About the book
The writer Clara Fuertes vindicates the figure of María Casares on the centenary of her birth with the novel All the Hours of the Day.
María Casares was much more than the lover of Albert Camus and the daughter of the republican Santiago Casares Quiroga. María was, above all, one of the great figures of 20th century interpretation. An extraordinary actress who triumphed in French exile and frequented intellectual circles.
This is the story of a woman who lived and loved intensely.
«He played so many roles that he got lost in them. She shadow and light, everything and nothing, voice on stage, groundbreaking, uprooted, free, diva, simple, a woman I remember. A woman who deserves to be very present today, one hundred years later, who deserves to be recognized for everything she achieved for herself and not for being the daughter of… nor the lover of… María Casares is part of our history, of that history that “It still hurts us and confronts us, from that history that has not known how to reconcile.”
Clara Fuertes
Memories, confidences, love letters and an unbreakable passion are the threads of this fiction based on the life of María Casares. A woman who, as the daughter of the republican politician Santiago Casares Quiroga, suffered the heartbreak of leaving her Galician land when she was barely 14 years old. And as Camus’s lover, she knew what it was like to be in his shadow and in her light: Albert never left Francine, his wife, but he loved Maria madly.
María traveled a path of pain. Also of glory. The actress, who was born Spanish and died French, is considered one of the most notable of her generation.
María Casares was the muse of French existentialism. Beyond Camus’ texts, he was the soul and flesh on the stage of works by Sartre, Cocteau, Claudel, Genet… His freedom and drama gave him the necessary character to shake the scene. We can still enjoy his talent in films such as Orphée, by Cocteau, or The Reader, by Deville, the visible memory of who was recognized with the French Legion of Honor.
In All the Hours of the Day, Clara Fuertes gives voice to this extraordinary woman marked by the sea, theater, love and loneliness. She is a woman who always lived in a “state of emergency.”
Albert and Maria
María Casares’ love was reciprocated by Albert Camus, although shared with Francine, his wife. The writer and the actress loved each other for 16 years, until his death in a tragic accident.
Years later, María would continue to go to bed every night embracing the memory of the man of her life. Her correspondence attests to the depth of their relationship; Camus’s daughter, Catherine, also recognized that Mary was “the great love” of her father.
A life of a novel
Clara Fuertes picks up the baton of the letters and arms the voice of María Casares with her words. She listens to the absences and finds María and Albert, naked in the silences: «There is something that is only ours and where I always find you without effort. These are the hours that I remain silent…” (Camus to Casares, June 1944).
In All the Hours of the Day, Clara Fuertes narrates María’s life through her mouth, these chapters interrupted by those of a second voice, that of a journalist named Airas who writes a report about the great actress. An interesting crossroads that ends up painting the vital landscape of this great lady of theater from different angles.
Source: https://algunoslibrosbuenos.com/todas-las-horas-del-dia