The Ugly Bourgeoisie Editions just launched The Penicillin Man and Other Stories, a work by the Murcian author, based in Madrid, Ignacio RamosThe presentation will be on next Thursday, May 30, in his Caravaca The event will be held at the Convent of the Carmelite Fathers at 8:30 p.m., and the author will be accompanied by journalist Juan de Dios Martínez Mateo and the editor of The Ugly Bourgeoisie Francisco Marín.
The Penicillin Man and Other Stories It is set in the humble and harsh landscape of the fields of northwestern Murcia, in the solitude of stones that dot the mountainsides, or in the orchards formed by patched terraces, where the endearing people who inhabit this book live, work, love, cry, and laugh. They are simple people, of whom no record will ever remain; oblivious to the flash of memorable deeds, but with deep souls that suffer the pain that so often visits them, and feel the tenderness of seeing the birth of a child, a lamb, a bird... And they love with a silent heart, almost without proclaiming it.
Some may underestimate these villagers, but they are the ones who dug their gardens with their claws, who worked these lands with their sweat, who leveled the hills, festooned their terraces with banks, and carried water from the springs in ditches to carry it to their crops; they sowed and harvested the wheat that gave the rest of us our bread. Yes, they were important people, even if we never recognize their merits.
In the mid-20th century, with the wounds of the civil war still fresh, life in these camps was even more difficult. And although sometimes living was so hard that dying meant eternal rest, people fought for survival, to support their families, to improve their precarious situation. These stories belong to those brutal years, but searching for the good within them, which there was.
Thus, within the pages of The Penicillin Man, we find Petra the Piconera, protecting her children, even if she had to hide behind lies; the wife of Púa, enduring her role as a submissive wife; the brothers of the river, fighting against nature; Julián, forging his pride with blows of the hoe… Among them, we also find Fidel and Antoñita, defending their fairground love; Perico the Fool, anxiously seeking affection; Doña Mercedes, refusing to admit her loneliness; the sisters Matilde and Teresita, earning their heaven among pots; the miller's daughter, her love devoured by wolves… And, finally, the “penicillin man,” a kind of magician arrived from civilization, determined to overcome difficulties and dangers to save the sick and those in love.
Biography
Ignacio Ramos He was born in Barranda (Caravaca de la Cruz, Murcia) in June 1936. He studied high school in Caravaca de la Cruz and Murcia, and journalism in Madrid. He was an editor at the newspaper La Verdad de Murcia; he later moved to El Alcázar, where he left with the founding team of Nuevo Diario (Madrid), a newspaper where he served as Chief Reporter, Editor-in-Chief, Deputy Editor, and Acting Editor. He later joined ABC, where he was Editor-in-Chief under José Luis Cebrián and Guillermo Luca de Tena, and Deputy Editor with Luis María Ansón. In magazines, he was Head of News at La Actualidad Española and Deputy Editor at Época, where he worked with Jaime Campmany until his retirement. A regular contributor to Hermano Lobo since its founding, he has written works for various publications. He has published novels such as The beautiful and hard land and Nazario Sánchez's last harvest.
With the publication of The Penicillin Man and Other Stories, The Ugly Bourgeoisie, a publishing house founded to highlight the cultural buzz of our region and give a voice to new and established authors, brings a series of magnificent stories to readers' hands that will delight them. And it's maintaining the price of €10 per copy.
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