Photography: Rodrigo Costoya's website.
Rodrigo Costoya, teacher and writer, says that «writing is exploring the universes that we didn't even know lived within us». He debuted in it with Porto Santo. The enigma of Columbus. And his latest novel is The custodian of the books, who won the IX City of Úbeda Historical Novel Contest in 2020. I thank you very much for the time, kindness and dedication for this interview where he tells us about her and much more.
Rodrigo Costoya — Interview
- ACTUALIDAD LITERATURA: Your latest novel The Keeper of the Books won the IX City of Úbeda Historical Novel Contest in 2020. Where did the idea for your story come from and what did that award mean to you?
RODRIGO COSTOYA: The idea, as is often the case with my novels, appeared in a old book about the history of Galicia. There the events that I am narrating were mentioned, and that I integrated with other historical facts of world relevance and, of course, with the fictional plots that sustain our entire history.
The prize gave me access to the general public, the great goal for a new writer. Something very difficult, and that is so frustrating that it could ruin a career if it is not achieved. Úbeda, therefore, will be forever in my heart.
- AL: Can you remember any of your first readings? And the first story you wrote?
RC: Of course I remember my heart racing reading the great adventure novels: Salgari, Verne, London, Stevenson… and also fantasy novels from current literature: Ende, Tolkien, Rothfuss… I see myself as a child unable to put down a book, until the wee hours (with the consequent reprimand from my parents), crying when I close one of those novels because it was over. I guess that's where the stories I write today come from. I also remember having started at a very young age in other great works of universal literature: Dumas, Suskind, Rulfo… The historical novel, however, I discovered as an adult.
- AL: A head writer? You can choose more than one and from all periods.
RC: It happens to me like Samwise Gamyi when I return to the Shire: either I spend three days answering this question or I don't do it. Summarizing to the limit, I will go to García Márquez in narrative (although what I do is radically different); to Manuel Antonio in poetry now Bryson in rehearsal.
- AL: What character in a book would you have liked to meet and create?
RC: I love the polyhedral, contradictory characters, those that show the weaknesses that we all carry, those that manifest the light and the darkness that we all carry inside. Perhaps the best exponent is the Scarlett O'Hara by Margaret Mitchell, but I am also fascinated by the heathcliff by Emily Brontë, the Ahab of Melville or the humbert of Nabokov, for example. And always portrayed through their actions, how they express themselves, what they do, how they react and how they treat others.
- AL: Any special habits or habits when it comes to writing or reading?
RC: Nothing, really. Needed silence, concentration and time of quality to devote to work. I don't do weird things. And of course, I am very amused by that concept of “inspiration” that people believe in. That does not exist. Hard work yes.
- AL: And your preferred place and time to do it?
RC: The perfect place for me, the sofa or the bed, with the laptop on the lap and little else. The best time, dedicate a whole morning. When I wear I like to start between the five and six in the morning, and if nothing prevents it I arrive until noon. And always interspersing some sport, yes.
- AL: Are there other genres that you like?
RC: The action novels, of adventures, I have always liked them a lot. Some, like those of Mark Twain or Fenimore Cooper (among many others), overlap with what could be understood as a novel with a historical setting. In fact, I consider that my subgenre tends rather towards that hybrid. Then, as I said, there are those where the component of boobs acquires more or less prominence (from Tolkien to Verne, for example), which are also among my favorites. In any case, I am more of quality works than of one genre or another. If the novel, or the collection of poems, or a book of any other genre, is good, I'm going to like it. That's for sure.
- AL: What are you reading now? And writing?
RC: What I usually read the most are various articles, research or publications that deal with the historical topics that interest me. These readings are daily for me, and I almost always find them on the Internet.
As a literary work I am reading God's name, by Jose Zoilo. A historical novel of the highest quality framed in the conquest of the Iberian Peninsula by the Muslims in the year 711, written by a true master. Beside louis clog, the two giants of the current historical novel in Spanish.
Am writing my fourth novel, centered on a gripping (and true) story what happened in Santiago de Compostela between 1588 and 1589 (simultaneously with the companies known respectively as the Invincible Armada and the English Counterarmada). I'm super excited, because what happened here in those two years is absolutely incredible.
- AL: How do you think the publishing scene is and what decided you to try to publish?
RC: The picture is complicatedeveryone will say this. But I also have to say that I started writing five years ago and now I have two novels published in large publishers (each one, in its version in Spanish and Galician), and that my third novel is going to be published in May with the Grupo Planet. And that the fourth is on the way and everything indicates that I will also be able to publish with a large publisher. I mean, based on my personal experience, work is rewarded.
What made me decide to try to publish is the need for these stories, which I find so exciting, to reach as many people as possible. I like them so much, they excite me to such an extent that I feel the impulse to spread them to the four winds. I guess this is what moves us all, right?
- 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?
RC: The moment we are living in is strange, but Except for those people who have had an irreparable loss, we should not exaggerate either. We have seen our freedoms reduced, but neither have we been tied to the foot of the bed. The confinement of two years ago... well, it was a month and a half that we lived differently. The mask, the curfews... I said, they are temporary measures, something punctual in our lives from which we should learn many positive things. To value the freedom of living in the West, for example. To understand people fleeing from war, from oppression, from regimes where you can't live, well, too.
So I choose to stay with the positive. Which is a lot, of course.