The TIRANT Club stars this way a new activity from the friends and former students collective from the Universitat de València in which the writer talked with the members of the group about the winning novel of the Enric Valor Awards 2022.

Elvira Cambrils is convinced that brave and fighting women deserve the reward of reconciliation with life, for this reason in ‘Argila i Calç’, as in many other novels, she proposes a joie de vivre full of hope and harmony to overcome the obstacles.

Cambrils presents in this novel a double narrative line that are the two personal stories of the two feminine main characters, Amina Hodan and Blanca Miralles. In this way, the plot is shaped like a puzzle where, excerpt by excerpt, the current daily life and the historical portrait of their lives are configured and combined, as well as the lives of the people they love who pass through their surroundings.

Elvira Cambrils (Pego, 1955) is a Valencian narrator and novelist. Graduated in Philosophy from la Universitat de València, she obtained the professorship of Philosophy in Spanish upper secondary school education in 1981 and taught in Valencian secondary schools until 2015. She is the author of several novels, and has written a significant volume of publications, both narrative and short stories, which has allowed her to receive several literary awards.

The TIRANT Club has already advanced the readings for the 2024-25 course which will be: 'La promesa' (Les hores, 2022) by Damon Galgut next December 9; 'Les calces al sol' (La Campana, 2023) by Regina Rodríguez Sirvent on February 3, 2025; 'Els nens són reis' (Ed 62, 2022) by Delphine de Vigan on April 7; and 'La colònia' (Ed. del Periscopi, 2024) by Audrey Magee on June 2.

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The workshop of the painter Esteve Adam and the Ribalta of the Basilica of Algemesí
The next activity for the Alumni UV was a cultural visit to Algemesí on Friday 18 in the morning. Within the free program Alumni Comparteix, by initiative of the same members of the collective, and with the title 'Tradition and present in Algemesí', there was an outing guided by the Alumni Joan Vicent Esteve to the workshop of the painter Josep Esteve Adam, from which they then approached the Basilica of Sant Jaume Apòstol to contemplate the Ribalta que treasures the temple.

It is a very interesting proposal: in addition to the visit to the painter Esteve Adam in his studio -he paints contemporary Valencian landscape, from my point of view, very attractive-, we will go to see the Ribalta of the Basilica that have a great pictorial quality. We will see the ones on the main altar and also the ones they have in storage,” said the UV Alumni Office.

Josep Esteve was born in Algemesí (La Ribera) in 1946 and his first artistic training was with the local sculptor Leonardo Borràs After a period devoted to agriculture, he graduated in Fine Arts, where he was taught by professors such as Felipe Garín, Francesc Lozano, Lluís Arcas and Josep Amérigo, among others. In 1973 he won the landscape scholarship at El Paular, in Segovia, and later his gaze became steeped in the work of painters from all over the world. This has meant that in the end Esteve Adam's work has become a work with a very personal language.

A secondary school teacher, he has been able to combine teaching with artistic creation. His work consists of still lifes, portraits and, especially, landscapes, and has been recognised with various awards over the last few decades.

Alfons Cervera, at the QUIJOTE Club
The program of activities from October started on 1 October with the participation of the author read in the QUIJOTE Club, Alfons Cervera, who shared his evening in La Nau Cultural Centre from the University with the members of the lecture club in Spanish to comment on his last book, ‘El boxeador’ (Piel de Zapa, 2024), a Post-war story through which he insists on the necessity of “counting” so the word is not the same as silence. “I’ve said it and written about it many times: what we don’t share is as if it never existed”, affirms Cervera. And in 'El boxeador', Cervera pays tribute to written memory: “The final question is: if we do not write so that oblivion, fear and silence disappear from our lives, what the hell do we write for?”.

The Quixote Reading Club reading Club will end in 2024 with readings of the novels 'A Terrible Greenery' by Benjamin Labatut on 5 November and 'The Sky is Blue, the Earth is White' by Hiromi Kawakami on 10 December. The later, the great Japanese love story that has marked a landmark in contemporary literature, winner of the prestigious Tanizaki Prize.

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