Jason Webster is an
Anglo-American author who writes on
Spain. He was born in
California to British parents in 1970. He has spent most of his adult life in Spain, having settled in
Valencia with his Spanish wife, actress and dancer Salud Botella.[1][2] He is a director of
The Scheherazade Foundation.
Webster is the author of fifteen books on Spain and Spanish themes, ranging from travel to history, biography, detective fiction, essay, short story and poetry. He has appeared in several television documentaries and his works have been translated into a dozen languages.
Books
Duende: A journey in search of Flamenco (2003), which recounts Webster's move to Spain after university and his quest to learn
flamenco guitar and the path to the elusive yet passionate feeling of
duende, an untranslatable term referring to the feeling that is the essence of
flamenco.[3] It was long-listed for the
Guardian First Book Award[4] and read on
BBC Radio 4's
Book of the Week.[5]
Andalus: Unlocking the secrets of Moorish Spain (2004, Doubleday,
ISBN0-385-60507-2) examines the deep impact left on Spain – and by extension the rest of
Europe – by the
Moorish presence and was adapted as a radio play by the
BBC.[6]
Guerra: Living in the shadows of the Spanish Civil War (2006,
Black Swan,
ISBN0-385-60854-3), studied the wounds left by the
civil war on contemporary Spain through a combination of history and travel. A Spanish edition, Las heridas abiertas de la guerra civil, was published in 2008 with a prologue by
Paul Preston of the
London School of Economics
Sacred Sierra: A year on a Spanish mountain (2009,
Chatto & Windus,
ISBN0-7011-8157-5) describes a year that Webster and his Spanish wife spent living on their mountain farm in eastern Spain, on the slopes of the sacred peak of
Penyagolosa, working on the land and planting trees with the help of a 12th-century Moorish gardening manual. It paints a portrait of a little-known part of the country, with details of its folklore, history and customs, and with meditations on stories, the need to preserve them and their importance for communities. Webster made a short promotional film for the book in conjunction with the award-winning Swedish film director
David Flamholc of
Caravan Film.
Blood Med (2014, Chatto & Windus,
ISBN0-7011-8691-7), is the fourth Chief Inspector Max Cámara crime novel, focussing on the political and social problems of contemporary Spain.
A Body in Barcelona (2015, Chatto & Windus, [ISBN missing]), is the fifth Chief Inspector Max Cámara novel, set mostly in Barcelona against a backdrop of attempts by Catalan activists to declare independence from Spain. The novel anticipated by two years similar moves in real life by Catalan politicians, who held a controversial
referendum on independence in October 2017.
Fatal Sunset (2017, Chatto & Windus, [ISBN missing]), is the sixth Chief Inspector Max Cámara novel, set mostly in and around the city of Valencia.
Violencia: A New History of Spain (2019, Constable,
ISBN1-4721-2985-7), published in the US as Why Spain Matters: A History of the Land that Shaped the Western World (Corsario,
ISBN978-1-913955-04-5).
The World of Max Cámara (2020, Corsario,
ISBN978-1-913955-00-7), Volume I of Webster's Mosaics of Spain series, is a collection of essays, articles, photos, interviews and a short story focussing on the author's fictional police detective and the city of Valencia, where he lives and works.
The Art of Flamenco (2020, Corsario,
ISBN978-1-913955-02-1), Volume II of the Mosaics of Spain series, is a collection of articles, essays and photos focussing on flamenco.
The Book of Duende (2022, Corsario,
ISBN978-1-913955-09-0) is an in-depth examination of what Webster describes as 'the magical and often mysterious force at the heart of flamenco', containing aphorisms, essays, proverbs, stories and poetry.
He has appeared in several British TV documentaries, including An Islamic History of Europe,[8] presented by
Rageh Omaar on BBC television and the critically acclaimed Andalusia: The Legacy of the Moors for
Five.
In April 2013 he presented "Flashmob Flamenco", a documentary for
BBC Radio 4 on the response within the Flamenco community to the economic crisis in Spain.[9]