El Océano de la Memoria / The Ocean of Memory

Paloma San Basilio debuta en el panorama literario con la historia de una saga familiar en Cádiz a lo largo del siglo XX.
Una novela deliciosa, bien documentada, que describe la vida de unos seres que intentan ser felices en medio de un tiempo convulso, en una España herida de posguerra.
Cádiz, 1936. No sin muchas dificultades llega al mundo Alba, la primogénita de una de las familias bodegueras con más solera de Cádiz, los Monasterio-Livingston. Una niña que destaca por su belleza y por el color de su pelo rojo fuego. Alba será testigo de los acontecimientos y las circunstancias difíciles que afectarán a su familia, a su madre, Alba Livingston Belacua, y a sus siete hermanos, Custo, Rocío, Lluvia y Mario, Santiago, Luna y Carlos, y asistirá perpleja a los caprichos que el destino les tiene reservados -Rocío se casará y se mudará a México, la tierra de su marido, con la intención de formar un hogar; Mario decidirá trasladarse a Colombia con su amigo Miguel para ejercer la medicina y allí descubrirá junto a él nuevas formas de amar, aunque también será golpeado por el terrorismo; o Luna, un ser especial que parece estar hecho de mar- mientras lucha por defender un amor al que se ha visto obligada y que permanece inalterable al paso de los años. Paloma San Basilio construye una novela llena de reminiscencias, que es Cádiz, pero también México y Colombia. La historia de unos individuos que tratan de cumplir sus sueños y deseos en contra de los convencionalismos de una época llena de tabúes, de vacíos, de sombras... Una lucha en contra de un destino que parece escrito. ENGLISH DESCRIPTION Paloma San Basilio's first novel is both moving and exciting. Her book is based on her memories, her childhood, her first loves; on how she got her start, on Eurovision and Evita. It also reveals dark times in her life. It will cause controversy and excitement. "My name is Alba Monasterio. I was born in '36, in the middle of the war. My mother nursed me until I was three years old, and my father was taken prisoner simply for baptizing me. He was freed by an anarchist who thought that my father had the right to act according to his own conscience. If the tribunal had been presided over by someone else, none of my siblings would have been born and therefore this story would not exist. My father's red beard, upon his return, made it clear to me why my own mane was the color of fire in the winter ... but I'm not the focus of this tale. I just want to tell the truth about what happened from then until now. Why so many things were kept secret and others disguised. I want to tell my memory of a family that, with its lights and shadows, was simply a reflection of a time and a hypocritical society in which nothing could be as it was, and everything had to appear exactly as society considered correct, although many feelings and many lives were lost along the way. [...] I just wanted to explain in broad terms the cause of these pages and the unbelievable fact that it has fallen to me, as the only living witness and against all odds, to truthfully and masterfully paint the history of the Monasterio family, my family, one more family in an anguished, scared, and wounded post-war Spain." Thus begins our first taste of fiction by Paloma San Basilio, a woman who has done it all, always with success and professionalism, throughout her extensive career.