Our authors

Alberto Vázquez-Figueroa

EL REY LEPROSO

THE LEPER KING

A historical adventure story revolving around the figure of the Portuguese king Sebastian and the disastrous Battle of Alcazarquivir.

"A splendid novel" says Catalonia's most widely read newspaper El Periódico de Cataluña. Its review goes on: "a fine novel with a sense of pace, one in which pertinent dialogue and measured, unpretentious descriptions rule. A tale which grips the reader just as the author's great novels - the likes of Tuareg and Anaconda - had done before."

King Sebastian of Portugal, a nephew of Philip II, sets out to conquer Morocco. Commanding a strong body of Portuguese soldiers and mercenaries, he clashed with the Berbers at the battle of Alcazarquivir, in which he was roundly defeated. The king, left wounded, was found by Anibal Anibaldi, a rogue who looked just like Sebastian and to whom the king gave his royal ring. But the Berbers found the dying king, healed his wounds and kept him in hiding in at oasis.

Regarding his El Rey Leproso (The Leper King), author Alberto Vázquez-Figueroa had this to say:

"El rey leproso does not set out to be a historical novel. It simply attempts to emulate, in its own very humble way, stories in the vein of The Three Musketeers or The Count of Montecristo, in which the genius of Alexandre Dumas entranced his readers by turning to good account those gaps in the record we usually find with certain kinds of historical events: he brought to life characters who were in the shady area between fact and fiction, ones who nonetheless can end up being as real as those who turned into dust centuries ago.

The likes of D'Artagnan or Edmond Dantes are more alive today than most of the kings and queens of their time.

My intention was to produce a free recreation of the almost unbelievable story of a king of flesh and blood who was loved by his people as no other sovereign ever was before or since."

Download: Review El Periódico· pdf 258 KB