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Novelist John Banville poses in front of Tiziano’s ‘The Emperor Charles V at Muhlberg’ at the Prado Museum in Madrid, Spain, Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Paul White)The painting — a paragon of Baroque sophistication — has fascinated generations of artists. Banville, with his love of poetic detail, is no different.

“I find that ‘Las Meninas’ is always a surprise to me, and a challenge,” Banville told The Associated Press during a recent stroll through the Prado.“It’s the enigma of it, the strangeness of it. Every time I look at it, it becomes stranger again,” he said, surrounded by throngs of museumgoers. “Velázquez looks at you, saying, ‘Look what I did. Would you have been able to do anything like this?’”Banville’s privileged access to the Prado — including after hours and off-limits areas such as its restoration workshops — over the past month is part of the museum’s “Writing the Prado” program.

The program, sponsored by the Loewe Foundation, started last year and counts Nobel prize winners John Coetzee and Olga Tokarczuk, as well as the Mexican American author Chloe Aridjis, as its first fellows.Novelist John Banville looks at Diego Velazquez’s ‘Vulcan’s Forge’ at the Prado Museum in Madrid, Spain, Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Paul White)

Novelist John Banville looks at Diego Velazquez’s ‘Vulcan’s Forge’ at the Prado Museum in Madrid, Spain, Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Paul White)

The fellows immerse themselves in the museum over four weeks before producing a short work of fiction published by the Prado with the editorial guidance of Granta en español magazine.In this photo released by the Saudi Royal Palace, Syria’s interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa, left, shakes hands with President Donald Trump, centre, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Wednesday, May 14, 2025. At right is Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.(Bandar Aljaloud/Saudi Royal Palace via AP)

Israel, which still views Syria as a security threat and had urged Trump to keep the sanctions in place, was ignored, as it apparently was on a number of recent U.S. initiatives in the region, from the. Asked Friday if he knew Israel opposes U.S. recognition of Syria’s new government, Trump replied: “I don’t know, I didn’t ask them about that.”

“This week there was a party in the Middle East — a grand ball full of colorful costumes, money and gold changing hands — and we found ourselves playing the role of Cinderella before the transformation,” columnist Sima Kadmon wrote in Israel’s Yediot Ahronot daily.“The fairy godmother we thought we had flew off to Saudi Arabia and Qatar.”