This story begins with a Kalashnikov and ends fifty years later with flowers, all on a balcony in Beirut. It is the story of a Western journalist who becomes the longest-lasting Middle East correspondent in the region. Tomás Alcoverro edited articles by Josep Pla, lived in 1968 Paris, invited García Márquez to a paella in Badalona when the novelist was not yet known and flew with Josep Tarradellas in the plane that brought him back from exile. Above all, however, he has been an in-person witness to the upheaval taking place in the world straddling Cairo and Tehran, including the burial of Gamal Abdel Nasser, Khomeini’s return and Yasser Arafat’s “Black September.” From the mythical Israeli kibbutzes of 1967 to the recent huge explosion at the port of Beirut, Alcoverro reports on stories that he has always written by hand with a pen instead of turning to keyboards. “I write about all wars in handwriting on paper. It’s more sensual that way.”

In his book, this most veteran of Spanish correspondents, Tomás Alcoverro, talks with one of the great journalists covering war conflicts, Plàcid Garcia-Planas. At the meeting in Casa Árabe’s Hall of Ambassadors, he will do the same with Ángela Rodicio, using a casual, direct and personal approach. Presented by Karim Hauser, Casa Árabe’s Culture and International Relations Coordinator.