antusas
I am from Lorca, where I grew up and have spent almost half of my life, at times in other cities in Spain, while the other more-than-half I have been moving around the world. I consider myself a citizen of the world.
I have been a lover of short narrative fiction and non-fiction since the age of ten when I won a prize in a school competition at the regional level, which catalyzed my love of writing and reading. Since then, I have received dozens of prizes and reached finalist in many literary competitions, having already participated in over seventy short stories and tales anthologies with other authors.
In 2017 and 2018, I published three short narrative books — the trilogy "Relatamente Cortos" (Editorial Círculo Rojo), in 2021 with my son Adrián the book "Palo y Astilla" (Universo de Letras-Grupo Planeta) and in 2024 “Recreando Brevedades” (Letra Minúscula) containing short stories, flash fiction, tales and poems. In 2025 two more books have been released "Semillas" and "Mundanía" both with the editorial Ediciones Oblicuas.
My professional experience is more than forty years as an Expert in the Management of International Cooperation and Development Projects and Programmes, predominantly with the United Nations and the European Union, spanning an array of assignments and countries such as Costa Rica, Mozambique, Paraguay and Honduras, including participation as International Electoral Supervisor and Observer with specialized agencies in different countries electoral processes such as El Salvador, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Nicaragua and Uganda..
My last assignment with the EU, after China, Nicaragua, and Uganda, was in Jordan at the EU Delegation to Yemen working for the programmes in Yemen and Iraq.
The professional and personal experience around the globe is certainly discernible and feeds into my narrative, where fiction and non-fiction blend into dreams, emotions, and aspirations — ultimately stories of life itself, which engage the reader to become part of them.
I am now living with my wife Rose Mery in Costa Rica and Spain where I continue writing and carrying out professional activities as a Consultant.
They are also perfect books for you to learn and practice Spanish (See Section LIBROS)
Original title "Cordones" from the book in Spanish "Relatamente Cortos I": CORDS The doctor didn’t know what he was doing when he cut the cord that provided mesafety and sufficient lifeblood. It wasn’t his fault, neither my mother’s. My father, amused with his nurse disguise, was filming with a big video camera for the future. Meanwhile, my mother was sweating and her screams could be overheard by the birds taking care of their chicks in the closed park outside the clinic. Today, the remains of that anchorage simulate the valve of a prominent belly that holds those first stems. The doctor studied at the same university as the doctor who helped deliver me. My partner will watch from a few kilometres away, connected to a device that has conquered millions of people for a while now. I wonder whether I know what I’m doing, I assume the doctor is doing his job and will not back down. Neither will I, and this time it will not be just one, but two cords that will need to be cut. I don’t want any signs of pain to show on my face when the newcomers are introduced to the witnesses. The doctor just came back after spending months supporting a vaccination program against a strange illness that emerged from a remote and now vast area in Africa. My partner has been collaborating for weeks in a big project to hold back the floods in an island on the Pacific, floods resulting from the melting of glaciers. There are no longer birds nesting in the only remaining park in my once cosmopolitan city, now a prison for those of us who still survive in it. A space flight is scheduled for next week. Its mission is to set up the first human settlement in Mars. We, the four of us, might be able to make it to one of the next trips. And this time, the cords providing us safety and sufficient oxygen to fuel our will to live will be different.
Original title “Basta”. Weekly winner & monthly finalist. 9 season micro-stories contest Wonderland, Radio 4. Barcelona (Spain), December 2017. Included in the book in Spanish "Relatamente Cortos II": STOP IT My mom makes up words when she is depressed, while she talks to me and plays with my hair, tying it and making curls. It helps her get inspired, and usually finishes by giving me a kiss on the cheek. Today, at the beginning I didn’t quite understand what she meant, nor which feelings she was trying to get out of her head. She undid the braids she was playing with three times, looking out the window, this time she didn’t make up any new word, and after undoing each of the braids repeated ‘stop it’. The first time I thought it was to tell me not to move, the second time her hands were shaking, the third time I burst into tears.
