Martin Amis has Ronda holiday after launching his new book
BESTSELLING author Martin Amis has been on holiday in Ronda after starring at this year’s Hay literary festival in Granada.
The award-winning writer has been staying at the finca where his mother has lived since the Franco days.
He travelled to Ronda after appearing alongside 50 other celebrated writers including Vikram Seth and Orham Pamuk, at the Spanish arm of the UK literary festival.
Taking place for the second time, Amis was interviewed by Hay director Peter Florence after giving a short reading from his new book The Pregnant Widow.
He told a large audience how it reflected the Sexual Revolution in the 1970s and described it as “very autobiographical”.
The novel is set in a castle in Italy during the early 1970s where, according to the publishers, “half a dozen young lives are afloat on the sea change”.
He also made headlines, when he said that Spain should be grateful to ETA for assassinating a former prime minister in line to replace dictator Franco.
“There are not many reasons to thank ETA for something, but in this case yes,” he told the audience.
Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco was assassinated in an ETA bomb blast in Madrid in December 1973 just six months after being named prime minister.
Amis is a regular visitor to Spain to see his mother and brother Philip, who also lives in Ronda. He is said to have part-written a number of books in Ronda, including The Rachel Papers.
Amis, the son of Sir Kingsley Amis – author of Lucky Jim – is now a grandfather: his daughter Delilah, from his first marriage, had a son last year.
The Hay Festival, that was born in the Welsh town of Hay-on-Wye 20 years ago, is expected to become a regular event in Granada.
Hay – a new Amis novel. Excellent!! Just what I need. I just finished listening to the 18CDs of London Fields, in my car on the way to and from work between Bundaberg and Innes Park, Qld Australia. Living with those characters, for about three months and as reprehensible though some of them may be, and about as far removed from where I lived as the moon, I cried at the end. Further convinced of Martin’s genius – his love for his characters, his use of the language. Superb really… cheers.