Juan Carlos I presented his memoirs this Sunday at the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair (United Arab Emirates). Reconciliation, full of reproaches ―to his son, the Government, and various political leaders―, went on sale in Spain last December, a month after it arrived in French bookstores. Now, it has reached the Persian Gulf in its Arabic version. The emeritus king signed copies during the presentation, according to the literary fair.
“My father always advised me not to write my memoirs,” the monarch notes in the text published in Spain by Planeta. In more than 500 pages narrated in the first person, Juan Carlos I assures from his retirement in Abu Dhabi that the Spanish Crown “rests entirely” on him, as the Constitution states. He also claims his democratic “heritage” to Spain, a country he says he longs for and to which he acknowledges he would like to return when half a century of parliamentary monarchy has passed.
The emeritus king wrote his memoirs hand in hand with the French author Laurence Debray. Together they review his nearly nine decades of life: from his birth in Rome, where the Spanish Royal Family was exiled, through his arrival in a “poor, underdeveloped Spain, ruled by the Church and the Falange”; and his first meeting with Francisco Franco. In fact, the book contains constant praises and compliments to the one he refers to as “general,” never as a dictator. He is the most cited character in the index of names (87 mentions): “prudent,” “shrewd,” “austere.” “I respected him enormously, appreciated his intelligence and his political sense,” he notes in the book.
The monarch also recounts in the text the death of his younger brother and that of Franco; the appointment of Adolfo Suárez and the Transition. And he advances in the review of his life until his voluntary exile in Abu Dhabi, after his sentimental and financial scandals were uncovered, with the express aim of claiming his legacy and “explaining and defending his decisions.” The last part of the book is titled “my Abu Dhabi diary.” In it, he recounts some events that he says have marked him, such as the death of the Queen of England. “It affected me a lot [..] she left a void in my life.” And he reflects on his own death: “Funerals follow one another without me being obsessed with death. I think about it calmly. By seeing friends leave. When my time comes, it will come,” he says.
Reconciliation is a long exercise in self-justification sprinkled with some anecdotes that aim to recall the down-to-earth character that fueled the so-called juancarlismo for years. He recounts that he has a parrot in Abu Dhabi (“which sports the colors of the Spanish flag on its crest”) or that he shared the same mobile ringtone with Clint Eastwood (the soundtrack of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly).
After the book was published in France, Juan Carlos I gave several interviews to French newspapers and to France 3 television. In them, he acknowledged that he made “mistakes.” He said, however, that he does not regret his past and that he also has no remorse or tries “not to have them,” although if he could go back, he would be more careful.
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