Seville safeguards in its street map places that do not seem to be found in the city, more typical of a fictional novel. While books have the power to elevate the usual landscapes, recreate past times and contextualize problems in the streets we pass through. Seville is a favorite when it comes to serving as a film set. But it is undeniable that there are many books set in Seville that give us, in addition, unforgettable readings.
From Cervantes to Zorrilla, the librettos of the great operas or the series of the moment. We invite you to browse through these books loaded with ink and stories that take place in Seville.
1. Rialto 11 (Libros del Asteroide, 2019)
Rialto 11 is a story of devotion to books, the risk of entrepreneurship and life in general. Belén Rubiano narrates the vicissitudes, conversations, kindnesses and disappointments she experienced as a bookseller in the Rialto square in Seville.
2. Progenie (Alfaguara, 2o2o)
Progenie summons the lovers of crime novels through a text capable of integrating an addictive story, social denunciation and even comedy without renouncing to a genre perspective.
Winner of the Paco Camarasa Award and finalist of Valencia Negra, Progenie deals with the savage attack of a woman in the middle of a heat wave in Seville. The murderer in question inserted a pacifier in the victim’s mouth before escaping. Camino Vargos, head of the Homicide Group, will face this case that will give no respite to the reader.
3. The skin of the drum (Alfaguara, 1995)
The novel’s plot revolves around computer hackers, the Vatican and some suspicious deaths taking place in a Seville church. Reverte’s descriptions demonstrate the author’s non-negotiable attraction to Seville. While the book greatly highlights the Seville setting, the television adaptation failed to do the same.
4. The last roads of Antonio Machado. De Colliure a Sevilla (Espasa, 2019)
The hispanist Ian Gibson on this occasion traces the last years of Machado through his poetry, his testimonies and paths that led him, like many other intellectuals, to exile (and also to death) on French soil. A portrait of the immanent master of nostalgia whose link to Seville is undeniable.
5. Vozdevieja (Blackie Books, 2019)
Elisa Victoria makes her debut in novels with this story of the usual ones. Marina (or Vozdevieja, as she is called at school) is torn between childhood and adolescence in the suffocating summer of Seville that followed the Expo 92.
Vozdevieja is a text that explores the relationships between women in all kinds of settings and appeals to the transition to adolescence that often seems so alien. Elisa Victoria, of the literary revelations of recent years and her Vozdevieja one of the best books of 2019 and, of course, among those that happen in Seville.
6. Vengeance in Seville (Planeta, 2010)
Matilde Asensi sets this reputed historical novel in Seville in 1607. This is the second installment of a trilogy that revolves around the figure of Catalina Solís. On this occasion, the protagonist moves to Seville, one of the cities that enjoyed the greatest wealth in the seventeenth century to carry out the revenge she promised her father: to put an end to the Curvo family.
Of course, the characters will pass through places like the Cathedral, the Giralda and the Torre del Oro.
7. La reina descalza (DeBolsillo, 2013)
The Seville of the mid-eighteenth century is the setting of this fiction in which appear places as recognizable as Triana, the churches of San Jacinto and Santa Ana or the alley of San Miguel.
The protagonist of this novel is a gypsy from the neighborhood who will have to face a royal mandate that turns all gypsies into outlaws. Undoubtedly, Falcones’ is one of the best books set in Seville for history lovers.
8. La leyenda del ladrón (Planeta, 2012)
Get ready to be transported to 16th century Seville, to a fascinating universe of beggars and prostitutes, nobles and merchants, swordsmen and thieves.
Love, passion and revenge are the pillars of this masterful adventure novel. Specifically, it revolves around a boy mysteriously saved from death, who will grow up to become the last hope of the underprivileged. Sancho’s fate and that of those around him is rooted in the secret origins of literature.
9. The digital fortress (Booket, 1998)
Dan Brown’s first novel takes us from the streets of Seville to the skyscrapers of Tokyo in a fast-paced thriller. Cryptographer Susan Fletcher must confront a complex code intercepted by the NSA’s sophisticated supercomputer.
Fletcher will discover an intricate code that, if made public, would cause the greatest disaster in the history of the U.S. intelligence services. Susan Fletcher will be caught in a spiral of secrets and lies that will put her life at risk.
10. The Blind Man of Seville (RBA, 2004)
The protagonist of this novel is Javier Falcón, a homicide detective who must put an end to a murderer who is spreading terror in Seville.
The author did not opt for any topic and decided to introduce in the book all the Sevillian traditions. In it there is room for Easter, the April Fair and bullfighting.
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