Photography: Africa website Vázquez Beltrán.
Africa Vazquez Beltran is from Zaragoza and graduated in History. He published his first novel when he was very young, at seventeen. He has already twenty-one that are youth and adult literature of different genres such as fantastic, historical, romantic or science fiction. She is also known by Africa Ruth, name with which he has signed titles such as The youth of the moor o After the monsoon. It has also been dedicated to reading outreach both in schools and other educational centers or in projects such as Ficción Express. And he also gives writing workshops for young people and adults. The last novel presented by him is of historical genre and is titled The silence of Berlin, which won the CREAR 2019 Award. Thank you so much your time and kindness to this interview where he tells us about her and several other things.
Africa Vázquez Beltrán— Interview
- ACTUALIDAD LITERATURA: Your new novel is titled the silence of berlin. What do you tell us about it and where did the idea come from?
AFRICA VAZQUEZ BELTRÁN: I tell the fictional story of a teacher aria who, at the height of Nazism, refuses to be part of the regime. The idea came to me while I was studying History, I was wondering how non-Nazi Germans must have felt in the time of Hitler. The novel was intended to be an answer, but in the end it only raised more and more questions for me.
- TO THE: You can go back to that first book you read? And the first story you wrote?
BVA: I don't remember the first book I read, but I do remember the first stories I heard: my parents told me before bed when I was little. Then I started poking around in my older sister's library and met Enid blyton, Michael Ende, María Gripe… My first attempt at a novel was when I was ten years old and it was about a Spanish woman who fled to Russia after the Civil War and became a ballet dancer.
- AL: A head writer? You can choose more than one and from all eras.
AVB: What a difficult question! I'm going to stay with Laura Gallego because it marked my adolescence.
- AL: What character in a book would you have liked to meet and create?
BVA: Quote, The name of the wind y Jean Valjean, The Miserablesrespectively.
- AL: Any special habits or habits when it comes to writing or reading?
BVA: None, the truth is that I am enough SUV. Due to personal circumstances, I have come to write more than half of a novel with my mobile, in a WhatsApp group in which only I was.
- AL: And your preferred place and time to do it?
BVA: If I can choose, I love to write when I'm on vacation in the mountains or in the countryside.
- AL: Are there other genres that you like?
BVA: I read and write (or plan to write) almost all genres, but I think my favorites are the novel History, the novel fantastic and the novel Juvenile contemporary
- What are you reading now? And writing?
BVA: I just finished reading The thief, by Megan Whalen Turner, and I am writing the third book in a trilogy titled the nameless clan. All fantasy!
- AL: How do you think the publishing scene is and what decided you to try to publish?
BVA: I feel that Internet and social networks have changed the publishing worldsometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. At first I didn't think I could dedicate myself to writing professionally, but I wrote so many stories, and so different from each other, that I told myself I didn't lose anything by trying.
- 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?
BVA: Work has helped me since the beginning of the pandemic: stories have always been a refuge for me, and I hope they will continue to be so in the future.