By Gemma Q. Casas
Variety News Staff

THE stories of 400 Spanish political prisoners exiled to the Marianas more than 100 years ago are recounted in a new book titled “Beyond Distances: Governance, Politics and Deportation in the Mariana Islands from 1870 to 1877.”
Spanish historian and author Carlos Madrid launched his 254-page book on Tuesday night at American Memorial Park.
Madrid, who is completing his doctorate in history this year, said it took him almost five years to complete the book, his fourth.
He began his research in 2002 in Manila, the Philippines which was a Spanish colony from 1565 to 1898.
“I submitted the final manuscript in Jan. 2005. It has been so long but it takes time to prepare it, particularly the English editing because I’m not a fluent English writer. I’m prepared to have the (book) discussed, denied or challenged and be rewritten by somebody else,” he said.
The NMI Council for the Humanities, which financed the project, printed 1,000 copies of the book.
Proceeds of the sales will be used to finance the council’s future projects.
“I think we are very privileged to have Carlos Madrid here as a scholar and historian,” said Humanities Council Executive Director Paz C. Younis. “I think it’s true what they say, historians pick and choose the events and it’s a continuous dialogue. We interpret it differently from our perspective.”
It was council program officer Scott Russell who suggested a book about the episode involving the Spanish dissidents.
Russell said he was pleased with Madrid’s work, adding that although the book is scholarly in nature, the historian managed to tell an engaging story.
Madrid thanked the Humanities Council for funding the project.
“I think they are going to find interesting perspectives in the history of the Marianas. There are many, many things that can be learned about that period,” he said.
Some copies of the book will be distributed to different public schools and historical offices in Manila and Spain.
The Spanish dissidents were sent to the Marianas in the summer of 1875.
Madrid’s book narrates in detail how they survived with the help of the indigenous people of the islands which were Spanish possessions at the time.