David Bentata to hold book reading at No Cuesta D’Enero

Local author David Bentata will be reading an excerpt of his book and will answer questions from attendees this evening as part of the No Cuesta D’Enero programme of events.

The event organised by the Fine Arts Association will be held at 6pm this evening at the Fine Arts Gallery.

Mr Bentata will be reading his book ‘Gone times Good: Tales of a life in bygone Gibraltar’ to an audience in the Gallery.

He will be joined by Leyla Costa Gomez who will be reading her spiritual poetry ‘Amor es libertad’ and Levi Attias who will recite Llanito poetry.

The session is free and is open to the public as part of ‘No Cuesta D’Enero’.

Mr Bentata decided to write the book after he and his closest friend the late David Hassan would take long walks together and reminisce about old times.

“He suggested I set them down to eventually publish a modest 20 or 25 chapter book about a Gib that was fast fading from memory,” Mr Bentata said.

“As there was no particular hurry, I was setting these stories down over three to four years.”

“However, the more I remembered, the more chapters I wrote, until after 82 snapshot memories, I decided I had to publish now, or they would probably never be published.”

He was also inspired to write due to Gibraltar’s ever-changing landscape.

“So much of the Gibraltar I grew up was disappearing that even my own children could not recognise places in Gib I spoke about, let alone my grandchildren,” he said.

Mr Bentata said writing comes easy for him as a bookworm from an early age and the public response from his book has been amazing.

The book is over 600 pages long and is currently being sold at the Heritage Trust.

A few examples of stories include ‘Patricia’ based on Mr Bentata’s misadventures with a beautiful French au pere in London in the swinging sixties, ‘Rite of Passage’ a moving account of the infamous Calle Gibraltar in La Linea, and ‘The Kitchen Chair’ which won an award from the Ministry of Culture, about a visitation from the beyond.

The chapters are not written in any chronological order, but as remembered, so despite the thickness of the book, each chapter is a stand-alone, 10 or 15 minute read.

“Once read, the book can be set down and then picked up later or even the next day, and no need to remember what was read before,” Mr Bentata said.

“All chapters are self-contained stories.”