Galego | English

Fiction

A estraña estrela

By Xabier López López

About this book

This is a extraordinary adventure novel that brings together historic facts with absolute fantasy. The main character is under the rule of supernatural laws. The story develops in a sort of Chinese-box structure. Turkish corsairs, renowned sailors, love and war, all appear in a narrative that sweeps the reader along with the sheer pleasure of storytelling.

Book fragment

Few ever heard of the meeting held at the Mesón do Bento, in the Terra de Ordes, between the Benedictine fathers Xerome Feixoo e Martiño Sarmiento when the latter was travelling through the Kingdom of Galicia, as our country was called then, despite the fact that it did not have any king or queen. Victory with her mighty finger had only allowed us to have one king, and a poor and timid one at that, a touch-me-not of a king, in the eyes of the winners and their history at least. It was not just a light snow fall but the coldest and thickest snow that was falling over Monte de Pantín, and in the noise of pousadas -- the animals already sleeping their tiredness in the stables -- they tried to fight the hunger of the journey with bread and the cold with warm wine, wine with honey, which was what the gods on Mount Olympus would prefer in their Hedonistic beds. Both of them came inside, after a small gap of time, panting and rubbing their hands, blabbering against the wind that swept the area and the thick curtain of snow that tried to slowly smother their lights. The fire in the hearth crackled, the pans were steaming in their stands, and two very wise and famous fathers had recognised one another because of the tonsure in their heads and the tired face of somebody come from afar.