Raúl Quinto wins the National Narrative Prize for his chronicle of the Great Raid that wanted to exterminate the Spanish gypsies

The Cartagena novelist Raul Quinto He has received the 2024 National Narrative Prize awarded by the Ministry of Culture thanks to his novel Shadow King’s Hammeredited by Jekyll & Jill. The ruling has highlighted the author’s work “for being a brilliant proposal that, situated on the border between genres, creates an original fictional essay of historical interpretation. With a style rich in nuances, lavish in metaphors and magnificent descriptions, Raúl Quinto presents a “a vigorous portrait of the period in which he accurately dissects the practices, conflicts and rites of the State of the Old Regime and the attempted extermination of a minority such as the gypsy people.”

Shadow King’s Hammer It is, according to the ruling, “a round novel, of great stylistic effort and fascinating games of perspectives that sheds light on a silenced and quite unknown part of the history of Spain.” In its pages, Quintus, narrates the story of the Great Roundup, a failed project to exterminate the gypsy people officially known as General Gypsy Prisonwhich began on July 30, 1749, under the reign of Ferdinand VI. The authorities snatched their victims from their homes in nightly raids and for 18 years – until they were finally granted pardon – They turned all “men over seven years of age” into forced labor, with an order of general imprisonment, and separated them from their wives and youngest children.who were taken to houses of mercy so that they could not reproduce again. Many of those families never saw each other again. The first night 2,000 people were arrested, and on subsequent days another 7,000.

“I am a teacher, I teach History at a high school. In the second year of high school we study the 18th century and we teach the Marques de la Ensenada a thousand times but The Great Raid never appears. Because? “I myself had only a vague idea that this had existed, until a professional magazine reached me in 2017 with an article about the persecution of gypsies in Spain,” Quinto explains to EL MUNDO. In that revelation the author found the topic for his novel, the historical and intellectual theme. “How is memory constructed? And, above all, how is oblivion constructed? In the case of gypsies, there is an obvious answer. The story of the gypsies has been told, until very recently, by non-gypsies. Now there are very complete studies but I thought it was still necessary to bring this story to the field of art and try to create an emotion.”

Shadow King’s Hammer It also explains that black history in rational terms. What logic did the Great Raid have for the State? “On the one hand, there was a large Navy modernization project. The Great Raid was the way to bring very cheap labor to shipyards. On the other hand, in Spain there was a tradition of persecution of gypsies. Since 1499 there have been 250 laws of repression. The use of the word gypsy was banned. It was a construction of brutal otherness“.

So much so that the enlightened society of the time did not question whether such a policy was something shameful. Among the gypsies there were many cases of resistance, “because the history of the gypsies is a history of resistance. The proof is that they are still here,” but the forced labor policy died with the change of king (Charles III replaced his brother Fernando), a little out of convenience and a little out of forgetfulness. Anti-gypsy policies would reappear shortly after.

“I am a writer who often goes over the edge,” says Quinto. “That means doubting a lot about what I write, about whether it can connect with anyone. My editors were great support. Now, the award confirms that the book has found its readers through word of mouth, that it has made a beautiful story” .

Raúl Quinto (1978) has a degree in Art History from the University of Granada and lives in Almería. He has written books of poems such as The skin of the watchman (DVD, 2005), The flower of torture (Renaissance, 2008), white noise (The Beautiful Warsaw, 2012), The broken tongue (La Bella Varsovia, 2019) or the notebook Sola (The Beautiful Warsaw, 2020). He has also published hybrid narrative books such as Idioteca, Yosotros (Trojan Horse, 2015) and Son (La Bella Warsaw, 2017). NOF4’s songhis previous novel, also published by Jekyll & Jill, told the true story of a disturbed man isolated from the world. Quinto is also one of the coordinators of the José Ángel Valente Faculty of Poetry and has collaborated as a critic in publications such as Quimera magazine.

The prize, which is endowed with 30.000 eurosrecognized Pilar Adón in its last edition, and has in its recent honors Marilar Aleixandre, Xesús Fraga, Juan Bonilla, Cristina Morales, Almudena Grandes, Fernando Aramburu and Cristina Fernández Cubas, among others.