Andorra Revealed:
Entertaining stories about one of the world's more enigmatic countries. Journey with us through fact and fiction, memoire and imagination, behind the scenes and into the heart of this unique, pocket-sized country.
The book is crammed with facts, past and present and interwoven with bedtime stories that reveal even more of this rare Co-Princedom: tales of smugglers and pigs, murder and even witches on broomsticks.
Serving as an entertaining companion for would-be visitors and a practical guide for those considering Andorra as a place to live, it shares with you the allure that has brought foreigners from all over the world to make this country their home. including the authors themselves: Clare Allcard arrived by sailboat - and car - from Singapore, Judith Wood, born in Bombay, was drawn from London, Iain Woolward from Silicon Valley, Alexandra Grebennikova from Russia, Valerie Rymarenko from Spain while Ursula Ure Simpson, born in Shanghai, arrived in Andorra by camper van.
Born in England in 1946, Clare Allcard, aged 22, drove a Land Rover to Singapore with her future husband, Edward, a single-handed sailor 31 years her senior. From 1969 they travelled the world in old sailboats arriving on the mountain tops of Andorra in 1986. Clare has published books in New York and London. In 1993 she co-founded The Writers' Group of Andorra. After living in the country the statutory 20 years, she took an extensive citizenship exam in Catalan and became an Andorran national.
Judith Wood: hatched in Bombay, matched in Andorra: despatched? We'll see. She lived in many places including Malaysia, Singapore, Cyprus, and Northern Germany. These flavour what she writes, none more so than Andorra, her home for 27 years. What led her to write? Time in a Belgian convent school where reading books, other than religious, was frowned upon. Sitting in her black tablier, tongue protruding, she scribbled violent tales while the strict nuns thought she was doing homework.
Iain Woolward, an Olympic sailor, spent many years in Silicone Valley's advertising industry and was CEO of various technology spin-outs from places like NASA and Oxford University. His gusto for living life to the full has led him to sample many of Andorra's outdoor delights at first hand. His writing style is quirky and entertaining, à la Bill Bryson, his pace impressive and all his chapters are well researched and enlivened by autobiographical details drawn from his worldwide wanderings.
Ursula Simpson Ure began her writing career aged 17 when she became the youngest author ever to be published by the venerable Blackwood's Magazine (founded in 1817 and finally closed in 1980). Her second novel, The Vintage, was translated into four languages and made into a film by MGM. Here she gives eye-witness accounts of Esteve Albert's Pessebre Vivent and of how her father built much of their beautiful Andorran house using seasoned oak and walnut saved by elderly spinsters for their dowries.
Alexandra Grebennikova was born in a country that doesn't exist anymore, in a city that has changed its name since then, with a dream to live in a place where everybody speaks at least two or three languages. Her dream came true in 1997 when she came to Andorra to work as a teacher after studying creative writing and translation in Moscow. She's been a columnist for Andorran newspapers since 2008. Her first book was written in Catalan and published in Ontinyent, Valencia.
