Literature and Culture

Let's have an incomplete and subjective glance at the area's literary and cultural heritage.

As far as literary and cultural connections are concerned, Baeza will be forever related with the name of the poet Antonio Machado, who lived there for seven years between 1912 and 1919. The town's international summer school is name after him and the locals are justly proud that Baeza should figure in some of his most famous poems, as in the following example:

“De la ciudad moruna
Tras las murallas viejas
Yo contemplo la tarde silenciosa
A solas con mi sombra y con mi pena.
El río va corriendo
Entre sombrías huertas
Y grises olivares,
Por los alegres campos de Baeza.”

In reality, his relationship with the town was somewhat tortuous, as is hinted at in this poem. Having moved to Baeza after the death of his wife, he associated its small-town atmosphere and agricultural surroundings with his grief. However, it can also be argued that these very surroundings spurred his creativity on, his literary output in this period being excellent.

Moving on to Úbeda, perhaps its most famous literary connections are more contemporary. The well-known novelist, Antonio Muñoz Molina, hails from the town. Much of his work is explicitly or implicitly set there and creates fictional versions of his childhood and early life in the town. Joaquín Sabina, meanwhile, is a renowned singer-songwriter and sometime poet who also comes from Úbeda. Both these men have been important cultural figures during the years that followed Spain's transition to democracy.