Spain is heading into a snap election, and judging by the country’s right and far right, you might think the place was somewhere between economic ruin and civilizational collapse. There is one awkward problem: reality. Spain is currently the fastest-growing major advanced economy, while employment has been hitting record highs. That doesn’t mean there aren’t…
Cáceres is bidding to become European Capital of Culture in 2031 under the banner of Transcultura: cultures crossing borders, mixing and becoming something new. Which is an excellent idea. Although apparently nobody told the Blues. This summer in Korhogo, Côte d’Ivoire, music drifting through my hotel window led me across a dirt road and into…
On a rock face beneath the castle in Monfragüe National Park in Spain, thousands of years of human communication seem compressed into a few metres of quartzite: prehistoric figures painted in ochre, then symbols, then an Iron Age inscription meant to be read. It looks like a journey forward, from image to language, from memory…
When people say Spain needs to “go back,” there’s an obvious question that rarely gets asked: back to where, exactly? Pick a year. Go back far enough and the nostalgia starts to look rather different. Married women needed their husbands’ permission to sign contracts, manage property or conduct business. Legal independence, privacy and freedoms we…
This week’s Camino a Ítaca grew out of two events that, taken separately, might seem unconnected. The first was the debate in the European Parliament over proposals that would make it easier to deport asylum seekers to third countries with which they have no meaningful connection. The second was much closer to home: the decision…
Every language reveals something about the people who speak it. As an English speaker who has spent years living in Spain, one of the things that continues to fascinate me is not simply the vocabulary of Spanish, but what that vocabulary suggests about the culture that produced it. Languages do not merely describe reality; they…
Marx, Castro, Lenin and the Pope are at the racetrack. The communists are studying the odds; the Pope is down in the paddock asking after the horse that nobody wants. As the new Pope prepares for a visit to Spain, an odd political spectacle is taking shape. The same far-right forces that eagerly borrow from…
Cáceres undergoes a curious transformation every spring. For one weekend, the medieval city fills with African percussion, NGO stalls, craft beer, dreadlocks and the language of global citizenship as WOMAD, the travelling world music festival founded by Peter Gabriel, arrives in town. Officially, it is a celebration of multicultural openness and artistic exchange. In reality,…
At the beginning of my book Stories Left in Stone: Trails and Tales in Cáceres, Spain, my friend Carlos Blay takes me deep into the Cueva de Maltravieso. There, in the dark, is the oldest known expressions of art in Europe (it was in the world until a recent discovery in Asia): a handprint on…
There’s a particular kind of pride that comes from arriving late to something and still acting as if you’ve nailed the timing. You missed the drinks, the good conversation, and whatever fleeting moment of relevance the whole thing once had—but at least you showed up with confidence. And really, isn’t that what matters? Extremadura, in…