Literature is a disease. Those of us who dedicate ourselves to this task live as slaves to the writing process. But not only that. Some people say that they write as a hobby or to pass the time, but I will never understand this statement. Writing arises from an obsessive, almost unhealthy drive towards a subject. Every author has his own work, and although similar events are described, not all works are the same. But this is the result of an obsession. No one loses hours of sleep, drink, or laughter by documenting, writing, or editing for hours; It is preferable to do other things that escape us. The creative process is almost like an Egyptian curse: no one comes out of it unscathed.
One Night the River Crossed by Manuel S. García Melero, published by Létrame Grupo Editorial with a foreword by Miguel Ors Montenegro, is one of Manuel’s obsessions. It is not insignificant that García Melero first focused on the famous Battle of the Ebro. Behind these pages is a work of documentation, travel, visits and readings with the meticulousness of a neurosurgeon. Anyone who knows Manuel knows his passion for this period of history and the African wars; One cannot be understood without the other. Therefore, we can say that this book was born out of a need: García Melero needed to search historical and historiographical sources to find the possible truth of the facts.
If we stick to the summary, it tells us what we will find: The Night the River Crossed deals with the previous events, the events themselves, and the consequences of one of the most epic and decisive battles of the Spanish Civil War. . Previous historical events, one hundred and fifteen days of conflicts in Catalan and Aragonese lands and their consequences. Considered from the national and republican side, the work covers the role of women in a wide period of our history, the leading role of which was inexorably ceded to men, or so it seemed. An account of the experiences of the participants in the Battle of the Ebro, the reasons why they turned to arms to defend one of the sides, and the experiences of those days between 25 July and 16 November. 1938 and how it all defines the future of the survivors…
We can say that we are not faced with another book about the Civil War. García Melero approaches the facts with complete objectivity and, in addition, adds value to the perspective of the women waiting for the soldiers, the women, girlfriends, mothers, sisters, the third party who actively suffers the consequences of everything. Manuel does not stop with anecdotes, he adds realism to the events by examining them in depth in common places. He provides the nuance of humanity through his prose, humanizing those on one side and those on the other. One Night the River Crossed is both an emotional and physical journey where the importance of events meets the importance of people. What we have before us is not a history thesis or a masterful lecture, but a portrait of the horrors of war and its consequences. Manuel García Melero manages to masterfully portray the human soul and shows it to us as it is, with its lights and shadows, like everything in life. García Melero took a giant step forward in terms of literature with this second work. We are looking at an emerging writer, a novelist in the broad sense of the word.