On the 10th of September, the Centre for Mexican Studies UNAM-UK was delighted to host the book launch of Adriana Díaz Enciso’s latest work, Flint. The date of this event was of major significance since it coincidentally aligned with the International Suicide Prevention Day, suicide being one of the work’s main sources of inspiration. The intimations that the novel offers in poetic prose oscillate between an oneiric world that ties the lives and tragic deaths of two important figures in the music industry of both the UK and Mexico, Keith Flint and Armando Vega Gil. Flint offers several reflections that revolve around the various faces of loss.
At the opening of the book launch, the author recalled the main tragedy that planted the seed that bloomed in the form of her book: the suicide of Keith Flint, whose last name is the title of the work. The various meanings of the word Flint, moreover, ignited a plethora of reflections in the form of dreams, which, despite the sombre shades that such a tragedy entails, allowed for a profound appreciation of the beauty of life. This feeling, however, was later transformed by the news of the death of Mexican musician, Armando Vega-Gil, founder of legendary rock band Botellita de Jerez, who was also a close friend of the author. This tragedy unveiled the dark depths of loss at a more personal level. Flint is a beautiful elegy that counterpoints the complexities that death entails.
The book’s editorial history is not bereft of meaning either. In the event, the author related the initial stages of the lockdown that she herself, as well as the rest of the population in the globe, experienced due to the health emergency of the COVID-19 pandemic. Díaz Enciso contrasted the bleak sensation of the first stages of lockdown with the beauty and bravura in which nature manifests itself in the springtime, a force that permeates the book and can be perceived even in the book cover, which the author herself designed.
The event concluded with a lively Q&A session in which the participants praised Díaz Enciso’s ability to articulate what otherwise appears as ineffable and some of them thanked her for providing them with the mechanisms to process personal experiences of mourning, of which the author showed great appreciation.
Adriana Díaz Enciso’s book, Flint, can be purchased in the following link:
diazenciso.com
