La noche enamorada: de San Juan de la Cruz

Short and skinny, nobody would have imagined that such an insignificant appearance concealed possibly the best poet in the history of Spanish literature and a most accomplished person in mystical union, Saint John of the Cross. In this historical novel the Segovian poet and merchant Pedro de Valmores, bitter with jealousy after being abandoned by his lover Ana de Peñalosa, embarks on a horseback journey in search of the friar, whom he considers the course of all his problems. The search reveals a complex Spain under King Felipe II, the politics, the Inquisition, the Iluminados, the role of the monarchy in the reform, the bandit attacks, the cultural coexistence of Sufism and Judaism, daily life, the rivalry between the Carmelites and the whims of the court ladies.