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Reviewed by:
  • La luna roja
  • Joanne Lucena
Leante, Luis. La luna roja. Madrid: Alfaguara, 2009. Pp. 393. ISBN 978-84-204-7479-3.

Luis Leante's latest novel, La luna roja, shares many of the same characteristics that made his prior novel, Mira si yo te querré, winner of the Alfaguara prize for 2007, such a resounding success. Both texts astutely examine distinct cultures vastly different from Spain's; in La luna roja Leante explores both Jewish and Muslim Turkey, whereas in Mira si yo te querré the author observes cultural differences in Spanish-occupied Western Sahara between the Spanish soldiers and the Muslim natives. The principal protagonist of La luna roja, René Kuhnheim Cano, a half-German half-Spaniard raised in Turkey who has spent his adult life in Spain, has to return to his past to delve into unresolved issues that prohibit his moving forward in the present. The concept of how resolution and the reconciliation of past and present affect romantic relationships is also a theme in the two novels.

The novel opens in Alicante when René is asked to give a lecture at his friend's tertulia on a famous novel, La luna roja, by the Turkish author Emil Kemal, whose work René translated years ago. René, a once famous but currently frustrated author who is relegated to writing magazine articles and cannot seem to pen a new novel, agrees to attend but proceeds to argue with one of the participants about the details of Kemal's life. The young woman, Aurelia, insists that René knows nothing about the Turkish author's life and that La luna roja was written after the author suffered heartbreak from his relationship with the Sephardic Jew, Orpa. Soon afterward, René receives a mysterious phone call in Turkish from an unknown woman asking him to help Emil Kemal, whose life is in grave danger. René rushes to his apartment, where he finds the renowned author dead on the floor with a book of René's resting on his chest. The book is not the one that René had dedicated to Kemal but the one directed to Kemal's wife and René's lover, Derya, to whom René expresses his ardent desire. René is forced to confront his repressed (he had not seen Kemal for eleven years prior to the mysterious phone call) and [End Page 162] unresolved past with Kemal and Derya. He must also reconcile with his youth in Turkey and his obsession with Tuna, his first real love. René begins to receive copies of Kemal's diaries from the mysterious woman, Aurelia, and finds himself embroiled in the Turkish author's past. Aurelia insists that René, as an expert of his works and friend of Kemal, must write his history so that the world can know what happened to the enigmatic author. René is forced on a journey of self-discovery both in Germany and Turkey while trying to solve the mystery that was Emil Kemal's life. It is fascinating to observe how René, who is used to navigating various cultures, identifies himself and how his identification is based on his relationships with the people in each country rather than the country itself.

The novel skillfully alternates between the narrations of the present day of René (told in first person), that of René's past (narrated in third person), and that of Emil Kemal (recounted in third person) as René reads his diaries. The diaries relate Kemal's troubled, isolated childhood, which is only alleviated by his writing. Leante sensitively describes the story of Kemal's love for Orpa, a young Jewish girl, and his close relationship with his Jewish tutor, Mr. Yeter, while astutely examining Muslim and Jewish relationships in Turkey. Orpa, as a practicing Jew, cannot ever marry Kemal, but it is obvious she has feelings for the young writer. Leante also includes details of Turkish history from 1955 and the attacks on Christian and Armenian businesses at the hands of some nationalists. Leante's characters underline the possibility of all three cultures coexisting harmoniously. Kemal's love for Orpa is paralleled by that of René for Tuna, a young Muslim woman whose family would not...

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