The Diplomat
The diplomat Juan González-Barba has just published a new novel entitled “Seguiriya sudanesas”, which is set in Sudan, the country where he was Ambassador. The work, published by Sial Pygmalion, will be presented on 3 March at the National Historical Archive.
González-Barba, who was recently dismissed as Secretary of State for the European Union, after serious disagreements with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, began his literary incursions in 2010, with his first novel, “El corresponsal en Oriente Medio”, which was followed in 2018 by “Y la luna tocó el mar bajo Sevilla”.
Born in Seville, González-Barba was ambassador to Sudan between 2012 and 2015, after having been director general for Africa and the Middle East, which has allowed him to get to know these parts of the world well.
In “Seguiriyas sudanesas”, the author reflects both his Andalusian origins and his knowledge of a country that had the first Islamist regime in the Arab world, all with a large dose of humour, in a story that starts when in 2012, two national policemen assigned to the security team of the Embassy in Sudan decide to create, together with their chancellor, the flamenco group “Los niños de Cádiz”.
The promoters of the group enlisted as a dancer a Belgian anthropologist who was doing fieldwork in the Nuba Mountains and who had spent part of her youth in the Alpujarra. The group was an immediate success and entertained the Khartoum society. But its members, for different reasons, begin to frequent companies that end up provoking a diplomatic conflict. The main characters, basic and schematic at the beginning of the novel, gradually acquire density thanks to their amorous experiences and, above all, thanks to flamenco.
The novel also anticipates, in the relationships of the artists who make up the flamenco group, the resurgence of the two Spains, which would be accentuated in the following decade. Or rather, of the three, because one of the civil servant-artists is a fervent pro-independence man, but of the Andalusian nation. And, in the background, a tribute to García Lorca and Camarón from Sudanese lands.
