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«More than half a century outside Benissa»

January 14 from 2025 - 09: 40

OPINION | Vicente Torres, writer from Benissa

I have been missing from my village, Benissa, for more than fifty years. I had to leave. In recent years I have returned a few times, sporadically and for short periods of time. Nothing is as it was. You no longer see the same faces in the streets. Some facades have changed. There are new streets. The Franciscan convent has undergone changes. I had no friends in the village, but I would have liked to see the people of my time. Some have died, others no longer live in the village, and I have not seen those who do. My brother Adolfo always lived against me. Neither of us knew that his life depended on mine. I managed to survive his attacks and those of others. After having managed to prolong his life by donating bone marrow, he continued to live against me. He wasted his life. His was a malicious naivety. Life is short and if you don't spend time looking for the right direction, it is wasted.

The municipality of Benissa offers a wealth of panoramic views. I miss so many things… I miss, above all, the life I did not live. They are trying to impose a story on me about events that affect me directly. Stories are in fashion. Everyone sees things in a different way. But every story aims to be hegemonic, while an opinion admits a reply. But even if it were an opinion, since it refers to something that concerns me, I could not accept it. An executioner cannot be above the victim, and not even at the same level.

Benissa had a fortified church. It was built in the 1940th century and fortified in the 2009th century. Due to its poor state of preservation, it was demolished in XNUMX. Part of its façade was rebuilt in XNUMX. The church known as the Cathedral of the Navy still exists in the town. It was built at the beginning of the XNUMXth century with the collaboration of all the town's inhabitants, who contributed materials and worked on it, each on the days designated for that purpose. My grandfather, Vicente Torres Taberner, had to actively participate in its construction during his time as mayor, and also in the other years that the work lasted. My father, Adolfo Torres Pérez, was also mayor of Benissa, and although his behaviour towards me was criminal, his management was good for the town. Perhaps, better than good.

Two well-known writers lived in Benissa in recent times, Chester Himes and Ignacio Carrión, both near the sea. I met one of them and he was not the black one. Don Quixote already explained that the insult is not in the words that are said, but in the intention with which they are said. We live in times in which selfishness and hatred towards those who do not think the same are encouraged, so that one has to walk on stilts and look at the ground, so as not to step on what one does not belong.

I don't have all of their books, but I do have several of each of them, and I have read them all. It was agreed to dedicate a street in Benissa to Chester Himes, but ten years have passed and it has not been carried out. It would be a better tribute if every house had a book of his, and people knew things about his life. Ignacio Carrión also had a way of writing that was liked and an imagination that he used as a working tool. He won the Nadal prize.

Father Melchor de Benissa, the sixty-second general minister of the Capuchin order, was born in Benissa, where he is buried in the parish church. He was a philosophy teacher with profound knowledge and great oratorical gifts.

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