If there is one environment that has not undergone its update in terms of gender equality, it is that of expatriation, where there is no equivalent to the somewhat contemptuous expression “woman expatriate”. For two years, from 2014 to 2016, Emilio Sanchez Mediavilla was an “expatriate husband”. He followed his partner, Carla, to Bahrain, affected by her telecommunications company in this small kingdom of the Persian Gulf. As a journalist, he finally saw himself revealing the hidden face of the oil monarchies of the Gulf. He quickly became disillusioned: the ban on practicing journalism without a permit in this dictatorship, the obligation of reserve imposed on expatriates and their families, as well as the obstacle of the Arabic language, quickly got the better of his ambitions.
“The project of a book was born from this frustration of not being able to practice journalism seriously on the spot”says Emilio Sanchez Mediavilla, 43, with messy hair and beard, during an interview from Madrid by videoconference, on the occasion of the release in France ofA dacha in the Gulf. The structure of the book, very free, mixing remarks or personal experiences and political and historical explanations, emerged once back in Madrid. The manuscript was nourished by his still fresh memories, from a diary kept there, but also from new trips, to London and Berlin, to meet exiled members of the Bahraini opposition. The author also returned to Bahrain to verify details and finalize his story. A concern for accuracy that does not prevent humor british and absurd to appear in the book, when he recounts his various strategies for obtaining alcohol, his steps to get married or even the incredible stay of Michael Jackson in Bahrain, in 2005-2006.
Non-fiction, a genre he likes
For Emilio Sanchez Mediavilla, this first book had another challenge: putting into practice a genre that he particularly likes. In 2011, with two friends, he founded a small publishing house, Libros del KO (“KO books”), devoted to non-fiction, which is still relatively uncommon in Spain. If he recognizes himself as a model, it is not so much on the side of the Polish Ryszard Kapuscinski or the Belgian Lieve Joris, masters of the genre in Europe, as of the Quebec comic strip author Guy Delisle. He too followed his wife and told, according to his transfers in Burma or Israel, a mixture of daily life and great history.
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