The Book of Sol

In Sol, the Polish, Spanish and Mexican cultures converge. In the same way, her story jumps from one side of the Atlantic Ocean to the other one, several times. Because Sol story is rich and diverse. It’s the story of Poland and its communism, of Spain and its Civil War, of Mexico and its Revolution. It is the story of the 20th Century, of the Second World War and of Globalization. In her, the fall of the Berlin Wall is told, like that of the Spanish exile in Mexico, or the Solidarity movement in Poland. All this was happening in the world of the great grandparents, the grandparents and the parents of Sol, while they were living their lives and making their plans; while they were falling in love, studying or working, buying houses o paying rents. How can you ignore all that richness? How can you ignore all those lives? All those experiences? All that knowledge..?

This book’s goal is to save all that life from being forgotten forever. That way, maybe one day in the future, Sol will grab from a bookshelf a book covered in dust and will start the history of her ancestors. And she will discover that once there was a Lela who, being still a child, crossed the Atlantic to save her cousin from the horrors of the Spanish Civil War. She will find out that her great grandfather fought the Nazis in the Second World War, and that another of her great grandfathers lost his family in the Mexican Revolution and was raised by a peasant that used to be his servant. She might discover that one day some film students made a movie about grandma Ula and that grandma Sol is the reason she got such a beautiful name. 

So many stories, in so many years of the life of so many people. Someone could see this as a burden, but in reality, it’s a blessing. Sol story is also a letter sent in a bottle to the sea of the future, as proof of the existence of all these amazing people. Maybe this book is just that. A footprint, a proof of existence, just like that man did thousands of years ago by painting in the walls of some caves. He only painted a few mammoths and some guys chasing them with spears on their hands, but that was enough to let us know about their existence, right? 

I would like to be able to take a picture of all our ancestors and leave it to Sol, and maybe to some anonym grandson from the future. But, how do you take a picture of the life of the people? It’s impossible to portray in an image the relationships of men and women, their problems, their greatness, their greed, and their misery. How can you print in an image time and ideas? I require the limitations of language and its structure, to peel off life as if it were an onion, layer by layer, trying to discover its secret before getting to the last layer. This way, words are my knife that cut the onion and make your eyes cry because there, hidden between the layers, is life itself. 

However, life is not something that is there to keep it, it’s not something that you can define and grab to show to someone in the future. Life goes by. Life has to be lived. But you can’t define it. If I’m good at what I do, I may be able to impregnate pieces of life in the following pages, just like the scent of wood impregnates the good wines. The wood is not in the wine, but it keeps its essence. That’s all I have to offer, I’d like to be able to do more, but I trust that Sol will be more understanding than the men and women of our time. I don’t give you wood my baby, but its essence. I don’t give you a picture, but a story that will make you cry.