Thank you for visiting my web and spending your time with me. Here you will find my opinions about some social matters (http://araanton.blogspot.com) and the inspirations for my novels, drawn from experiences, obsessions and the incomprehensible interest for some specific times in history.
I was born and live in León, seat of the ancient Kingdom of León were Spain emerges, from the laden of the men and women engaged in the liberation of their lands and to boost their culture. Here I carried out as a teacher, which I left to entirely dedicate to historical investigation and novel writing.

The Veil an The Only Gatway

As I sat around the table chatting with my daughters, near to the Basilica of Saint Isidoro, trying to explain to them that the fact of being a woman would not close them any doors if they knew how to get on with life. I then remembered that Urraca, the Infanta of León, sister of Alphonso VI, Imperator totius Hispaniae, even from behind scenes knew how to impose her will, and with time it has been proven that her decisions were the most convenient for the kingdom. It was at that moment that I realised I had to write about her, as an exponent of the capacities of feminine power, which even a veil, was unable to cover or overturn.
The investigation about her life, lead me to discover fascinating characters like her father, Ferdinard I, king of León, , or her mother Sancha, who just as Urraca would later do, participated in the major discussions that the government of the Kingdom had to make.
What at first was supposed to be a small story turned up more than four hundred pages, which had to be divided by into two books, The Veil and The Only Gateway. That way I could present the first book to the narrative contest “Camilo José Cela de la Diputación de Guadalajara” and that was how I obtained my first literary acknowledgement.
The Veil winner of the the narrative contest Camilo José Cela de la Diputación de Guadalajara 1997.

Legends of Love and Death

That’s the way the relations have always been between these two lands, Castile and León. United and separated on numerous occasions along the times, engaged in the bloodiest of conflicts and then swear a never ending friendship against a common enemy.
I wanted to give an idea about their soul recreating old legends from each side. I have to confess that my favourites are those that refer to the kingdom of León.

The sources of life

This novel is set in an old spa, where the building still stands in Boñar, a village in the mountain range of León. The natural hot mineral water, considered practically supernatural with the studies that were made at the time. It still flows on the surroundings, as it did in Roman times, but now a days nobody gives it the value that it always had had. It was the carelessness and the abandonment that surrounds the area, where grief and hope can still be sensed. This took me to write with today’s eyes and the thoughts of the past. With this novel I obtained the first prize of the narrative contest of the city of Majadahonda. 2003.

Winged backs

An Augustine priest, Father Luis Estrada, my late friend, one day suggested me a theme that scared me, but I accepted the challenge which represented to write a about Saint Augustine in a painlessly manner, so it could be read by anyone who did not know his life and work.
So a new book on Augustine was born, in a complicated society, which was already suffering the fall of the Roman Empire. Whilst I investigated the period it appeared to me dramatically similar to our moment in time.

Astures, the last bastion against Rome

This book recreates the customs of the Pre-Romanic tribes which lived on the banks of the Astura, our now called river Esla. Because of their fierce determination for liberty, they complicated the Roman conquest of Hispania, up to the point that Augustus had to assume the command of the invasion.
The Cantabri and Astures people, and not others, were the last to surrender to the Romans. My aim was to rescue these memories, from the factual history, recalling the events into a novel, because it looks like there are interests to forget or fade them away.

Un pueblo sin tele ni tele (Narrativa Infantil y Juvenil)

Frente a la triste despoblación de nuestro medio rural y la falta de valores, como la igualdad, la tolerancia, la generosidad... nace esta historia de dos chicos de ciudad, que se ven obligados, contra su voluntad, a pasar un tiempo en un pequeño pueblo. Allí surge lo inesperado y se ven inmersos en extrañas aventuras, conducidos por dos compañeros que parecen conocer muy bien los misterios de la aldea. La temida estancia lejos de la ciudad y de sus habituales entretenimientos dará lugar a la vivencia de un verano mágico.
Y, contra todas las tendencias modernas, sí que, al igual que los mitos, leyendas y cuentos de nuestros mayores, quiere dar explicación al entorno y enseñar algo que a los jóvenes lectores les ayude a integrarse en una sociedad cada vez más deshumanizada y exigente.

The stubbornness of the labyrinth

This book arose from a reflection, but more to my astonishment of an incomprehensible situation. I went to a funeral to pay my respects to an acquaintance. He had lost his wife after a long illness, she was just over fifty. She had been a great professional and a good wife who fought many years to bring up her troublesome children. But despite al that and having in mind she left as too soon, no one was crying. The closed coffin was surrounded by flowers -basically because that was aesthetically correct- her relatives were receiving the visits and making the appropriate greetings and presentations and even settling some business.
I then recalled those old-styled funerals where it seemed that the tears from the family were just not enough; to achieve a sadder atmosphere professional mourners were hired. They would weep, wail, and even rip off their hair.
Perhaps the surroundings of death is just a trend? and if it is, should we laugh at it?
That is what this book pretends: laugh at our vital efforts and transcendental questions, including the most enigmatic and terrible of all. What is death?

Un pueblo mágico... a veces

I wrote “Un pueblo mágico... a veces”, second part of “Un pueblo sin tele ni tele”, simply because the children from the schools that had red it asked me to. I never had the intention to do it. I doubted the acceptation that the story would have with them, as they are used to entertainments like violence, full of meaninglessness with lack of values and feelings which seems to be the norms nowadays; but it seems that they've liked a story that miss all those ingredients and that emphasizes on the exact contrary; and that  made me think. I believe that we are not educating as we should; And it's not that the kids require determined paths, we put them in front of them so they can follow us.  We should rethink the great responsibility that we carry when we encourage the dark side of humanity, forgetting its bright side, that's capable of  making a better world.
Two brothers who support complex problems join the four members of the first part, in the midst of great adventures, the troubles are overcome with the solidarity of all.