by the El Reportero’s news services
With 65 years and equal number of presentations in Cuban cities, the famous rumba group Los Muñequitos de Matanzas celebrates its six and a half decades of life, Rafael Somavilla Provincial Center of Music (CPMRS) informed today.
The presentations began in April and will last until October, when the 9 of that month in 1952, in the bar El Gallo, of the popular neighborhood La Marina in this city, 100 kilometers east of Havana, the idea of founding the group emerged and was materialized.
The members of the group will also offer special presentations in hospitals, nursing homes and orphanages, schools and other centers, said Luis Ortega, promoter of the CPMRS.
“In June they will visit Germany, and in September Japan,” Ortega said in an interview.
Numerous specialists consider Los Muñequitos de Matanzas as one of the best exponents of rumba in Cuba, with all the flavor and irresistible cadence of that musical expression of the island.
How seven centuries of muslim rule in spain came to an end
The end of the last nazari kingdom in Granada that ended the muslim presence after seven centuries in the Ibero Peninsula is the roots of todays tensions between Islam and the West, according to a study of Cambridge University.
This is the conclution of Dra Elizabeth Drayson, British scholar after spending three years researching for her new book The Moor’s Last Stand: The life of Boabdil, Muslim King of Granada.
This book presents the poignant story of Boabdil, the last Muslim king of Granada. Betrayed by his family and undermined by faction and internal conflict, Boabdil was defeated in 1492 by the forces of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of the newly united kingdoms of Castile and Aragon.
The Christian victory marked the completion of the long Christian reconquest of Spain and ended seven centuries in which Christians, Muslims and Jews had, for the most part, lived peacefully and profitably together.
Five centuries after his death, Boabdil continues to be a potent symbol of resistance to the forces of western Christendom, and his image endures in contemporary culture.
Elizabeth Drayson presents a vivid account of Boabdil’s life and times and considers the impact of his defeat then and now.
Elizabeth Drayson teaches in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Cambridge. She is Lorna Close Fellow in Spanish at Murray Edwards College and lecturer in Spanish at Peterhouse. Her books include The King and the Whore: King Roderick and La Cava (2007) and The Lead Books of Granada (2013).
Germany to be guest country of Santa Cruz Book Fair
Germany will be the guest country of the 18th International Book Fair (FIL) of Santa Cruz, which will take place from May 31 to June 11 in that eastern Bolivian city, organizers informed.
During the literary event, considered Bolivia’s most important, Goethe Zentrum Institute will receive the annual prize of the Departmental Book Chamber for the work done for almost two decades in Santa Cruz.
‘We are committed to making the artistic expressions of Germany visible and strengthening cultural exchange with Bolivia,’ said the director of the center, Franz-Josef Kunz.
Spanish Almudena Grandes and Luis García Montero and German Gisbert Haefs are among the authors invited to the book fair.
