Arrecife: Stories of the Old Port is now in bookstores, a work that takes a very unique tour of the history of the capital of Lanzarote. With a marked maritime and port air and a very unique tour of the history of the capital of Lanzarote. The project arose more than two years ago, when 'Ediciones Remotas', an editorial label based in the city, decided to prepare a publication to mark the 225th anniversary of the naming of Arrecife as a municipality, to claim the rich cultural and maritime legacy that the capital treasures.
The book, which has the support of the Culture Department of the city council, under the coordination of Abigail González Guillén, as a co-editing entity, will have its first presentation at the Agustín de la Hoz House of Culture on next Thursday, November 30 at 7:30 p.m.
The philologist Zebensuí Rodríguez has proposed for this commemoration a complete literary journey that does not forget the accompaniment of history and photography as the main visual reminder, although it also includes maps and illustrations: "This book begins by trying to explain how Arrecife has managed to become a city, what difficulties it has gone through to do so, what primordial place its port has occupied and what conditions have marked its current physiognomy. But with everything, the bulk of it consists of literary and expository texts that, giving meaning to the title of this work, are rescued here from oblivion to weave together the evolution of this enclave that was a port before a city."
Among the 26 selected stories, a temporal arc is covered that goes from the mid-18th century to the 21st century, with classic foreign authors such as George Glass, René Vernau or Olivia Stone, to others less known such as José Muñoz Gaviria, Viscount of Javier, or Henry M. Grey, whose story is translated into Spanish for the first time. Something similar occurs with the large list of Canarian and Lanzarote writers: Ángel Guerra, Benito Pérez Armas, Agustín Espinosa, Agustín de la Hoz, Leandro Perdomo, Miguel Pereyra de Armas, Abel Cabrera, Rafael Medina, etc. The typologies of texts are very broad, although it is focused on narrative. The only common link is Arrecife as the main stage.
The texts are accompanied by a wide selection of images from more than 20 different archives, several of which are outside the island. The work is also enriched by a complete historical introduction that helps to situate and contextualize the main milestones of a nucleus that was "a port before a city".
The selection of stories by the philologist Zebensuí Rodríguez
The selection of the stories and the writing of the historical introduction have been carried out by the philologist Zebensuí Rodríguez, who has been a professor at university centers such as the 'ULL' and the 'UNED', as well as the 'IES Las Salinas de Arrecife'. As a researcher, Rodríguez has been a member of the 'Andrés Bello' University Institute of Linguistics and a visiting researcher at the 'Ibero-American Institute of Berlin', in 2006. He has also published a score of articles in conference proceedings, national and international, and in specialized journals, as well as book chapters, on the Spanish spoken in the Canary Islands, the literary heritage of Lanzarote and the communicative approach in language teaching. He is also a member of the 'Editorial Board of the magazine Cálamo', of the 'FASPE'.
The designer Fernando Robayna, the photographer Rubén Acosta and the historian Mario Ferrer Peñate have also collaborated in the book.
