Photography: Ricardo Alia | Facebook profile
Ricardo Alia is the author of the zodiac trilogy (made of The Sign of the Dragon, The Flight of the Serpent, and The Leaping Horse) Y The poisoned pawn, which he published with the Maeva publishing house. But with his latest novel, The English Cemetery he preferred the reverse path of self-publishing. In this interview tells us about her and various other matters, so I I appreciate Much your time and kindness in serving me.
Ricardo Alia
Ricardo Alia was born in San Sebastián and has a degree in Chemistry from the University of the Basque Country. Very fond of chess, he competed in several national and international tournaments. Reside in Barcelona where he works as a chemist and his profession had a lot to do with the publication of his first novel that gave rise to the zodiac trilogy. While chess is the central axis of The poisoned pawn.
Ricardo Alia — Interview
- ACTUALIDAD LITERATURA: The title of your latest novel is The cemetery of the English. How did it go and where did the idea come from?
RICARDO ALÍA: I have lived in Barcelona for a few years and I remember that when I arrived I ran into a literary map of the city, with points of interest that made reference to writers and novels. Years later I searched for a similar map in the San Sebastián tourist office and found none. Then I came up with the idea of a young writer who finds a corpse in the English Cemetery (a place on the hill of the mount Urgull where there are only a few abandoned tombstones left) and to unravel the guilty follow in the footsteps of writers (Baroja, Hugo, Hemingway...) who left their mark on San Sebastián.
The novel is available only on Amazon, self-published, an election different from my previous novels published under the MAEVA label. I wanted to try and, although it has been hard, it is very gratifying.
- AL: Can you remember any of your first readings? And the first story you wrote?
RA: One of my first readings was El Quijote, an old copy that my father kept. But the reading that marked me and led me to want to write was Christine, Stephen King.
RA: The first story I wrote became my first novel, The sign of the dragon.
- AL: A head writer? You can choose more than one and from all eras.
RA: Nesbo, Del Árbol, Pérez-Reverte, Lemaitre, García Márquez… I am a eclectic reader.
- AL: What character in a book would you have liked to meet and create?
RA: Any character created by García Márquez, but if I had to choose one I would go for Aureliano Buendía en One Hundred Years of Solitude.
- AL: Any special habits or habits when it comes to writing or reading?
RA: I listen to music, I create a songs list for each novel.
- AL: And your preferred place and time to do it?
RA: in me office From home. The moment is not important, any time is fine.
- AL: Are there other genres that you like?
RA: Any gender I like it if the novel is good.
- AL: What are you reading now? And writing?
RA: I'm reading blood in the snow by Jo Nesbø, and The furious army, by Fred Vargas. AlreadyJust finished a new one novel set in the 90s which takes place in a remote town United States.
- AL: How do you think the publishing scene is and what decided you to try to publish?
RA: I'm a little pessimistic in this sense. Every time Fewer books are sold, more bookstores close, and now the current situation, with the war in Ukraine and the galloping inflation, does not help the outlook improve.
- AL: Is the moment of crisis that we are experiencing being difficult for you or will you be able to keep something positive for future stories?
RA: Fortunately I have a stable job away from writing. Y at the time of writing the current moment does not affect me. I am able to get quite abstracted, and lately I tend to write stories in times before the indiscriminate use of mobile phones, the 80s or 90s, when we did not complicate our lives so much.