My name is Louis Villalba. I was born in Spain in 1945 and have resided in the US since 1970. I am a neurologist who fell in love with writing. My first book, “The Silver Teacup” (Createspace 2012) and its Spanish version, “La Tacita de Plata” (Createspace 2012), contain short stories that take place in my hometown, Cadiz. They shuttle the reader to a world full of historical fiction, human drama, and fantasy. “The Stranger’s Enigma” (Createspace 2014) describes an overstressed neurologist who discovers the protagonist in his nightly dreams is a man who looks like him but enjoys eternal happiness and youth. The doctor sets about finding out the secret of his perpetual gift. In its sequel, “Born of Dreams” (Gades Books, 2021), this virtuous character is born on earth and faces an unfair and corrupt world as he tries to remedy the doctor’s wrongdoings. “Afterlife Tracks: Glimpses of the Occult” (Createspace 2015) has two sections. The first one describes the stunning story of two related patients of mine that occurred over five years. The events send me scrambling in search of proof of the existence of the Afterlife. The second narrates 14 accounts of paranormal phenomena in my neurology practice. “Cuban Seeds” (Floricanto Press, December 2016)—a memoir about a widow who pursues her children’s American dream after defying the Cuban tyranny. “The Series of Tales of Cadiz” (Gades Books, 2017) contains ten single tales of “The Silver Teacup” that have been re-edited and published in Kindle format. “Uprooted Agave” (Gades Books, 2018) recounts 13 stories of Latino Immigrants, ten fiction and three nonfiction. It describes the struggle of the undocumented workers to survive in an indifferent or hostile society and the legal immigrants’ uphill battle to achieve the American dream. Yet, amid this chaos, love and hope blossom. “Series of Hispanic Immigrants’ Stories” (Gades Books, 2020) contains eleven single stories of the “Uprooted Agave” that have been re-edited and published in Kindle format. In “The Monarch’s Flight: A  Romance Novel” (Gades Books, 2021), a religious married man falls head over heels for another woman. His obligations toward God and his wife prevail. But an event shatters his beliefs and compels him to decide between both women.

In my blog, www.theclassicwriter.com, I share my books and my enthusiasm for classic and contemporary authors’ prose with my readers. These writers’ brilliant sentences and paragraphs flow with such beauty that they capture our imagination. The effect of these little bits of literature on us doesn’t differ from that experienced by art lovers when they admire an artistic detail of a painting or a harmonious note in a sonata. I’ve been highlighting these texts for the past ten years and often go back and review them. They never stop surprising me because I frequently find some new feature in the composition that dazzles me.

English is my second language, but this doesn’t diminish my ability to recognize brilliant prose.  On the contrary, it might help me appreciate it more than a native English speaker. We all know that the closer we are to a blessing or a vital asset in our lives, the easier we take it for granted. My love affair with the English language began in my childhood. My father, a security guard at the Port of Cadiz in Spain, furthered himself at the idle times between the dockings of different ships. Over and over, he reviewed a little notebook with a list of English words he had jotted down with their approximate pronunciation and their Spanish translation. Once he had memorized them, he passed the checklist on to me. As a young man, I wanted to attend school in London on a summer trip. But I ended up spending my vacation washing dishes in a restaurant to support myself. My teachers were the elderly men who sat in Hyde Park and were gracious enough to endure a conversation with me. I am grateful to them.