Product Description

Searching for a house to rent in 1999, Michael Jacobs was offered one in the Andalucian olive-growing community of Frailes. This was a place where the modern world enjoyed a strange co-existence with a virgin Andalucia ruled by a dynasty of saintly healers. It was not long before he decided to take up more permanent residence above the Discoteca Oh! As he shared in each season's special events, Michael's life became increasingly tied up with this village threatened by drought, unemployment, and decreasing population. He was taken under the wing of El Sereno, an elderly Romeo, while his friendship with the village social worker Merce - a woman who held court in a bar situated inside a cave - led him deeper into a miraculous world. Miracles were needed to save the place; and miracles began happening. With his dream of inviting a legendary Spanish actress to the village's abandoned Art Deco cinema, the truly unimaginable occurred, and the name of Frailes became known even to Hollywood.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #356409 in Books
• Published on: 2004-04-26
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Review
'A well-constructed narrative which builds to a page-turning climax' -- Anglo-Spanish Society Quarterly Review 20050701 'The Factory of Light is an intelligent, beguiling story, and Michael Jacobs writes with a sly humour and real affection and understanding for his chosen region that eclipses most other writers of the genre.' -- Joanne Harris, author of Chocolat 'This rusticana a la Espagnola is a heartwarming and informative narrative. It should be read by everyone thinking of buying a house in Spain' -- Independent 'Humorous, touching and dramatic, Factory of Light is a refreshing alternative to the current wave of 'moving to the Med' travelogues, from a skilled writer with a deep knowledge of and concern for, his subject' -- Paul Morrison, Wanderlust 'Jacobs is worth reading for his appetite for the wry, the ironic and the grotesque' -- Anthony Sattin, Sunday Times 'The particular strength of this eloquent, unhurried tale is its depiction of the author's friendship with El Sereno! Theirs is a winning Quixote-Panza double act' -- Miranda France, Daily Telegraph 20030712 'A welcome reminder that close encounters of the Mediterranean kind don't have to be all froth' -- Sunday Times 20030712 'He writes ... with insight, tenderness and wit' -- Sunday Times 20040912 'The descriptions of events and encounters burst with vividness and energy' -- Oxford Mail 20030613

Sunday Times
'A welcome reminder that close encounters of the Mediterranean kind don't have to be all froth'

Oxford Mail
'The descriptions of events and encounters burst with vividness and energy'

Customer Reviews

The best Michael Jacobs
I am a specialist on travel literature on Spain, and since I read the first book of Michael Jacobs, I had the feeling he was one of the greatest travel literature writers in English. Spain and Andalusia have been his major themes, and his guide Andalusia, is a compulsory reading. His book on the Alhambra is impressive, and since he started writing readers have the feeling that after Borrow, Ford, Morris and Gerald Brenan, Michael Jacobs is the present of travel literature on Spain. A proof of that is The Factory of Light. A book that contains the story of a group of characters in Frailes, a small village of the unknown province of Jaen, told as a piece of magic realism, mixed with a special sense of humour, and echoing styles that go from Swift to Brenan, from Valle Inclán to Borrow, but giving to the whole a special touch of his own. A witty, moving, exciting, funny book, that makes the reader eager to know the real characters behind the literary portraits. This is literature, good travel literature.

life-enhancing and brilliantly original
It is difficult to understand how anyone with a sensitivity to literature and Spain could not fall in love with this remarkably funny, moving and profound book, which was rightly shortlisted for the 25th Thomas Cook Travel Book Award and should have won. The author's deep understanding of Spain shines through on every page, as does his immense sympathy for human beings. As the book developes, the story becomes ever more engrossing and fast-paced, culminating in a climax as exciting and bizarre as any I have read. It is surely the finest book to have been written on Andalucia since Gerald Brenan's South from Granada, and one of the best and most subversive books ever about an Englishman's adaptation to the Mediterranean world.

Not just another 'good life abroad' book
Michael Jacobs' "Factory of Light" is a welcome antidote to the drearily predictable 'making a go of it abroad' genre, with its identikit plots that could be set in any sunny, Mediterranean country . Essentially, this is an extended love letter to the village of Frailes, which Jacobs has adopted as his own, and which has returned the compliment. His deep understanding and knowledge of Spain and the Spanish, and his limitless curiosity and enthusiasm for the remarkable people he encounters shines from every page. In a sense, this is a study of how extraordinary the ordinary can be. It's witty, wise, poignant and wonderfully life-affirming.