Pilar Sánchez Vicente wins the Historical Narrative Edhasa with a novel concerning the Asturian warriors of the Reconquista | Culture | EUROtoday

An epic novel and on a regular basis life starring Asturian Warriors girls who fought within the seventh century throughout the reconquest, on the time of Don Pelayo, has received the Historical Narrative Prize of Edhasa in his eighth version. The North Song, Subtitled “La Guerrera Astur”, by Pilar Sánchez Vicente, is the profitable work of this award for gender literature, endowed with 10,000 euros and a statuette, which on this case can also be of feminine gender. The novel narrates retrospectively, advised by one among its sisters with the dying protagonist, the adventures and feats of Sancha Asuera, the Astur warrior referred to as the Valentone, who has given rise to a tune of a deed on his exploits (the northern singing of the title), together with the reconquest of Cangas to the Saracens for Christianity.

Sanchez Vicente (Gijón, 63 years previous), who has collected the award in Barcelona, ​​is a historian, documentary and author with 12 novels revealed, together with a number of historic style and different police. The jury harassed that it’s a work “pleasant and exciting about warrior women who in the shadow of the mythical figure of King Pelayo fought and won battles.” And he added that the novel is “faithfully documented and agilely written” and that “transports the reader to the Asturian lands of the middle of the seventh century.”

In a morning “Asturiana, Calabobos included”, because the editor of Edhasa, Daniel Fernández, Sánchez Vicente has identified, harassed that past the battles, The North Song It is a novel of characters and with nice consideration to on a regular basis life, equivalent to markets. He has additionally harassed that Sancha Asuera is a historic character that we all know because of the Memories of Asturiasfrom the sixteenth -century Avilesino cleric Luis de Valdés, which, he recalled, defined how Don Pelayo was from Covadonga to Cangas de Onís, within the arms of the Muslims, and the warrior girls of his troop disguised themselves as Mooring Slaves escaped and thus managed to enter town “killing as lions and as Asturian brave, with their captain Sancha.” The warrior herself went out to obtain Pelayo with the keys of town in a supply “and presented them to the king with great horror and admiration of the entire army.” The novel recreates in a really thrilling method the episode of the ruse of Sancha, the taking of town and the reception to Pelayo, with the imposing warrior underneath his bear pores and skin.

Daniel Fernández recalled that not a few years in the past he refused that there may very well be girls warrior in history-Sergio Vila-Sanjuan, a jury member, has nuanced with humor that we all the time had Sigrid de Thule-, however that in latest instances the existence of warriors between peoples such because the Scites and the Vikings has been confirmed, along with gladiator girls, and novels and collection have been populated. He harassed that Sánchez Vicente offers a letter of nature and visibility now to the medieval Asturian warriors and does so with monumental realism and emotion.

“Finding that mention of Sancha Asuera and the warriors of Pelayo in the Memoirs of De Valdés was a gift,” defined the writer, who recalled that the cleric states that the ladies combatants demanded to gather a soldience as their comrades males. “I have tried to get inside and describe that world as it could have been,” he continued with a ardour that made her transfigurate right into a daring and that shouted to present her a sword to embody the Sancha Asuera that reveals very successfully the duvet of the e book, about to launch a mandoble.

The novelist, whose thesis was concerning the girl within the Middle Ages, wished, has immersed themselves within the magma from which the Women Guerreras Astures got here in and out that combination of historical past and legend that configures the reign of Pelayo and the battle of Covadonga. “I like border places and times,” mentioned Sánchez Vicente, who recalled that his novels all the time have feminine protagonists like Sancha and their captains.

https://elpais.com/cultura/2025-04-02/pilar-sanchez-vicente-gana-el-edhasa-de-narrativa-historica-con-una-novela-sobre-las-mujeres-guerreras-asturianas-de-la-reconquista.html