Synopses & Reviews
The music started: two guitarists beating out more Alboreás.
The women took turns to dance in a frenzy, each trying to outdo the other. “Deep Song always sings in the night,” Lorca had written. It was the credo of the flamenco: a rejection of the mundane, the ordinary, the life of the everyday man, embracing, rather, an extreme world – extreme passions, extreme feelings, the extremes of life and death. And it was a way of life I wanted to believe in – its excitement, its danger, the affirmation it gave you that you were different, and alive.Destined for a sedate and predictable life in academia, Jason Webster was derailed in his early twenties when his first love, an aloof Florentine beauty, dumped him unceremoniously. Loveless and eager for adventure – and determined to fulfill a secret dream -- he left Oxford and headed for Spain, the country that had long captivated his imagination, and set off in search of duende, the intense and mysterious emotional state – part ecstasy, part melancholy – that is the essence of Spains signature art form: flamenco.
Duende is Websters captivating memoir of the years he spent in Spain pursuing his obsession. Studying flamenco guitar until his fingers bleed, he becomes involved in a passionate yet doomed affair with Lola, a flamenco dancer (and older woman) married to the gun-toting Vicente, only to flee the coastal city of Alicante in fear for his life. He ends up in Madrid, miserable and lovelorn, but its here that he has his first taste of the gritty world of flamencos progenitors – the Gypsies whose edgy lives and fervent commitment to the art of flamenco vividly illustrate the path to duende. Before long he is deeply immersed in a flamenco underworld that combines music and dance with drugs and crime. After two years Webster moves on to Granada where, bruised and battered, he reflects on his discovery of the emotional heart of Spain.
From the Hardcover edition.
Review
"Webster deserves praise for verbalizing an emotion that most people can only feel or imagine." Publishers Weekly
Review
"There are three great non-fiction books about Spain written by Englishmen. One is Laurie Lee's As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning, the other two are by Gerald Brenan: The Spanish Labyrinth and South from Granada. In my view, Jason Webster's Duende is very nearly up there in the pantheon.A powerful, dangerous book that will win many prizes.
Condé Nast Traveller (London)
Review
"This is a thoroughly good read. An honest attempt to explain a consuming passion, it?s a book where fact is definitely stranger and more convincing than fiction." Living Spain
Review
"A compelling account of a culture closed to most guiris (foreigners) and infinitely darker and more dramatic than the colourful tourist spectacles would have them believe." The Observer (London)
Review
"Duende is an impressive debut...We will be lucky if we see many such passionate and evocative travel books this year." Sunday Times (London)
Review
"Jason Webster is an exceptional writer, and this is a great book." Sunday Telegraph
Synopsis
Destined for a sedate and predictable life in academia, Jason Webster was derailed in his early twenties when his first love, an aloof Florentine beauty, dumped him unceremoniously. Loveless and eager for adventure and determined to fulfill a secret dream -- he left Oxford and headed for Spain, the country that had long captivated his imagination, and set off in search of duende, the intense and mysterious emotional state part ecstasy, part melancholy that is the essence of Spains signature art form: flamenco.
Duende is Websters captivating memoir of the years he spent in Spain pursuing his obsession. Studying flamenco guitar until his fingers bleed, he becomes involved in a passionate yet doomed affair with Lola, a flamenco dancer (and older woman) married to the gun-toting Vicente, only to flee the coastal city of Alicante in fear for his life. He ends up in Madrid, miserable and lovelorn, but its here that he has his first taste of the gritty world of flamencos progenitors the Gypsies whose edgy lives and fervent commitment to the art of flamenco vividly illustrate the path to duende. Before long he is deeply immersed in a flamenco underworld that combines music and dance with drugs and crime. After two years Webster moves on to Granada where, bruised and battered, he reflects on his discovery of the emotional heart of Spain.
About the Author
JASON WEBSTER was born near San Francisco and later moved to Europe as a child, living in England and Germany. He eventually ended up in Alexandria, Egypt, and then Spain, where he learned flamenco guitar and where he has been based on and off for the past ten years. He currently lives in Valencia, Spain, with the flamenco dancer Salud.
From the Hardcover edition.