‘The four wounds’ of the two Spains: David Uclés creates a sound genre in a ‘podcast’ that expands ‘The peninsula of empty houses’ | Television

The four wounds it’s not a podcasts colloquial. It’s not even a sound fiction. It can’t even be considered a documentary. It is the way of David Uclés (Úbeda, Jaén, 35 years old), undoubtedly the literary phenomenon of the season, of continuing to fuel curiosity about the Spanish Civil War. The one that his generation and subsequent generations know so little about.

In the 700 pages of his novel, The peninsula of empty housesthe writer breaks every narrative structure and does so with this new project, together with SER Podcast. The four wounds In its four episodes we explore the origins, consequences and persistence of this conflict in today’s society. This 20-N launches its final chapter.

If Uclés’s successful book, of which more than 200,000 copies have already been sold, is linked to magical realism, The four wounds It’s closer to the kind of fantasy that offers leaps in time and space. In this fourth chapter, the writer concludes his analysis as he began it. The Ube man imagines himself in a space station, from which he observes with the greatest possible perspective the issue that Spain does not seem to know how to get rid of, half a century after Franco’s death. “My intention is not to get more wet than necessary and to pay homage to Carl Sagan and his followers Cosmosanalyze some sociological issues from a distance”, he himself tells EL PAíS in his home in Madrid.

As soon as he chats with a journalist or sings on the guitar, —I’ll hum it that is, an almost unreleased version of the My dear Spain by Cecilia—, invites the team of 1936the choral work by Andrés Lima, and asks one of his actors to reproduce the words of Queipo de Llano, a general considered by many historians to be a war criminal, and those of the writer Miguel de Unamuno. Uclés also goes to the high school to talk to a group of teenagers about who Franco was.

Unlike many other sonic narratives, the apparent chaos of a project born in a disorderly way ends up making full sense. It’s like a book without corners that doesn’t need to frame where it begins and where it ends. “I conceived of it the same way I conceive of literature: as a means for others to travel,” he says.

The curiosity of those new to the sector podcasts led the writer to experiment with sound, building this kaleidoscope of ideas. “It is a combination of elements, while remaining rigorous and faithful, which makes use not only of experts or historians, but also of people who lived it, like David’s grandmother, or people who didn’t live it and who don’t know what it was like, like those kids from the institute”, explains the project coordinator, Ana Alonso.

Uclés responds that it is necessary to recover the figure of Franco, although some Twitter users threaten and insult him because they believe it is a topic that should not be resumed, he confesses. “Just look at what is happening in the institutes. I don’t consider myself catastrophic if I say that the new generations will vote for the far right. It was a very well orchestrated process of reclamation by Vox through media like TikTok which resonated with young people,” he complains. “In my school we didn’t talk about the Republic, or Franco, or anything else. Because it wasn’t in the curriculum.”

But The four wounds It’s not meant to be a history lesson. Suddenly the voice of Iñaki Gabilondo, Pepe Sacristán, Berna González Harbor or Ian Gibson sounds. And that of Bernardo Pajares, half of podcasts compact artwhile describing a Goya painting to a blind visitor to the Prado Museum. The four wounds It leaves no room for the fast forward button. “It’s a podcasts “which requires the listener to be careful, because they don’t know what’s going to happen two minutes later,” says Alonso. Written and narrated by Uclés, these four episodes are produced by Valentina Rojo and starring Roberto García.

If it weren’t for the fact that those responsible wanted to launch it in its entirety to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of Franco’s death and the beginning of democracy, the project risked never finishing, because his team always had a new idea to experiment with, says its coordinator. There’s always a new voice to consult, a new wink or a new experiment to keep raising questions.

In the fourth and final episode, The four wounds It shows in a very particular way what 30 foreign citizens (speaking in 30 different languages) think about what happened in Spain in the 20th century. “And you realize that abroad they have a common idea. We are the ones who have a problem”, reveals the writer.

In that amalgam of ideas with which David Uclés tried to outline “this Cainite country in which it is so difficult for us to find the range of grey” the words of Clara Campoamor resurface: “No one has bothered to teach people that death and war are much easier than peace and life”.