The Glow of the Ravine

Santa Cruz de Tenerife · Category: Literature · Subcategory: Literary fragments · Year: 2008 · Authors: Juan Ignacio Royo

Juan Ignacio Royo Iranzo (Santa Cruz de Tenerife, 1956) is a writer who has won the Isla de El Hierro novel prize (1988) and the Ciudad de La Laguna short story prize (1989). In collaboration with composer Enrique Guimerá, he wrote the libretto for the opera El amor triunfante and Marcha espacial , a piece created to promote symphonic music among children.

In his novel The Glow of the Ravine , from 2008, Juan Ignacio Royo narrates the adventures of a character who lives in a cave in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. Set during the time when General Franco was stationed on the islands, months before the outbreak of the civil war, the novel recreates the troubled historical period of the mid-1930s in the Santa Cruz of that time.

«A few metres away stood the church of La Concepción, next to the ravine inside which the Moor had his cave. In the riverbed, the washerwomen of Santa Cruz worked. Some knelt on the large basalt rocks to wet the clothes. Others collected the dry sheets that, a few hours earlier, had been spread out in the sun.

The landscape was beautiful. The murmur of the water and the birds' songs pleased him. That place resembled the gateway to paradise, completely detached from the incessant roar of events.»

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