the wife of one of them, with her own interests: that the Roman Empire be ruled by his own dynasty. Julia is going to be the figure that, from the shadows, controls the future of the Roman Empire.
I, Julia, are not only surprised by the power that a woman wields in the Roman Empire, but also because there is a love story. It is the first imperial marriage in love, with the advantages in disadvantages that a passion supposes in the middle of a complicated political conflict of similar magnitude.
The only thing Julia does not control is that if she does not win, she will lose everything. This dramatic tension is maintained throughout the novel.
An exceptional storyteller for a very special story
Julia's story tells her neither more nor less than Galen. He has their own interests that is very far from politics or who takes control of the empire. The only thing that matters to Galen is be able to dissect human corpses, an act prohibited at that time in Rome.
In parallel, Galen has created a kind of vaccine that immunizes against poisoning and Julia calls him to apply this treatment to her husband. He comes out of his own interests: to autopsy human corpses. According Galen meets Julia, wakes up and grows your admiration for her.
Santiago Posteguillo tells us the story of Julia, a powerful woman who decided the future of the Roman Empire.
Character. Why a woman in the Roman Empire?
In Spain the demands of the role of women are more numerous in intense than in other countries. That is not the reason why Santiago Posteguillo chose Julia, a woman with overwhelming force and a fundamental role in the history of the Roman Empire, as the protagonist of his novel. Posteguillo is looking for very relevant and little fictional historical figures. Over time and with a boom in the historical novel that lasts for decades, these silenced characters, who deserve the relevance of the protagonism of great historical novels, they are women. This is how Posteguillo arrives to meet Julia.
That the woman pulls the strings in the shadow to which she is relegated, has been happening for a long time. Now let's start giving voice to these great historical figures whose relevance has been unjustly silenced for being women.
In any novel set in the Roman Empire, Rome takes on an importance that outshines the characters. However, Julia's strength is so immense that, as the novel progresses, the reader forgets about Rome and only thinks about what will happen to Julia.
When a person is powerful it cannot be measured by their friendships because people approach them out of interest. Aristotle already said that the form of measure these people is by his enemies. Julia's enemies reflect the importance of the historical character that she was: 5 Roman emperors were her main enemies.
Powerful women and motherhood.
Julia has two children. Motherhood for her is very interesting because it is the way to preserve the dynasty.
This raises the question of what that aspect of your life is like. But
"Is it fair to ask if Julia was a good mother?" Posteguillo tells us. «Does anyone wonder if Napoleon or Julius Caesar were good parents? Napoleon abandoned his son in Vienna, he grew up to be a sad man, hated for being the son of a man he hardly knew. "
Whether Julia is a good or a bad mother does not influence the development of this story, Just as the kind of father that Napoleon was does not influence when talking about the French Empire.
The author.
Santiago Posteguillo has a degree in English Philology and a historical novelist. His passion is the Roman Empire, the time where he sets his novels. Not being a historian causes him to panic to commit historical errors and that leads him to document himself very thoroughly for each novel. The author himself tells us that as historical novelist has a advantage that historians don't enjoy: it can make up the unknown pieces of history to fit them into historical events. Pieces with a high probability of being true, but that historians cannot defend because they are not scientifically proven.
We are looking forward to knowing this story that promises to entertain and discover a historical character that even only knew darkness.