The Heart of Granada

When a hint of burned wood hits the breeze and the light turns yellowish something happens to me. There is this particular sting in the air and I feel transferred to where I grew up: to the land of the pomegranates, in the South of Spain. Then it’s as if I am again in the red castle of the Moors in Granada, at the foot of the snow-capped peaks of the Sierra Nevada, skipping from room to room, wandering through the gardens of the Generaliffe. Once the Phoenicians introduced the pomegranate fruit, their emblem, to this stretch of land on the tip of the Iberian Peninsula. Then the Berber clans from the South of Morocco followed in their footsteps. Marrakesh was the Capital of their realm on the other side of the Strait of Gibraltar. Beyond the minarets, domes and city walls, the white peaks of the Atlas Mountains of North Africa loomed. Red was their colour. Granada, in old al-Andaluz, was its mirror image on the other side of the Mediteranean. Together they constituted the two faces of the same Empire. Granada’s landmark was the Alhambra and she was red; red as a pomgranate. And red like the colour of love and all-consuming betrayal.

As a child I visited this place every year. I combed through the Alhambra, "The Red" and when I was exhausted my feet would lead me to where the throne had once stood. From here the Marinid Dynasty, the last of the Berber dynasties that ruled the Iberian Peninsular for over 780 years, had reigned. Here it was deliciously cool. Fine plasterwork, delicate as snow crystals, hung from the ceiling like arty stalagmites and I’ld snug into one of the countless, richly ornamented nichés to rest. The walls had once been painted with vivid hues. Now, only the faintest touch of colour coated them. Between the daintily tooled arabesque patterns depicting geometrical vines and cone shapes the long lost vibrations of once lay hidden. If I was very still I sensed them, I fancied. The sounds

Impressum

Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Texte: Svenja Bary
Bildmaterialien: Svenja Bary
Lektorat: Svenja Bary
Übersetzung: Svenja Bary
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 06.02.2017
ISBN: 978-3-7396-9707-9

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Widmung:
For those, who know to dream.