Desde mi ventana', Antonia Cortés's everyday look at the world

"I wanted to open the windows wide open, to look out and not just take the first glance, but to go further, to go into the protagonists of the news, into their feelings, and also to tell everyday stories that would surely not appear in the pages of the newspapers". With these words, journalist and writer Antonia Cortés explained the content of her latest book 'Desde mi ventana', published by Huerga y Fierro.

Accompanied by the playwright and journalist Ignacio Amestoy and the visual artist Suso33, authors of the prologue and the cover, Antonia Cortés presented in Madrid this book that gathers 55 columns published in La Tribuna de Ciudad Real, her homeland, between 2013 and 2021; some of them also in Diario16. Why these colleagues? asked the author. "Out of admiration and generosity, because they did not hesitate for a second to sail with me on this adventure". Of Amestoy, "a person full of wisdom", Cortés said that he has been and continues to be a faithful reader since 2005 when he began writing these articles under the direction of Conchi Sánchez; of Suso33, who wanted to share not only his enormous creativity but also his great sensitivity.

Amestoy took the floor who, after praising Suso33's cover and her artistic evolution, affirmed that Cortés is "a thoroughbred journalist, who knows the truths that shout out the customary events that take place in the rúa, as Antonio Machado said, and also the words that enclose the silences, as Pedro Salinas thought". For this journalist, the author's philosophy is that of "an exemplary resilient"; and her narrative, "an epic of everyday life, in an intense play between the synchrony of the instant and the diachrony of memory".

Amestoy also spoke of the author's sensitivity and strength, which can be seen in poems such as 'Caer', published in 'En un instante', foreword by Patxi Andión, and of her journalistic writing, which is "testimony to her contemporaneity as well as an enquiry into her circumstances, with precision in the description of environments and a scrupulous scalpel in the drawing of the human beings who swarm through her tough universe".

Suso33 explained how difficult it had been for him to create the cover "out of respect for the author and because he wanted to do it well" and how he visualised hundreds of photos of her graffiti in windows to outline what he was looking for until he arrived at the final idea. With this cover, she has tried to capture what inspires Antonia Cortés as a person and her writings: that open window that is also a book, the words and the characters that can be seen behind that gaze, the reddish image (her) that ends in a pen that continues to write, the sensitivity?

"Opening the window, which is nothing more than opening the heart and soul", said the author, hence her search for current affairs and everyday life, but mixing journalism and literature. In these pages, she said, the Manchester attack, the war in Syria, addiction to social networks, spring with coronavirus, cancer, Alzheimer's, racism, migration... together with non-news stories such as 'Mas que un café', 'Alvina, hija del viento', 'Jazz con un asesino', 'El primer sueldo', 'La llegada de la vejez'... Titles that show "enormous hearts that make this world a better place". He also writes about lies, evil, loneliness, memories, opportunities, illusions, changes, smiles, decisions, hope, tenderness, or sadness... "because life often strikes". And in this line are "the farewells for those who have gone, for those who continue to be", such as his father, Patxi Andión, the actor Pepe Martín and the poet Félix Grande.

The event concluded with the reading, together with the writer Rafael Soler, of the text 'Alvina, daughter of the wind', a true story centred on Mozambique, full of generosity and love for others.

The journalist and poet from La Mancha has been head of press and communications coordinator of the El Escorial Summer Courses for 17 years.