The book:
Halfway between a chronicle and an adventure novel, Squaring the Circle (The
amazing story of Refracta and Pedro Fajardo) narrates the difficult survival of a company over eight decades and portrays the unclassifiable genius who has headed it for the last four, Pedro Fajardo, a warrior-come-philosopher-come-modern druid who managed to conquer the world with his magical potions.
It is also the portrait of the workforce that stood as one around him to prevent the extinction of the Refracta factory, enduring considerable hardship and doing all kinds of balancing acts, some almost inconceivable, with a sense of community that is perhaps now in disuse.
The story of Refractarios Especiales and Fajardo is, by the way, a reflection of the society of that time, from the autarchic Spain of 1940 to the threshold of the pandemic that brought the world to a standstill in 2020.
Lastly, it is a double observation: first, that in any area of human activity creation is possible, however trite its circuits may seem; and second, that sometimes one must fight as much as humanly possible to ensure this creation transcends the door to your home, or to your laboratory, or to your factory. All of which, in the unique mental structure of Fajardo, are practically one and the same.
The author:
Rafa Botella (Valencia, 1968) has been a journalist in the press, on the radio and
in television, winning certain literary prizes and contributing to the odd film script along the way. His restless spirit, however, has meant that he has also been a restaurant owner, a salesman, and even a musician, in environments that were more intellectual, more artistic, or more about moving crates of beer in the storeroom. This has given him what ophthalmologists call "peripheral vision", which they describe as "what occurs outside the centre of one's gaze and is very important for appreciating the details". It is this view that he has projected on the story of Refracta and Pedro Fajardo, with all its ramifications, in the most complex work he has tackled to date.
