This Sunday 28 at 19:00 at the Casa da Cultura from Pobra do Brollón, the writer from Chantado Amador Castro Moure, winner of the 2019 General Awards for best novel for Shanghai to Barcelona, will present his novel Pillabán, pillabán, set in the times of Maria Castaña.
It is precisely this expression – ‘the times of María Castaña’ – that made the character known throughout the State. But few know her history and origin. In the search to know more, this is how the writer Amador Castro Moure ended up in the parish of Brollo in Cherry.
“María Castaña represents the rebellion against the abuses of power that characterizes the people of Guimarães. Any initiative that helps unite around our identity as a people is more than welcome,” she says. Ricardo Rodicio, councilor for Culture of A Pobra.
The residents of Cereixa have always talked about their medieval neighbor María Castaña, even locating her supposed house. Such is the importance of the character in the parish that the Neighbors' Association is named after her. A member of the association, the archaeologist and historian Xurxo Ayán, researched its history and found the little medieval documentation that existed.
In the process of creating the novel, Amador Castro met with Ayán and went to see firsthand the place of origin of María Castaña. The welcome by the locals, the stories they told him, encouraged the novelist to create his novel Pillabán, Pillabán. “The locals of Cereixa were the ones who motivated me to continue with the novel,” says Amador Castro.
Pillabán, Pillabán captures this research process, although Amador Castro emphasizes the fictional nature of the book. “María Castaña has a constant, but absent, presence”, notes the author. The novel starts from a family reunion of María Castaña’s children, some forty years after the loss of the family’s assets, to recount a tumultuous Galicia amidst abuses of power.
This Sunday 28th the novelist will be in A Pobra do Brollón to present the book together with Xurxo Ayán. It will be at 7:00 pm in the Casa da Cultura ‘Olga Novo’. The presentation of Pillabán, Pillabán is part of a wide cultural offer this summer in A Pobra do Brollón and which can be consulted on the website and networks of the City Council.
