Gran Canaria

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria · Category: Literature · Subcategory: Literary fragments · Year: 1933 · Authors: A. J. Cronin

A. J. Cronin (1896-1981) was a Scottish writer who published Gran Canaria in 1933. The novel is set between Gran Canaria and Tenerife during an outbreak of yellow fever and narrates the journey of a group of English people aboard the Aureola .

«Mary Fielding had gone to Las Canteras beach. She had also heard Renton speak of the beauty of that little-known beach. And now, in her green bathing suit, she was lying on the sunny sand, letting that gentle warmth invade her body. Drops of seawater still shone on her white legs. Her body, firmly shaped by the waves, was full of vibrant life. The curves of her small breasts were as beautiful as those of a flower, graceful as those of a swallow in flight. Her eyes were closed, as if to protect the exquisite abandonment of her mood; however, she could see everything, all that delightful landscape. The gentle undulations of the yellow sand, a sea bluer than the sky, the foamy whiteness of the breaking waves thundering over the reefs and the distant peak, shining, translucent and omnipotent like a god. Oh, how happy she was to have come!

Here she could breathe and, pressing naked against the earth, be herself. Inside her, more white than the foam and brighter than the mountain peak, a memory was born. An aspiration. Or rather, a mixture of both. [...]

She got up and ran towards the foamy waves. Beyond the breaking waves, which formed creamy circles around her waist, the sea was opalescent, blue and strangely ethereal, like light passing through crystalline caves. Her feet left the warm sand. She found herself in deep waters, advancing towards the raft anchored halfway to the reefs. Now, she felt clean, her limbs whipped by the salt and her blood enriched by the electric air.» [...]

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