Santiago Posteguillo

Santiago Posteguillo Gómez
Born 1967
Valencia
Occupation University professor; novelist
Language Spanish
Nationality Spanish
Alma mater University of Valencia
Period current
Genre Historical novel
Subject Ancient Rome
Notable works Scipio Africanus trilogy
Notable awards Best Historical Novelist award, Hislibris 2009; Valencian Literature Award, 2010
Website
www.santiagoposteguillo.es

Santiago Posteguillo Gómez is a Spanish philologist, linguist and author, born in Valencia in 1967. He has become known for a number of novels set in Ancient Rome, especially his Scipio Africanus trilogy.

Biography

In his beginnings as a writer during adolescence, he was interested in crime fiction, but was during his infance at the age of six when his passion for ancient Rome was born after visiting the Italian capital and being shocked by what he saw.

Santiago Posteguillo achieved his doctorate at the University of Valencia. He went on to study creative literature in the United States at Denison University, in Granville, and linguistics and translation at several universities in Great Britain.[1]

He is currently senior lecturer in English Language and Linguistics at the Universitat Jaume I, Castellón, Spain, specialising in 19th-century fiction. He pays attention to the Elizabethan theater and the relationship between English and American literature with film, music and other arts. Despite being able to live with the benefits of his excellent novels, he loves his profession at the university, which allows him to keep in touch with the youth, which is considered an extraordinary source of knowledge. He is also president of the European Association of Languages for Specific Purposes (AELFE), and a member of the Editorial Board of the international journals English for Specific Purposes and Written Communication. He is author of over seventy academic publications, including Netlinguistics: Language, Discourse and Ideology in Internet (2003) and the Spanish Computing Dictionary: English-Spanish, Spanish-English (2004).[2] He lives in Puzolfrom the county of Huerta Norte, in the Valencian Community, Spain. The Town dates back to Roman times, being considered a strategic point because of its location between the Mediterranean Sea and the mountains.

As a collaborator for the newspaper Las Provincias, He had demonstrated with the Booksellers Guild Award and with a nomination for the Valencian Association of Writers and Literary Critics that he is one of the greatest novelists of Roman history that has broken through with other international authors. The Valencian writer, who has made thousands of people interested in the history of ancient Rome, has become a reference for readers. "What catches my attention in dialogue with readers is the variety of them. I have readers from 10 to 98 years, and a variety of professional interests", says Posteguillo. His first novel, Africanus: Son of the Consul (Africanus: el hijo del cónsul), was published in 2006 and formed the first part of his trilogy on Scipio Africanus, the Roman general who defeated Hannibal in the Battle of Zama. The second part, The Accursed Legions (Las legiones malditas), was published in 2008, and by 2013 had reached its ninth edition.[3] The final part, The Betrayal of Rome (La traición de Roma), came out in 2009. The same year he revised the three novels, now bestsellers.[4] In 2011 he published The Emperor's Assassins (Los asesinos del emperador), the first part of a new trilogy about the ascent to the throne of Trajan, the first Roman emperor of Spanish origin.The trilogy that began with this bestseller, continues in Circus Maximus, published on August 29, 2013. A shocking and extraordinary story, where Trajan, already emperor, must face a river of problems: Battles, conspirations, corruption, false accusations, love complications, where we will be surprised by some events like the conquest of Dacia(actual Romania), or the construction of the longest bridge in the ancient world. Posteguillo is now working on the third novel of the trilogy of Trajan. Expected in the spring of 2016.

He has said of his writing: "My career is basically an academic one, in the university, but I've always had an interest in writing. Indeed, Africanus: Son of the Consul wasn't the first novel I wrote, but the third: that's to say, the third I've completely finished. The first two didn't get published and, looking back, that may be for the best".[5] Posteguillo goes on to say that he started by writing crime novels, and that during his time as a student at Valencia he used to write poetry. "Writing poetry is always useful because it makes you polish your writing, broaden the vocabulary, master the flow of the words a little more. I was not a good poet, but in that way it helped me".[5] Posteguillo greatly appreciates the distinction of booksellers. Affirms that is grateful, and that he would try to continue working with them doing so many signatures into their establishments as it is physically possible, as recorded on the website of the Book Fest of Valencia. He says in articles published in the newspaper that he enormously laments the cultural impoverishment that brings piracy, affecting, in his opinion, to new authors or works published.

Awards

Works

Scipio Africanus trilogy

The first trilogy published. The author reconstructs ancient Rome during the republic. He creates a well made and investigated plot, including events and real characters of the history of Rome.

At the end of the 3rd century BC., Rome was nearly to fall into destruction, by action of the Carthaginian army under the command of one of the greatest military strategists of history, Hannibal Barca. His alliance with Philip V of Macedonia planned the annihilation of Rome as a state and the division of the powers between Carthage and Macedonia. But fortune intervened to change this fact. A few years before the war started, a child who was destined to change the course of history was born: Scipio.

Scipio, known by the name of Africanus, who received many of the military qualities of his father and uncle, had also created some important enemies: Hasdrubal, brother of Hannibal; and the Punic general Giscón. Enemies also survive in Rome, where Senator Maximus Q. Fabius, forced Scipio to accept the task of leading the legions V and VI which stayed neglected for a long time in Sicily.

The author closes the questions that have been opened in the previous two novels

Trajan trilogy

September 18 of the year 96 A.D. A perfect plan. A day designed to write the story. But everything goes wrong. Then we only improvise: a civil war, the Colosseum, the Praetorian Guard and border wars, poisonings, informers and poets, fighting in sand, Christians and martyrs, executions, the last disciple of Christ and the Apocalypse, the rise and fall of an imperial dynasty. Marcus Ulpius Trajan, the promotion of a new dynasty and thirty five years of Roman history .September 18, year 96 AD. A group of gladiators. Nothing can stop them. Even the story.

Second novel where the emperor Trajan returns. This time, his life is in danger. An assassination plot is being prepared. A fascinating novel of betrayal, war and love in times of the Caesars.

Non-fiction

With form of independent short stories, the author takes a look at some events of literature, revealing some of its secrets: the real writers of the works of Shakespeare or the real discoverer of the potential of Harry Potter.

References

  1. ↑ Biography of Posteguillo on his official website; accessed 14 October 2011
  2. ↑ Goodreads website
  3. ↑ New Spanish Books
  4. ↑ Bestseller from Valencia, Las Provincias, 22.11.2009; accessed 14 October 2011
  5. 1 2 Mónica Fuentes, “Africanus, Son of the Consul" is a novel for learning about ancient Rome in an easy and entertaining way, interview with Posteguillo, Espéculo magazine No. 34, 2007; accessed 14 October 2011
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