Remember this name: Cristina Sánchez-Andrade. She is, without question, one of the most powerful female voices the Spanish literature has produced. As Manuel Rivas said: "Something radically new in Spanish literature, original and unusual".
Her new novel, Los escarpines de Kristina de Noruega (that in English we have transformed into The Secret of Kristina of Norway), has just been published by Roca Editorial.
The synopsis:
13th century. The Reconquest is at its very peak. A plague of lobsters devastates Castille and a woman, in front of the pain labor, stops her horse in the inhospitable moors of Toledo. Before giving birth, she makes something strange: she buries her beautiful bed socks and their hidden secret with them. The woman is Beatriz de Suabia and the child coming to the world is the future Alfonso X The Wise. Next to Beatriz there is her mother-in-low, Berenguela La Grande, the most influential woman on the future king, for which she has planned a glorious fate: turn him into the emperor of the Sacrum Roman Empire. Years later, when princess Kristina of Norway arrives to Castille to marry Alfonso, she will have the bed socks in her hands. But how this could be possible? And above all, which is the mystery they hold?
Taking advantage of these true events, passionate and nearly unknown episodes of the history of the Spanish and Norwegian 13th century, Cristina Sánchez-Andrade builds a novel that becomes a touching and surprising fable.
The media coverage has been important in the last weeks and it´s just the beginning. One of the articles appeared here and another here.
Translation and film rights are available at the Pontas Agency.