by Although she spent the summers of her youth in Fuengirola, watching the foreign tourists play and the English-language paperbacks she found in a small bookstore in the Andalucían town of noir-novel Spanish beauty.
“Benidorm is a myth in Spain – and a myth that no one goes to because there is this stigma that Benidorm is the worst place in Spain,” says the writer.
But on a work visit to the famous Costa Blanca resort a few years ago, she fell in love with its skyscrapers, its features and even its sky, which, as she writes in the book, is “the color of Fanta.”
“It’s not that it’s nothing like Spain. It is that it is nothing else,” says García Llovet. “It looked like the future to me and it looked completely out of place – and that made it very attractive.”
Spanish beautywhich was released in English last week and is being developed as a film, follows Michela McKay, a cynical, down-and-dirty and flamboyantly corrupt politician who belonged to British gangster Reggie Kray.
The book’s supporting cast includes local lowlifes, washed-up Brits, Russian heavies and, last but not least, Benidorm itself.
As García Llovet has it in the opening pages of the novel: “Benidorm. Cheap culture. Beach culture. People who speak three languages without ever studying, corner shops, Belgians, watered down gin and tonics, gays.
“Second-hand Tom Clancy novels swollen with wet, crunchy sand, sand on your pillow, sand in your paella, in your G-string, in the shower, all-day fry-ups, all-day Thai massage, cicadas at night. Piles of vomit pissing against walls and Tom Jones songs. Melanoma, cystitis, diarrhea all around. Chlamydia. And the sea. “
The writer’s English-language debut has proven timely. The week before, Spain’s socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced a 12-point plan to tackle the housing crisis, which has brought tens of thousands of people to the streets to protest over unaffordable rents – and the non-unrelated issue of uppourism.
His proposals include higher taxes and stricter regulation for tourist housing and, most tangible of all, introducing a tax of up to 100% on properties bought by non-residents from non-EU countries such as the UK.
Sánchez has also bought the idea of a complete ban on non-EU, non-residents buying houses and apartments.
Although García Llovet suggests speculator investment.
“It has a lot to do with my book and a lot to do with everything that’s going on with rental prices,” she says. “Obviously not the entire rental issue is due to tourism – not some stretch of the imagination – but Airbnb, which has been here for about 12 years, is a disaster when it comes to rental.”
These days, García Llovet prefers not to walk through the center of Madrid, the city where she has lived for decades, because it no longer resembles the place she once knew.
“Everything that was real about the city was sold or disguised,” she says. “It’s really weird and really messed up. The store windows are always the same and Starbucks is always in the same place wherever you go. I don’t think that will change anytime soon as tourism has just seen a dismal increase since Covid. “
She is also doubtful about the effectiveness of some of the prime minister’s proposals. “Even this 100% tax on non-EU property purchases outside the EU would just be ocean waste. It won’t change anything. It’s terrible and I don’t know where it will all end. “
At the start of the book she reflects on what attracts so many foreigners to Spain and the resulting gulf between tourists and locals. The Russians who descended on Benidorm are a case in point.
“They want Spanish hedonism,” argues the novel’s protagonist. “Dionysian hedonism that only the tourists and the travel agents can see, because the reality here is that we are always really pissed off and really burned, not just by the sun. The Russians want the hedonism we can’t enjoy, they want the prices we can’t afford, they want the siesta we can’t even take. “
Related: Third, people in Spain say that the region has too many foreign tourists
For all Spanish beauty‘S reflections on the nature of mass tourism – “We don’t make history anymore. We make Sangria” – its author also acknowledges the progress and development he has brought.
“We also benefited from all of this,” she says. “There was a moment in this country when tourism was just brilliant – of course there was. But it got out of control and we created a monster – a sangria-drinking monster. “
García Llovet, whose favorite authors include Roberto Bolaño, César Aira and Martin Amis, is curious to see what English-speaking readers make of the book and its portrayal of one of their favorite destinations. While she hopes there will be humor and affection, she wonders how much visitors will recognize.
“Tourists and even people who stay here,” the writer notes, “have a completely different vision of the country.”
• Spanish beauty By Esther García Llovet (translated by Richard Village) is published by Foundry Editions (£12.99). To support them Guardian And observer Order your copy at GuardianBookshop.com. Delivery costs may apply
