THE READER’S EAR: THE ART OF SPINNING A YARN

On the 16^th of June, 1816, a group of legendary writers gathered around a fireplace in Villa Diodati’s living room, near lake Geneva, and played a game inventing horror stories.   From that meeting emerged, engendered in the mind of the only woman present, the most licentious story on loneliness and the desire for love that had ever been given to the literary world: Frankenstein or the modern Prometheus.   There have been many attempts to repeat that unrepeatable night. The last of these attempts has been “Mary Shelley’s Sons”.   The radio program “The Art of Spinning a Yarn” forms part of Casa de Lector’s project “The Reader’s Ear”, and hosts two of Mary Shelley’s famous sons so we can enjoy their best stories.   Web
Fernando Marías: In 1975 he moved to Madrid with the intention of studying cinema, and then settled in the city. He got into narrative through television scriptwriting, most notably a series of mockumentaries called Hidden Pages of History. In 1990 he wrote his first novel Prodigious Light, which started off his career as a novelist. Among his narrative works are: Prodigious Light (1990), I Will Die Tonight (1992) Hidden Pages of History (1997), also written, in collaboration with the writer bilbaníoJuan Bas, the film The Fabulous Men (1998), The Colonels’ Boy (2001), The Battle of Matxitxako (2001), The Woman with Grey Wings (2003), and Invader (2004). He was awarded the Premio Dulce Chacón de Narrativa Española, 2005, and wrote Down to the Sky (2005), The World Ends Everyday (2005), Zara and the Baghdad Booksellers (2008). He was also awarded the Premio Gran Angular, 2008 for All the Love and Most of the Death (2010), and received the Premio Primavera, 2010 for The Silence Moves (2010).   Luisgé Martín: (Madrid, 1962) graduated in Spanish Philology from the Universidad Complutense, Madrid and has an MBA from the Instituto de Empressa. In the literary field he has published books of stories, such as The Dark Ones (Alfaguara, 1990) and The Hedgehog’s Soul (Alfaguara, 2002); novels, such as Sweet Anger (Alfaguara, 1995), The Death of Tadizo (Alfaguara, 2000, winner of the Premio Ramón Gómez de la Serna), The Trusting Lovers (Alfaguara 2005), and The Cut Hands (Alfaguara, 2009); as well as a collection of letters, Sex Lover Looking for a Morbid Couple (Themes of Today, 2002). Furthermore he has participated in group written story books. In 2009 he won the Premio Antonio Machado with the story “The Happiest Years” and in 2012 he won the Premio Mario Vargas Llosa with “The Teeth of Chance”. He occasionally collaborates as a columnist with El Viajero, Babelia, El País and other periodicals. In 2012 he published his latest novel, Lady in the Shade, in Anagrama.