A writer can be called someone like me who decides to measure himself in an opinion column like this, also someone who decides to write poetry, someone who writes a scientific or academic work, a screenwriter, an essayist, a journalist, thus being Dr. Ciro Alfonso Quiroz Otero, a criminal lawyer, born in the municipal seat of El Paso, has been a writer for a long time, as well as an emeritus professor at the National University of Colombia and a great speaker of the great lodge of Colombia, his first book ‘Vallenato, hombre y canto’ (1982) is among the most widely read and well-regarded works in terms of traditional music from the Caribbean.
Our region has very good writers, the intrinsic magic of the Caribbean together with the insightful narrative typical of those who experience events riddled with mysticism, makes poetry and prose abound among us, although to a lesser extent with high quality and rigor.
There are only four books that Quiroz Otero has written, in his more than 40 years as a writer, that is to say that on average he spends 10 years on each work, simply because he is a perfectionist, he writes, reads, rewrites, corrects, just when he has a mature, analyzed and rested document he dares to publish it.
The honor of being his countryman and friend has allowed me to live very closely the gestation and delivery of his last two books and I must say without fear of being wrong that his masterpiece is the novel that he has just released entitled ‘The Curse of the Artuz ‘. Here Ciro is consecrated as one of the best chroniclers of the country.
This story that at times seems like pure fiction, customary like no other, but that hooks you in such a way that it leads you to devour it and then to feel with the author that they were all facts of real life, only that they were told in exquisite prose that invites you to read it again.
The plot of this beautiful novel in which the tuquecas laugh, takes place in two towns of the old Magdalena Grande, which have beautiful stories: San Diego de Las Flores and San Antonio de El Paso del Adelantado, where a family headed by Masonic men, Under the pretext of preserving the purity of the race, he is inclined towards incestuous relationships, which causes an eternal curse that leads them from wealth to poverty and from lineage to plebeianity.
The death of Don Basilio Segundo Artuz, the central character of the novel, is Macondian like no other. “Intake of six iron spheres used by corn mills, every six hours, each accompanied by a glass of tamarind concentrate” … and took the iron balls to the grave.”
The writer Ciro Alfonso Quiroz Otero definitely took her out of the stadium with this novel. There, if you don’t read it, you can get it at the ‘Compae Chipuco’ store, in Plaza Alfonso López.
COLOPHON: Deep sadness and inconsolation is felt by the departure of a dear friend, composer, musician, arranger, music producer, who toured the country and abroad, next to the doctor Otto Serge, interpreting the romantic vallenato of the end of the last century. Rafael Ricardo Barrios was my set partner in a television program on the Claro channel, he recorded me ‘The Minor Meringue’ with Manuel Bustillo and he accompanied me on the accordion a song in tribute that I did to Leandro Díaz. Peace in his grave.