Event description

The Embassy of Spain in Australia presents Luke Stegemann in a conversation with Professor Alfredo Martínez Expósito on his latest book Madrid: A New Biography - Yale University Press.

About the Book

The miraculous story of Madrid—how a village became a great world city

For centuries Madrid was an insignificant settlement on the central Iberian plateau. Under its Muslim rulers the town was fortified and enlarged, but even after the Reconquista it remained secondary to nearby Toledo. But Madrid’s fortunes dramatically shifted in the sixteenth century, becoming the centre of a vast global empire.

Luke Stegemann tells the surprising story of Madrid’s flourishing, and its outsize influence across the world. From Cervantes and Quevedo to Velázquez and Goya, Spain’s capital has been home to some of Europe’s most influential artists and thinkers. It formed a vital link between Europe and the Americas and became a cauldron of political dissent—not least during the Spanish Civil War, when the city was on the frontline in the fight against fascism.

Stegemann places Madrid and its people in global context, showing how the city—fast overtaking Barcelona as a centre of international finance and cultural tourism—has become a melting pot at the heart of Europe and the wider Hispanic world.

“The main chapters in Madrid’s history are told with spirit. . . . But it is Stegemann’s sallies down the lesser known alleys of its history that do most to fire the imagination.”—Isambard Wilkinson, Times (UK)

“[Stegemann’s] strength lies in the way he brings people to life, and Madrid teems not only with kings and their consorts but also with writers, artists, rebels and villains. . . . The book’s handling of Spain’s two greatest artists, Diego Velázquez and Francisco Goya, is masterly. . . . In Mr. Stegemann, [Madrid] now has an eloquent advocate worthy of its stature—as an exuberant, world-class city with few equals on any continent.”—Tunku Varadarajan, Wall Street Journal

“An impressive, century-spanning urban biography.”—The Economist

“A lively and fair-minded account of the beguiling Spanish city, one that avoids cliché and illuminates the often hidden callejones of la Villa y Corte.”—Benjamin Riley, New Criterion

“The pace and poetics are positively Joycean. . . . It is clear from Stegemann’s purposeful, passionate homage that he is as devoted a lover as they come.”—Abi Stephenson, Australian Book Review

About Luke Stegemann

Luke Stegemann is a cultural historian based in south-east Queensland. He has spent many years of his adult life living in Spain, and has written on art, politics and history for a wide range of Australian and Spanish publications. He is the author of The Beautiful Obscure (2017) and was the inaugural winner of the Premio Malaspina in 2018 for an ‘outstanding contribution to the development of cultural relations between Australia and Spain’. His book Amnesia Road (2021) was winner of the 2021 Queensland Literary Award for Non-Fiction, the Mark & Evette Moran Nib Literary Award and finalist in the NSW Premier’s Prize for Australian History. His social, cultural and political biography of Madrid is published by Yale University Press as Madrid: A New Biography, and by Espasa in Spanish as Madrid: Historia de una ciudad de éxito.

About Alfredo Martínez Expósito

Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor of Spanish at the University of Melbourne. Born and educated in Spain, he moved to Australia in 1993. He is the author of numerous books and academic journal articles on contemporary Spanish literature and cinema. He has researched the evolution of LGBT authors and themes in Spanish fiction in books such as Los Escribas Furiosos (1998) and Disidencia e Hipernormalización (2021). In Cuestión de imagen: cine y Marca España (2014) he explored the discourse of national image in recent Spanish films. He has been Chair of Excellence at Universidad Carlos III, Fellow at the Madrid Institute for Advanced Studies, Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities, and Honorary Consul of Spain. He was awarded the Spanish Order of Civil Merit for his contribution to the promotion of Spanish language and culture in Australia. More recently he has been awarded the 2024 Premio Malaspina.

About the Event

Books will be available for purchase and signing at the event.
Registration is required for this event.
Accessible parking spaces directly below the Harry Hartog ANU Bookshop are available should you require them. Kambri ANU / Parking
If you do not feel well, please refrain from attending this event.