More about this book from "El mundo"'s suplement "Cronica" (it's written by the author I think):
http://www.elmundo.es/suplementos/cronica/2006/542/1142722813.html
And rough translation:
In Letizia's family woman rule more than in "the Ortiz", title of the book. It would be necessary to talk about the women who have conformed the character of Letizia. According to the author, in this family the men are left coils by the "féminas".
With calm voice, like assuming their own condition of head of household,Plácida del Valle drops laconic "déjalos that speak" in an attempt to raise the moral of their daughter Menchu, crushed by the maledicentes commentaries of the Oviedo of half of XX century. The phrase said by the great-grandmother of Doña Letizia has become the motto that moves and motivates an ancestry of women that has influenced in the character of the Princess of Asturias. All and each one has contributed a part of themselves to Doña Letizia: the tenacity, the ambition, the eternal curiosity, the affection and a strong character that explodes as the foam of champán when it gets upset. Self-taught women who did not dedicate themselves to a simple life.
To know better the personality of the wife of the heir to the Spanish throne through the women of its family is the foundation of the book "Los Ortiz", the Asturian family of princess Letizia, who I finish writing and who on 24th will go out under the seal of La Esfera de los Libros. In it, I shell the influence that exerted this matriarcado in the forge of a princess. When we knew officially that Doña Letizia Ortiz Rocasolano was going to be the future Princess of Asturias, at the end of 2003, another name related to her left the voluntary anonymity that had chosen more than ten years ago: Maria del Carmen Alvarez del Valle, her paternal grandmother, more well-known by Menchu. A woman who reached popularity in the radio between years 50's and 80's of XX century.
The strong personality of its grandmother, her ambition to be the best one in its profession, its excess of perfeccionism, its character sometimes endiablado and also a natural spontanieous that always helped to hide it its timidity... These are some of the characteristics that the old speaker transmitted to her granddaughter Letizia.
In the book anecdotes about Menchu are related to understand better the character of the Princess. One tells that, in the occasion of the International Film Festival in San Sebastián, the grandmother of Princess de Asturias was with a Jorge Mistral eager to have an adventure with her. Of course, she refused and to the cinema gallant its reaction called the attention to him, since it thought that she was more modern. Menchu cut to him with a butcher: "Modern yes, "puta" not". Soon they were good friends.
Menchu attracted Letizia towards the world of books, taught to love the poets, who nobody is more important that she, to enjoy the power of silence and to to be generous with the family, feeling shared by all the women who appear in the book.
For Letizia, her grandmother is referring an unquestionable one. A dedicated photography -"I want to be as good as you"- she left in the familiar album and she remembers the beginning of a profession truncated when seeing itself Princess.
If her grandmother put gusanillo to him of the media, her aunt grandmother Mari Sol Alvarez gave the touch to prevail. With Mari Sol she learned to lose the fear, to lay way, to calm the nerves, to modulate the voice... And that a woman can gain as much as she wants. She contributed that feminista granite of respect. Mari Sol managed to lay way in Madrid until directing in National Radio its own matutinal, program,Clave del Sol, made only by women. She is the one that also maintains an ideology most visible. Progresista, was a well-known one affiliated with the union UGT. And, how no, the other aunt grandmother, Flora Alvarez del Valle, the artist of the family, attracted by the esoteric world, the dared one able to create her own producer and to go to ruin with her first largometraje,Mecanismo Interior, carried out by the actress Maria Mahor. She contributed affection in abundance and attraction by art.Aquéllos that knew it in the Corral de la Moraría's memories it trying to introduce their scripts. She was a beautiful woman, of disquieting physicist, who spoke with passion of the Rosacruces and its secret society.
The mother, Paloma Rocasolano, is the advisor, the one that elegance contributes and it gives touch of distinction. Letizia with "Z" comes from the fascination that her mother felt when it is listened tth pronounce of that name to an Italian woman. Opera, classical music, dance, is arts that fill the world of Paloma and that she transfers to her daughter. In a trip to Cuba, Paloma managed to dazzle companions by the passion that is demonstrated by enjoying every moment of the life. She is the perfect tourist.
Through her godmother and aunt, Cristina Ortiz, died because of a cancer, know the fight by the life, the love to the family and the reality of the clan that never leaves to you, whereas her aunt Henar Ortiz transfers to her that the important thing is to be in taste with the life: the rebel of the family, the one that looked for until it found his hollow.
Each one transmitted the best thing to him of herself, contributing to forge the personality of Letizia. And the men? Coils by the female personalities, faithful shades...
Mariló Suárez is author of "the Ortiz", that will go out the 24 March under the seal the Sphere Books/MARILÓ SUÁREZ
