Barbara Gil. Photos: Pilar Pellicer.
Barbara Gil, journalist, writer and literary educator, publishes her second novel titled The legend of the volcano what comes out us to the market. In this extensive interview He tells us about her and many other topics about the publishing world and the creative process of their stories. You I appreciate Much your time and kindness.
Barbara Gil — Interview
- ACTUALIDAD LITERATURA: Your new novel is titled the legend of the volcano. What do you tell us about it and where did the idea come from?
BARBARA GIL: It is a historical and romantic adventure, but with rhythm of thriller, or so I tried. Simplifying a lot: family soap opera, murders, unstoppable advance of the railway, slavery, birth of the banana republics, gestation of the capitalism in Latin America, fight for land, the discovery of a millennial treasure, a woman between two men, sex or salsaillo, as my friends call it... And one protagonist which, above all, is a great adventurer.
I like to make readers travel, and for my second novel I wanted to find a perfect exotic setting: a country to escape to to reconnect with nature, with ourselves, but above all, to live a great adventure. Costa Rica I was seduced by three reasons: it is a country of untamed nature, without an army (when you arrive they greet you with their characteristicPure Life!, and that is how friendly and vital the character of the Ticos is) and their historical setting es fascinating, but unknown to the general public.
When I read What I like the most is learning new things, so I bought a plane ticket and went there to investigate. It was then, inquiring into the country's history after its independence from Spain in 1821, that I realized how absolutely fascinating its birth as a nation linked to the epic railway construction, which led to the career meteoric Magnate of the railroads and banana plantations of the North American Minor Cooper Keith.
Who was Minor Cooper Keith
This man fomented the banana wars to finance his corporation, but also thanks to him began the race for the social and economic development of Costa Rica that spread to the rest of Latin America. He was a figure determined the fate of not only Costa Rica, but all of Americaand even the world. They called him the uncrowned King of Costa Rica, and also the Banana King. The horrible term "banana republics" arose around him. How was it possible that there was no fiction about it? There are documentaries, yes, and some books and many newspaper articles, but a commercial fiction book, no. It appears in One Hundred Years of Solitude, although it cannot be certain that it is him because García Márquez does not say his name.
And then the story occurred to me: I invented a lover, which would be the protagonist, a intrepid and dreamy young woman, a great adventurer who would oppose the conquering vision of Minor's capitalist imperialism, and would metaphorically represent the plunder that Costa Rica suffered during those first years of search for identity and progress, which the North Americans knew how to take advantage of for their own benefit.
- AL: Can you remember any of your first readings? And the first story you wrote?
BG: I remember with special affection readings that marked me in adolescence, such as The Alexandria Quartet, Crime and Punishment, Red and black, and other readings that have influenced the topics that I like to deal with (survival, exoticism, identity of nations) such as gone With the Wind, Out of Africa o Guerra y paz. And of course the adventure novels that helped me to forge the character of the protagonist of The Legend of the Volcano: The Three Musketeers, Don Quixote, The Knight of the Cart, LGulliver's Travels, The island of the treasure, Around the world in 80 days...
Contrary to some of the adolescent students who come to my workshops and who already write not one, but several novels, I got to it late. At her age, she wrote thoughts, scenes, but nothing that can be called history. I wrote some stories during the time of the UniversityBut nothing I'm particularly proud of. My first novel I wrote it when I was twenty-nine years old, for the Master's degree from Madrid School of Writers, and it was so weird and experimental that some teachers gave me a 0 and others a 10.
Writers, creative customs and genres
- AL: A head writer? You can choose more than one and from all eras.
BG: I love them all. It is that I tremble in front of this question because one day I am going to tell you Isabel Allende, Marguerite Duras, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Mario Vargas Llosa, and the next day, Juan Rulf, Ignacio Ferrando, Alice Munroe, iris Murdoch, Dumas. And the next, Jack London, Raymond Carver, JD salinger, ray bradbury, Philip Dick, Stanislaw Lem, Mikhail bulgakov… Each one of his father and his mother. And I will always feel the frustration of everyone that I am not telling you because the list is inexhaustible.
- AL: What character in a book would you have liked to meet and create?
BG: Alonso Quijano, Don Quixote. Or its funniest version: D'artagnan, the Gascon Don Quixote.
- AL: Any special habits or habits when it comes to writing or reading?
BG: Yes: I hate having people around if I'm at home writing. However, in a library or in a cafeteria I can concentrate perfectly. I think it has to do with the fear of being interrupted when I'm engrossed in a scene. When someone calls me to ask if they can spend a few days at my house in Mallorca, I have a terrible time because I hate saying no, but I can't work with people. When I tell them, they answer me "Don't worry, I'm not going to bother you", but I get rashes just thinking that I will no longer be able to write.
If there are people in my house, I can only make sure they are comfortable. That is incompatible with writing, which is a job that requires so much isolation. So when people come (which living in Mallorca is quite frequent), I go to a library or a cafeteria.
- AL: And your preferred place and time to do it?
BG: The living room from my house, first thing in the morning, with a cup of coffee.
- AL: Are there other genres that you like?
BG: There is only one genre that does not convince me: the current autofiction, which seems to never go out of style. I am supremely bored by the naveling of some authors, those first-person narrators who reflect until your brain dries up and do not include any action. It is probably also because When I read I like to escape from reality completely. I know that I am being very categorical, and even unfair to the genre, but, of course, I am sure that there are many exceptions and I am more than open to recommendations, although I admit that it is hard for me to sink my teeth into those books.
- AL: What are you reading now? And writing?
BG: Right now I'm reading the latest novel by Ignatius Ferrando, The rumor and the insects. He has won all the story and novel contests in Spain (the prestigious ones, not the ones that are given in advance), as well as a lot of scholarships and, nevertheless, is not known for the great public. An injustice that has a lot to do with the editorial landscape. Of course, with this novel It seems that the media are finally paying more attention to him, something that all readers will win with.
I am not writing because I am focused on promotion of the novel, which will be on sale in all bookstores on May 25, and in my writing workshops, which is the work that sustains me. But I am correcting that novel the one I was talking about before, the one I wrote in the masterbecause it deals with the topic of Artificial Intelligencenothing to do with him landscape, which is the genre of my last two novels. Of course, in a few months I will start thinking about a new exotic destination for my next story. Suggestions are accepted.
publishing landscape
- AL: How do you think the publishing scene is and what decided you to try to publish?
BG: Too much is published and sales are very polarized: 90 books a year, and only 000 percent sell more than 0,3 copies… Whew. Bearing in mind that authors earn 3% of each book as a rule, and that a good novel takes at least nine months to write (there are always exceptions), well that leaves writers with their tails hanging in the air. Publishers cannot cope and booksellers no longer know where to put so much new. One day a thousand books are "entering" and the next returning as many. Readers have so much to choose from that they don't know what.
Ten authors can live off this to which all eyes and budget are dedicated. But what can I say? Writing is a bad drug, a passion that has us writers hooked by the neck and won't let go. I would never leave it, I live for and for this.
I have been very lucky, being published by a publisher with as much history and name as Plaza & Janés, which makes super-cared, precious editions, which attends to the smallest detail... and go hand in hand with albert mark, one of the best publishers in Spain, which it flies over the text like an eagle, as if it had been granted the gift of encompassing a broader perspective than normal, and that always gives you a precise and sharp vision of each story that falls into its hands. That makes sense of everything in my case. The Plaza team makes one's effort always worthwhile and is focused on what is most important: that readers enjoy the stories.
- AL: How are you handling the current moment we live in? Do you find it inspiring for future stories?
BG: I find it inspiring the AI theme, although I know that it arouses many fears and gives rise to apocalyptic headlines, which do not end. I share the concern because of the jobs that it can eliminate, although I admit that I am fascinated by how it can wildly enhance all our abilities: reasoning, learning, creativity and planning. And, as I mentioned before, it inspires me for that novel that I am reviewing.
As for other issues like climate change and overproduction, is something that I dealt with exhaustively in my first novel, Water lilies that shine in sad waters, a title that is a metaphor that renders tribute to the women who died in the collapse of a Bangladeshi factory in 2013. The fear of a new financial crisis does not inspire me, I terrifies, the same as the war in Ukraine, and those of many other countries, which we prefer to ignore because we are stuck in a ball that has grown so much that only inertia drives it. and the stories of pandemics I love novels and television series, but as reality that's another story terror.