Santa Catalina Park

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria · Category: Literature · Subcategory: Literary fragments · Year: 1975 · Authors: Orlando Hernández

In Catalina Park , Orlando Hernández dedicates a unique work to the emblematic Santa Catalina Park and its adjacent Ripoche street. The book features countless characters, many anonymous, others as well known as the popular Lolita Pluma. The book begins:

«It is the dusk of an ordinary day. Lights, flashes, palm trees from which a whole concert of birds detaches in duet with the juicy and enveloping music like the welcoming bustle. We are in Catalina Park, a few metres from the Santa Catalina pier, in the Port of La Luz and the thousand flags, very close to the sandy pulp trail of Las Canteras beach, where the sun is a teenager playing among the tanned nudes as if for a living Parthenon.

People. Crackling of people speaking in all languages and knowing the language of all desires. Kiosks, commercial stalls with the most exotic articles. Laughter, smiles. Couples and loners of all kinds. Broad momentary affections, sometimes soured by a wink of mischief, without tragic consequences. Clothing styles of all eras, rhythms of all music, joy and colour saturate the atmosphere.» [...]

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