The Faces of Jose María Guelbenzu

Guelbenzu will write a detective novel by the hand of its protagonist, Mariana de Marco, as long as she continues to call him to write. He confesses that he has no special interest in the genre beyond that of the character of Marco's investigating judge. With an initial goal of ten novels for the series, it has been published for eight, from the first, Do Not Harass the Murderer in 2001 to the last, A Disconsolate Murderer, in 2017. Perhaps its avid readers we will have the ninth installment in our hands in the 2019.

Guelbenzu is the active sample of a life dedicated to literature. At 73 years of age, Jose María Guelbenzu continues dedicated to his great passion with the same enthusiasm as when he started and has already touched all the literary facets and none in passing: In the world of publishing, as editorial director Taurus for eleven years and Alfaguara for six. In literary criticism, from the first years of his professional career and continues with his column in Babelia, the Cultural supplement of the Country.

Teacher at the University and in different courses for new writers to the delight of those who await their class and their corrections with enthusiasm since they leave the last one, because he is capable of transmitting his knowledge and engaging with this profession far beyond his words.

In his main profession, that of a writer, he has proven different styles. Many years have passed since his first book, poetry, Hispano-American Notebooks. Luckily for lovers of detective novel, which is not black, because the author himself does not like that his series on the examining magistrate Mariana de Marco is classified that way, he did not continue along the poetic line and took the leap novel. Nothing of the black genre, for that it was made to wait, many years would still have to pass for Guelbenzu to arrive at the world of intrigue.

Between poetry and the detective novel, excellent novels that are different from each other, with the connecting link of being deep reflections of themes inherent to the human being. With his first novel El Mercurio, published in 1968, he received the first award, that of finalist for the Short Library Award, which will head a long list, where we can find from the Critics Award for Castilian Narrative to the Torrente Ballester through the International Award for Novela Plaza & Janés and continued to reap awards in the last year 2017. Only one of them, Torrente Ballester, to one of the novels of the black series: The little brother.

In his first novel Guelbenzu defines what will be a recurring line in all his work. In it he analyzes the Madrid society of the moment using as a vehicle a group the young intellectuals of the moment, Un peso en el Mundo, from the year 99 where he talks about the need to transcend, to find his weight in the world of a woman half of his life that is contrasted with that of his old teacher who in a much more advanced stage of life is already back from that anguish.

From that moment on, Guelbenzu delves, to the delight of lovers of the genre, in the crime novel, with the publication of Don't harass the killer In 2001, although he did not leave his previous line, he only spaced it out, publishing five more novels that trump Mariana de Marco's case series:  The head of the sleeper (2003) This wall of ice (2005) True love (2010) Accepted lies (2013) The powerful want it all (2016) where, following the open line with Un peso en el mundo,  It deals from the corruption of a bloated society like the current one to the spiritual emptiness, of the superficiality with which we spend our time in the world to the love of two people throughout a whole life together and, ultimately, the meaning of our existence, always from a transgressive perspective, fantastic as well as classic, where they appear from characters who sell their souls to the devil to escape from death to the vicissitudes of the soul of a dead man whom the ferryman helps cross to the Kingdom of Death.

While all this was happening in the lines of Guelbenzu, Mariana de Marco solved seven more cases at the hands of its author, which add up to eight from the first. Guelbenzu is able to write one year a deep and thoughtful criticism about his generation and the lack of ideals and depth of the society they have built and the following year deliver us a new and juicy case from the hand of the favorite judge of his readers How much of that deep social novel by Guelbenzu is there in Mariana de Marco's series?  What does the investigating judge's obsession to seek the truth reflect as well as the attraction for danger and for people, especially men, with a more than pronounced dark side? Perhaps his lines of writing are less far even than it seems at first and are only different ways, which delve into the issues that concern the author, but do so at different levels of depth.