On the trail of the great Jack London, and at the height of his contemporaries: the traveler Robert Louis Stevenson, the imaginative Julio Verne or the transformer of the everyday Mark Twain, the Italian Salgari He emerged as one of the most prolific storytellers of that time between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
A time when the adventure genre still reached the highest level in the tastes of avid readers that great travelers they would tell their stories more or less true, with that taste for the misty nature of this genre, on the threshold of the certain and of an impossible that in those days could still be assumed with the certainty supported by legend and myth.
The marine origins, once again, bore fruit in the adventure writer who came to exceed 80 novels, adorned with countless stories scattered throughout many publications.
Approaching Salgari's bibliography is a complete adventure in itself, a taste for mapping a new world between real characters of his time and many others invented for the glory of a genre that can still be recovered today to enjoy an overflowing setting. of authenticity.
Top 3 recommended books by Emilio Salgari
The Tigers of Mompracem
The inspiration of the character Carlos Cuarteroni, a Spaniard of Italian descent, served the author for one of the greatest adventure sagas of his time around the legendary Sandokan, which has survived to this day, even with its evocative idealistic construction, practically utopian under the prism of the vigilante pirate, and always around the fictitious island of Mompracem, the small homeland and refuge of Sandokan and his people.
The structure and development of this novel, initially released in installments, are simple, almost youthful in appearance. But the most transcendent of all is that from here the reading hobby of half the world starts from its departure between 1883 and 1884.
In this first installment we meet, with that reader's pleasure in discovering lifelong friends, Sandokan's companions in a thousand and one subsequent odyssey.
Yáñez, James Brooke and the fascinating Mariana, for whom Sandokan will find that romantic motif that will move him on a multitude of new mythical adventures, comparable to the Helena of the Greek world.
Between real locations and historical references, Salgari takes the opportunity to spread his profuse imagination for the total adventure that will take him from the seas of Indonesia to any other ocean in the world.
The black corsair
Citing Pirates of the Caribbean we remember more than a histrionic Johnny Deep faced with a thousand and one fantasies in unknown seas.
The point is that the origin lies in this first novel by Salgari for an extensive saga that today has been grouped into a trilogy. The figure of the black corsair comes from reality, from the figure of Emilio di Rocannera, the most famous buccaneer in the Caribbean who came from Italy to recognize the new world and search for that treasure turned into a horizon of adventure.
The savage attack on the city of Maracaibo from its lake is the starting point of this novel. The red corsair has been killed and the thirst for revenge moves the black corsair to Maracaibo.
The character of Wan Guld and antagonist of the plot is an elusive type and the frenetic search will lead to a thousand and one adventures in that new world.
Captain storm
It is probably the novel that most closely adheres to real historical events. The Cypriot city of Famagusta becomes the center of a story in which Captain Storm regains new vigor as a legend of Christianity in a Mediterranean besieged from coast to coast by the thriving Ottoman Empire.
In this city is where Captain Storm raises the defense of the site exercised by the troops of Constantinople. The result is known, the Ottomans took control of the city.
And yet, thanks to Salgari's pen, we live the frenetic resistance around a fictionalized true story that has everything, battles, honor, love in a few days when the Mediterranean was once again bathed in blood...
I just want to thank Emilio Salgari, since it was his adventure novels that introduced me to the fascinating world of reading; especially "El Corsario Negro", a magnificent hardcover edition with illustrations by Ballestar and a translation by MarÃa Teresa DÃaz. I got it in 1977, when I was thirteen, and although I'm 56 today, I still reread it from time to time.
Suppose that from this humble space Salgari himself thanks you. A thank you as only souls who earn eternity from their unlimited creativity can return.