Being a war reporter gives a lot of narrative juice. Tell it to Perez-Reverte⊠Only in the case of David Jimenez Garcia the commission to tell the world is prolonged in an idyll between travel literature and the most intense chronicle. Sketches of those places visited by the author as a nomad in search of knowledge, the furthest thing from tourism.
Traveling in itself is already magically inhabiting other souls, just in their routines or even in their dreams projected from listening and observation. Only in this way can you achieve that empathy with which you can enjoy each stay anywhere in the world. The fact of venturing to narrate what has been experienced is an intention to share as much as possible that way of understanding the trip as a formula to get rid of ethnocentrism and learn, above all, learn.
But when David Jiménez turns to fiction, all that baggage also manages to magnetize us towards the current plot. Because everything that happens is still real, hauntingly real. As with another illustrious journalist and writer like JJBenitez, the novels adjusted to journalistic patterns gain in verisimilitude. And then the more diffuse thresholds of suspense seem to become tangible ...
Top 3 recommended books by David JimĂ©nez GarcĂa
The happiest place in the world
An evocation in the title a Huxley. Voluntarily or maybe not. The point is that the metaliterary analogy is sadly materialized today with that strange and imposing happiness of fear made Stockholm syndrome.
The happiest place in the world is how the North Korean dictator describes the most brutal and despotic tyranny of our time. It is also one of the stops of the El Mundo correspondent on a journey that takes him into the Cambodian prison where the most dangerous pedophiles are serving their sentences, witness the arrival of television to the kingdom of Bhutan, accompany a group of gangsters Yakuza in his attempt to leave the underworld or remain in the deserted city of Fukushima after the nuclear accident that kept the world in suspense.
And it is often in the middle of the dark, in places taken by despair, where the author finds the most fascinating characters, the most humane situations and the acts of courage capable of making us believe in a better world. Exalted as the ?? Spanish Kapuscinski ??, David Jiménez brings together in this book the definitive manual on reportage journalism, an exceptional X-ray of the human condition and a life journey of 15 years in search of a destination that is often closer of what we think: The happiest place in the world.
The correspondent
The young journalist Miguel Bravo yearns for a life of adventure when his great opportunity comes: he is sent to Burma to cover the Saffron Revolt, led by Buddhist monks. In the middle of a country in turmoil, Bravo immerses himself in the fascinating life of a group of international correspondents. Their rivalries, fears, dreams, lights and shadows are taken to the extreme when the dictatorship represses the protests and confines the reporters in their hotel.
Bravo's friendship with Daniel Vinton, a mythical journalist who shows the wounds of past battles, and his love for the enigmatic translator Nann Lay will be the prelude to the tragedy that will face the newcomer in his litmus test. Inspired by real events, The correspondent takes us to the "most beautiful and sad country ever invented" and discovers the intimate world of war reporters. Can love, friendship, and truth break through the darkness of the human condition?
Children of the monsoon
With this climate change thing, one no longer knows where the monsoons of the future will end up releasing. And so, as a warning to sailors and perhaps pointing to that necessary humanism, this book becomes a necessary trip to a place where humidity consumes and consumerism is capable of splashing everything with crudeness.
The Asian continent has experienced in recent years the greatest, fastest and most successful transformation of humanity, lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and showing the world that misery can be left behind.
Hijos del MonzĂłn is the story of those who have not managed to get on the train of opportunities and who have often been crushed by a model of society that has stolen their voice. Children, despite difficulties, maintain courage and dignity. Like Vothy, who was born with AIDS near the Mekong; Reneboy, who grows up in a Manila landfill; Yeshe, a Tibetan child-monk on a pilgrimage to meet the Dalai Lama; or Man Hon, who is autistic, and crossed the China-Hong Kong border and never returned.
Other interesting books by David Jiménez ...
The director: Secrets and intrigues of the press narrated by the former director
David Jiménez, a war correspondent and reporter for two decades, was unexpectedly appointed director of El Mundo. The exciting professional challenge ended in a bloody battle for control of the newspaper and led to his dismissal after a year in office.
Jiménez uncovers in this book the rotten network of pressures, influences and favors that is established between the economic power, the political power and the press that is supposed to watch over the first two. Ministers, bankers, CEOs, corrupt commissioners and journalists of dubious morality star in this story about the intrigues of the world of journalism and the secret threads that rule Spain.
