A year after the publication
of Noticias
del mundo real (News From the
Real World), the astonishing fourth novel which welcomed Juan Miñana into our ranks, we believed
it was time to give his many readers a treat and add his second novel to our
catalogue. El jaquemart is not only one of the best historical novels ever
written, but it also confirms the surprising sagacity of its young author and
the fine quality of his prose.
El
jaquemart (The Jaquemart) is an ambitious recreation
of 17th century Barcelona in. An extraordinary exercise in style and
narrative power, its protagonist is a clockmaker involved in an obstinate
personal struggle with time.
The plague is laying waste to
Barcelona during the last years of Felipe IV´s reign, when Buenaventura Deulocrega, master in arts and medicine, arrives at
Santa Cruz Hospital determined to help fight the epidemic. There, he gets to
know an enigmatic and sagacious character, Juan
de Ameno, the king´s clockmaker. Ameno
has asked for sanctuary in the private rooms of the hospital in order to be
able to complete what will be his final project: the manufacturing of a bronze jaquemart or automaton which will form part of the clock on the cathedral. From
this strange refuge, Buenaventura
and Juan de Ameno face the onslaughts
of these harsh times and forge a peculiar friendship bulwarked in a constant
recreation of the past, which through fables as intricate and subtle as
clockwork, appears to save them from the implacable passage of time.
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