Salty Ceramics – Books and Literature

Review of the book “Salty Ceramics”, by Ángeles Carbajo

How important our origins are to understand ourselves, not only as individual beings, but as a collective, as a society. How wonderful to exercise gratitude towards our ancestors to prosper and understand our present. How indispensable, too, are our places of origin, that homeland, big or small, mental or physical, from which we come and that makes us who we are.

The writer Ángeles Carbajo gives us in salty pottery, edited by Books and Literature, a novel that delves into these themes exquisitely. A compendium of stories that intertwine, weaving the tapestry of memory of several generations from the Galician estuaries.

In this way, after a fire in the most important foundry in Spain, which would later become the Sargadelos ceramics factory, the author takes us to know Mateo’s fate. This young man, from Asturias, settles in Galicia trying to pursue his dreams in search of a better life.

In the mouth of its protagonist and, of course, in the mouth of all the neighbors who gather in the village taverns after a hard day’s work, we learn Mateo’s story. It was Don Antonio, considered one of the first businessmen, who, looking for the best land to establish his project, landed in Santiago de Sargadelos and founded the blacksmith shop.

Mateo was always a curious and imaginative child who was always thinking about creating a better world with the materials at his disposal. That first meeting with Valeria, who worked in the new ceramics factory, marked a change for Mateo. He already knew that his destiny was different, but from that day he knew that his place was in that factory and that is how, with tenacity and dedication, Mateo learned the trade and earned a very important place in the company. company.

There he will meet Juana, a strong woman, sure of herself and her power before men. So much so, that she is also sure that she has control over her boss, Don Mateo.

Little by little, among family entanglements, the coming generations develop. We meet Adolfo and Carlos and follow their adventures in that somewhat hostile territory. Their lives, foreign and different, end up crossing, just as those of their ancestors crossed without them even suspecting it.

Time passes between Cuba and Galicia, as do the lives of the two young people whose past unites them in this present and whose children, who knows, perhaps destiny will bring them together again.

I feel like I could tell you much more about its protagonists, but at the same time I think that telling you more about them would be revealing too much. Of course, this story is not written by them alone, but by their women, their neighbors, the noise of the waves crashing with the sand, the smell of saltpeter, the boat trips, the new opportunities, the hands of those who, with their effort , they forge the future day by day.

Salty pottery It is the story of several generations. It is the story of Galicia and its estuaries, of its workers, of its desires and harshness. It is also a story that is written from pain, impositions and secrets that will never see the light of day in a turbulent time of change and progress.

Accompanying all the characters that make up these generations is entering the history of Galicia, the history of their ancestors and, therefore, the past that makes up the present.

Ángeles Carbajo has written a novel that moves us, that invites us to reflect and that shakes us inside. A story told with force, but with a lyricism that manages to excite and captivate. Without a doubt, this new bet by the publisher Books and Literature It is a delight that you cannot miss.