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Homage to Iberia is the Sequel to James A. Michener's Bestseller, Iberia
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The late James A. Michener, author of Iberia: Spanish Travels and Reflections (Random House, 1968), wrote the foreword and gave his written endorsement for Homage to Iberia.
This proposal details the endorsed, authorized sequel to James Michener’s Iberia: Spanish Travels and Reflections, a nonfiction book written by one of the twentieth century’s best-known and best-selling authors about his adventures in Spain over several decades. A New York Times bestseller, Iberia is still in print and has reportedly sold more than 800,000 copies and has been read by an estimated 2,000,000, including many who have traveled to Spain with the book as their spiritual guide.
Three years before he died, James Michener provided a written endorsement to renowned hispanophile Gerry Dawes, authorizing him to produce a sequel.
Dawes’s book, entitled Homage to Iberia: More Spanish Travels and Reflections, will bring readers up-to-date on many of Michener's colorful characters in Iberia Michener’s classic and the author will share his own rich adventures in Spain during the 40 years since Iberia was written.
Dawes’s book will come at a time when interest in and travel to Spain have exploded over the levels experienced in the 1970s when Michener’s book was at the height of its popularity. Michener's Iberia and scores of other books have drawn millions of people to Spain since Iberia was published in 1968. Many of those people who visited Spain because of these books became enamored of the country, have traveled there multiple times and thousands own property there. American travels in Spain reached more than 1,000,000 annually at the peak of tourism in 2008, but more importantly some 50,000,000 people visit Spain each year and the majority of those people speak English either as their native tongue or as their second language.
Homage to Iberia will appeal to hundreds of thousands of died-in-the wool Spain aficionados, readers of Michener's Iberia (approximately 800,000 copies sold, and read by an estimated 2,000,000 or more), fans of Michener's books in general (which sold millions upon millions of copies) and armchair travelers who can't travel there in these economic times, but still want to read about it. And, even though the world is undergoing difficult economic times, which prohibits travel to Spain for many--though, at this writing the dollar was stronger against the Euro by about 10% and off-season round-trip flights from the U.S. to Madrid were under $500--they will still want to read about the country and the price of a book is within their reach.
Homage to Iberia: More Spanish Travels and Reflections will be a colorful, well-researched, non-fiction book written in the first person by an expert on Spain who has been traveling to the country for thirty years, collecting adventures, experiences, impressions, anecdotes, and information on Spain’s people, history, culture, gastronomy, and wines.
Gerry Dawes and Iberia
While serving in the United States Navy in southern Spain in the late 1960s, Gerry Dawes read Michener’s Iberia, a big, wide-ranging book drawn from the Michener’s four decades of travels through Spain.
During and after his Navy service (he stayed in Spain for another six years after his discharge), Dawes, using Iberia as his handbook, met and became friends with many of the people about whom Michener wrote. In fact, his original copy of Iberia has been signed by more than twenty of the people Michener described. Dawes even apprenticed with Robert Vavra, the photographer of Iberia, and plans to use his photography to illustrate Homage to Iberia.
Self-portrait of author Gerry Dawes as a pilgrim in Santiago de Compostela.
Partly because of his Iberia contacts, including Robert Vavra and the late matador-artist John Fulton, Gerry was able to stay in Spain for eight years. Since that time, Gerry Dawes has traveled to Spain nearly one hundred times, averaging half a dozen trips per year for the past decade alone.
Dawes is considered one of America’s top experts on Spanish food and wine, but his experiences run far deeper than gastronomy and vino. He has also become a widely published (and widely quoted) food, wine, and travel writer and photographer, who has published articles in the New York Times Sunday Travel section, Food & Wine, Food Arts, Wine News, World of Fine Wines and among others.
Chocolate con churros at the Chocolatería San Ginés, a Madrid institution. This sinfully delicious combination is said to be a hangover cure, probably because so many people at Spanish fiestas often have this before going home after a night of revelry.
Xutxos (chuchos), custard-filled pastry with carajillos (café espresso with a shot of rum or Spanish brandy) at Bar Pinotxo, La Boquería, Barcelona.
Gerry Dawes not only has the credentials and writing ability to make Homage to Iberia a great book, he has the wherewithal, the contacts and, most importantly, the passion to make Homage a vivid reality. He has close connections with a wide range of Spaniards, from the president of Valencia to titled nobility, bullfi ghters, chefs, and winemakers. He is also well-known to an incredible cast of characters, such as those who run the market stalls in places like the incredible La Boqueria market in Barcelona, and even the living statues along Las Ramblas, Barcelona’s famous pedestrian street that is the communal parlor of one of Spain’s greatest cities.
Gerry Dawes’s Homage to Iberia
Along with descriptions of the historical sights, architecture, cities, people, sounds, smells, food, and wines of Spain, in every chapter Gerry will spin tales of his personal adventures and offer essays that give insights into Spain, its people and their character, and the country’s history, arts, and politics. There also will be a wealth of practical information about Spain’s fiestas, restaurants, wineries, and hotels, making Homage to Iberia the same indispensable companion that Michener’s Iberia was to inquisitive travelers in the 1970s (and still is to many). Gerry will introduce real people and historical characters and use quotes and anecdotes throughout to support the themes in Homage to Iberia.
The book will include the following:
— The signed foreword and personal endorsement from James A. Michener
— A foreword by a well-known personality with expertise on Spain
— Jacket quotes from luminaries who are experts on Spain and/or prominent figures in the worlds of gastronomy and wine that confirm Gerry’s expert status on Spain (sample endorsements available).
— Chapters that take place in every region in Spain, which will be of interest for Spain's 17 autonomous communities, each with their own regional government and budget. They are capable of buying a substantial number of books, as is Turespaña, the Spanish tourist promotion agency.
A blind American woman hugging Santiago at the Cathedral of
Santiago. Hugging the saint is the traditional end to the pilgrimage.
— Updates on the original characters in Michener's Iberia, "the rest of the story."
— Unique encounters and interviews with contemporary experts on Spain that will be woven into the tapestry of the book
— Gerry’s perspectives on Spanish cuisine and wines, including experiences with specific restaurants and entertaining wine encounters in Spain
— Perspectives on the art of bullfighting and flamenco, and Spanish soccer mania
— 100+ artistic photos from Gerry’s own travels throughout the country
— A bibliography, as well as a glossary of general Spanish terms and food and wine terms
Book Length and Photography
The finished manuscript of Homage to Iberia will contain approximately 600 pages and 100-plus photographs, plus illustrations for the inside covers of the book and interior maps at the beginning of each chapter to orient readers and mark pertinent sites.
The color photographs, with tightly worded captions, will constitute a portrait of Spain that will be a book within a book.
Foreword and a Personal Endorsement from James A. Michener
Before his death, James A. Michener provided Gerry Dawes with a foreward and personal endorsement for use in any future publication of Homage to Iberia.
A scanned copy of Mr. Michener's original signed foreword and endorsement is availible below.
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