Today is the big day of this Jacobean year atypical, very different, gray and emptier than it would have been usual. But the Camino de Santiago will still be there and pilgrims from all over the world continue to visit it despite everything. There is lots of readings both specialized and fiction about him, his stories, mysteries or revelations. And the most are Testimonials of those pilgrims with or without names who have wanted to express their experience. This is one very short selection of a few titles.
Magic guide of the Camino de Santiago — Francisco Contreras-Gil
Published in 2015, author and publisher sell us this title as more than a guide. They propose a different Path from which not only is the basic information to undertake it or rediscover it, but also the data, places, stories and mysteries to complete what is often a unique and sometimes transformative experience.
They are more than two hundred places illustrated with images and in this edition there are two new sections of the Camino: from Saint Jean Pied de Port-Roncesvalles and Somport-Jaca to Compostela and Finisterre.
Legends of the Camino de Santiago: The Jacobean route through its rites, myths and legends - Juan García Atienza
Spinning with the previous title we have this one that focus more on those legends and myths on the Camino de Santiago. The author, a great researcher on the subject, shows us it from a perspective that aims to amaze us and pique our curiosity in equal measure. This is how, among many others, the story of the twelve sons of Saint Marcellus in Sahagún or stories about the arrival of Santiago's body to Galicia. Total, more than a hundred legends gathered.
It was published in 1998.
The Pilgrim's codex — jose louis corral
Focusing now on the countless fictional stories With the Camino in the background, we have this one by Jose Luis Corral, one of the great national names of historical novels. He published it in 2012 and the protagonists are Diego and Patricia, a couple of international traffickers of works of art. A French millionaire will hire them to steal the Codex Calixtino, a XNUMXth century manuscript that is kept in the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela.
And hidden by a medieval technique, in its pages it hides an unknown gospel where data about the history of the family of Jesus Christ, the origins of Christianity, the tomb of the Apostle Santiago and the cult of his alleged relics, which led to the development of the Camino.
The Soul of the Stones - Paloma Sánchez-Garnica
Published in 1989, the author takes us to year 824 , to a story that introduces us to three curious characters: the hermit Paio, Bishop Teodomiro and his assistant Martín de Bilibio, that one day they find a tumba. They claim that the remains belong to St. James and create like this, near the finish terrae or end of the world, the Iocus Sancti Jacobi.
Two centuries later a young noblewoman, Mabilia, that for a betrayal of her father is forced to enter a world of men, discovers, thanks to a stonemason, a mark on a stone that leads to La Inventio, a scroll written by the monk Martín de Bilibio in which the miraculous find what did you do. So Mabilia decides to accompany Arno, the stonemason, in search of the truth.
In that travel they will know both goodness, the construction of cities, monasteries, roads and bridges as well as the darker side of stonemasons and their strange work of "ripping the soul out of stones", to avoid oblivion.
pilgrimage - Matilde Asensi
Matilde Asensi published this novel in 2004 and it takes us to 1324. So the former gentleman hospitable Galcerán de Born, the perquisitore, worried about the news about the inappropriate behavior of your son Jonah in the court of Barcelona, he decides to write to him with very precise orders that he will become his free pilgrimage.
Thus, Jonas de Born, accompanied by a knight of Christ, will lend the solemn oath of initiatory chivalry, thus becoming a gentleman and champion of ancient Wisdom and Knowledge. For it, will walk the road of Santiago as one more pilgrim, he will reflect long and seriously on his future and will carry out all the rituals of his initiation.
The pilgrim - Isabel San Sebastián
Published in 2018, this novel takes us to the year 827 where Alfonso II the Chaste, King of Asturias and ally of Charlemagne, receives an extraordinary news at his court: In a forest next to Iria Flavia have appeared the remains of the apostle James. So he decides to go to the place to clarify the mystery.
In the entourage march noble entangled in intrigues, fierce military, captives Saracens o monks custodians of murky secrets in a faithful reflection of those turbulent times. Along with the king also goes Alana, hoping to find her missing son and the challenge of narrating, without knowing it, the first pilgrimage Jacobean of History.