Maruja Torres opens with a gut punch: “The first day I cried.” For her, the Zapatero jewels scandal is more than another headline: she sees José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero’s failure to hand over the jewels right away as a deep betrayal. “That he did not deliver the jewels is very serious,” she says. She also recalls a warning from a respected figure, now gone: “I want to investigate Zapatero.”
Her new book, Cuanta más gente me jode, más buenos momentos tengo, resists easy labels. It moves beyond the classic memoir and travel diary, stitching together moments from Beirut and Paris, then Asturias and Mallorca, as the world seems to fall apart. The story runs from July 2025 to now. War and political rot hang over the pages, with Gaza’s shadow close by, but Torres refuses to let them poison her writing. She holds onto small things: a handmade notebook and a stubborn walking stick. There is also a Beirut restaurant that changed owners but kept its soul.
Zapatero first explained in writing that the jewels were a gift from Saudi King Abdullah during a visit to Spain on June 18 and 19, 2007. Several leading Spanish media outlets confirmed that detail in September 2026. In May 2026, more than 60 pieces of jewelry were discovered in the safe in Zapatero’s Madrid office, with an initial valuation of 1.3 million euros. The discovery led to a new court-ordered appraisal and sparked debate within the PSOE. Some members found the explanation of a royal gift difficult to accept. As reported by El País and Euronews, the ongoing legal process centers on the jewels’ origin and true value, with possible fiscal or customs violations at issue.
Her style is as sharp as ever. Sixty years in, she still mixes tenderness with humor. Nostalgia has no place here. Torres lays out her own way to resist: the more the world lets her down, the more she clings to the scraps that keep her going. She jokes about getting older and her cane. She invents a dry-witted psychoanalyst to spar with over Twitter and Elon Musk, while taking on the mental mess of social media. She looks back on the deaths of friends and her four exits from PRISA.
Disappointment with the left and social democracy runs through every page. Torres does not hide her anger at the state of European politics. She singles out the EU’s handling of the migration crisis and what she sees as a collapse of basic decency. Her criticism is direct, without slipping into self-pity. “I am personally and intimately well, and socially, internationally screwed,” she says. She smiles in a Madrid hotel, cane in hand, and is not backing down.
Torres has changed course on social media. She has left Twitter behind and now prefers Bluesky. She speaks frankly about the mental health risks of the digital world. The book’s jagged, almost real-time structure reflects the chaos of recent years, from bombings in southern Lebanon to the ache of Beirut, a city she loves and cannot forget. It also takes in Trump’s return to the world stage.
Still, this is not a book of complaints. Torres looks ahead, finding happiness in small, stubborn joys. The world outside grows colder, but she refuses to give in to nostalgia or despair. Her humor is sharp, and her resistance is alive.
She stands apart from the spectacle-driven stories that fill Spanish headlines. While others chase family feuds and celebrity drama, as seen in recent coverage of public disputes, Torres digs deeper. She cares about trust and principles, as well as the search for meaning in chaos.
Cuanta más gente me jode, más buenos momentos tengo comes out September 30, 2026. Torres delivers a book that is both a personal reckoning and a clear-eyed critique of the world around her. She will not let disappointment turn to cynicism. At a time when public figures hide behind nostalgia or excuses, Torres faces hard truths about herself and her generation, as well as her country.
