Antonio Soler gives a nod to Antonio Banderas in the reissue of 'El camino de los ingleses': "He got me into the mess of the movie"

"We saw Dávila return to the neighborhood on a clear morning at the end of May, when the jasmine of Doña Úrsula began ... to fill the street with a sweet smell and the cats that Rafi Ayala once skinned alive were meowing with the desperation of heat." Thus, with that everyday and spring-like aroma in which the underlying threat and cruelty throb, begins 'El camino de los ingleses', the story of Miguelito and company, which is the most influential work of Antonio Soler. It had been two decades since he last read it, and he has done so again for the reissue of the book by Galaxia Gutenberg on this twentieth anniversary (plus one) of the novel, winner of the Nadal Prize 2004, which was almost immediately adapted into a film by Antonio Banderas. And the author from Malaga has had several surprises from that reading. Among them, a text with which he still identifies despite the passage of time, so he has barely retouched it.

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In the reissue of 'El nombre que ahora digo' (2020), Soler changed the beginning and thoroughly revised this story set in the civil war, in 'El camino de los ingleses' the "opposite" happened. "I haven't corrected anything substantial, an adjective or a comma, but the text still seems alive to me and I have given it the green light," confesses the writer from Malaga, who this Thursday, October 16, presents the reissue at the Centro Andaluz de las Letras (CAL, 7:30 PM), along with writer Miguel Ángel Oeste and musician Antonio Meliveo. A volume that had a long life with the film adaptation by his namesake Antonio Banderas, which, in turn, is the protagonist of the few changes in the proofs of this update.

The Book and the Presentation

• Title: 'El camino de los ingleses'

• Author: Antonio Soler

• Publisher: Galaxia Gutenberg, novel, 2025

• Presentation: Thursday, October 16, at 1930 hours, at the Centro Andaluz de las Letras (CAL) in Malaga, with the presence of the author, writer Miguel Ángel Oeste, and musician Antonio Meliveo

"I've added a couple of nods to the film adaptation," Soler reveals, who has turned the director of the big screen version into a fleeting character. "I added a young guy who wants to be an actor, a certain Domínguez Bandera, who tells his friend Meliveo that he's after a girl, that he's going nowhere that way," reveals the writer from Malaga, who has also given a last name to the imaginary friend of the protagonist Luli, Marta, to rename her as Marta Nieto, one of the actresses from that new generation of performers who became known in the film arising from the book, along with Raúl Arévalo, Mario Casas, Fran Perea, and Alberto Amarilla, who was nominated for a Goya as a breakthrough actor for this work, as was Antonio Soler, in the category of adapted screenplay. Quite a feat considering that these were the only two nominations the film received, which, due to its release date, was late to the voting by the academy members.

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These round trips between the novel and the film continue two decades later. An adventure that he got into almost without realizing it because of the "seductive" Antonio Banderas, even though a writer friend warned him of the danger. "I remember Juan Marsé told me: 'Be very careful with the movie people, they steal a lot of your time.' And so it was, almost a year dedicated to the movie," recalls Soler, who not only signed the script but also participated in the casting, went almost daily to the shooting, attended the editing room to see the filmed footage each day, and even played an extra, portraying a prisoner in a scene that ultimately was left out of the final cut."

"Pride of Malaga"

"Looking at it with perspective, the adaptation took place vertiginously, as the novel was published in February 2004 and by January 2005 the script was already written. Banderas read it, we reached an agreement quickly, and he got me involved in the mess of the movie," confesses the writer, who recalls that it was Antonio Meliveo who recommended the novel to the actor, director, and producer from Malaga: "He recognized himself in those boys and said 'this is our story' and that's how he convinced me to write the script." And both, filmmaker and writer, also had clear that, with this story so personal and yet so collective of their generation, "we had the idea of claiming the pride of Malaga. We are not a culturally poor territory and those boys represented that."

"I remember Juan Marsé told me: 'Be very careful with the movie people, they steal a lot of your time.' And so it was, almost a year dedicated to the movie"

Antonio Soler

Writer

By 2006 the movie was already shot. "Everything went very quickly for how the processes of cinema are," Antonio Soler points out, noting that the concatenation of the Nadal Prize, the publication, the announcement of the adaptation, the shooting, and the premiere made 'El camino de los ingleses' be in the mouths of readers and viewers for several years. "That union gave it an echo that lasted a long time, longer than books usually have," the writer values, who curiously discovers that, although this is his most famous novel, it is not the best-selling. That honor has -for now- 'El nombre que ahora digo', which also arrived in bookstores with a great boost: the Primavera Prize."

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The film adaptation also allowed Soler to experience the Goya gala in situ, although with the feeling of being "invited to a circus that was not mine." In fact, the author of the recent 'El día del lobo' -in which he novels the civil war in Malaga- remembers that he avoided walking the red carpet -"I entered through another door"- and that his friend Ray Loriga, who presented the award in the category of adapted screenplay, joked that he should have said 'El camino de los ingleses' instead of the winner, 'Salvador'."

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Novel and film were two different products, although they mimicked each other so much that even the author confuses the original and the adaptation. "When I started reading the book for the reissue, suddenly I find the description of the character Babirusa, who is short and has slanted eyes, and I said: 'But he's tall'. And it's because I had the mental image of the actor Raúl Arévalo instead of what I had written," recalls Antonio Soler, who still has fresh the casting in which the very young actor presented himself to play another role, Paco Frontón, but they saw it clear: "After the test, Banderas and I looked at each other thinking the same: 'This guy is Babirusa'."

"I do not regret it at all, but I do not think I would do it again... it would have to be another seducer like Banderas"

Antonio Soler

Writer

Although none of his other books have been adapted, he has received offers or calls from directors to bring them to the screen. Another thing is that he gets involved as he did with the movie. "I do not regret it at all, but I do not think I would do it again... it would have to be another seducer like Banderas," admits Soler, leaving the door ajar at the end to whatever comes. Or whoever comes. What he is clear about is that, from the beginning, he lived with the novel an unforgettable experience. And with that memory, he returns to the bookstores. "'El camino de los ingleses' became one of those peaks that a writer's career has. There are novels that represent one more step, but this one was two or three."