A POEM A DAY - ECHOES OF THE PAST


Last night I went to the presentation of a local author's new novel based on the history of my village. The novel 'Tot és una llarga nit' by Joan Elies Andres tells the story of the kidnapping of the  Duke of Parcent as he took over the Baronia in 1529 by 600 pirates who had marched from the coastal town of Altea, over the hills and down through the 'Coll de Rates' pass to the village. This story, full of details of the barbaric treatment of those captured and enslaved  added to my knowledge of the banishing of the Moorish population of this area and the violence inflicted on the peaceful and cultured population at that time. This image I saw in an olive trunk on an abandoned terrace, in a landscape developed by these people made me think what the land had witnessed from its neolithic history to our present day. 

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