Photography: Berna González Harbor. Twitter profile.
Berna González Harbor, writer, journalist and cultural collaborator, has a more than considerable and important career and in the black genre in particular. The creator of the Commissioner Ruiz has released a new novel to the market, entitled The hole. With the above, The dream of reason, took the Dashiell Hammett Award 2020, awarded by the Black Week of Gijón to the best novel of the genre in Spanish. Before he was a finalist for the same award with Claire Jones's tears. In this interview Berna tells us about that latest work as well as many other topics, such as her favorite authors, her current readings and projects, or how to see the current publishing scene. So I really appreciate your time to serve me, as well as his kindness.
Berna González Harbor has also been and is a member of several literary juries and recently we were able to see her as a guest at the festival of Black spot, in Ciudad Real. In her journalistic role, she is deputy director of El País, where she was editor of babelia and sent special. Take the book show What are you reading? and participate in the gathering of Today, in the Cadena Ser.
BERNA GONZÁLEZ HARBOR - Interview
- ACTUALIDAD LITERATURA: El water well is your last novel. What do you tell us about it and where did the idea come from?
BERNA GONZÁLEZ HARBOR: El pozo is a journalistic thriller from the fall of a girl in a well and the media circus that rides around it. Part of a reflexión during Julen's case and other events that have become national entertainment and pure sensationalism, more than in quality journalism.
- AL: Can you go back to that first book you read? And the first story you wrote?
BGH: There were many, from Alice in Wonderland to the stories of Andersen. I spent my childhood writing lots of letters to cousins, parents, brothers, friends and there I cultivated the love of writing. Too bad letters are no longer written today, it was a brutal baggage.
- AL: A head writer? You can choose more than one and from all eras.
BGH: Cees Noote Boom. Alice Munro. Never forgetting the Russians as Dostoievski, Gogol or Tolstoy or Latin Americans like those of the tree.
- AL: What character in a book would you have liked to meet and create?
BGH: Any of the Old Testament. I am fascinated by those imperious characters who are even willing to sacrifice a son. I will never understand them and that is why they attract me.
- AL: Any special habits or habits when it comes to writing or reading?
BGH: A coffee It is the only mania, the only addiction to start writing. To read, whatever.
- AL: And your preferred place and time to do it?
BGH: I have written in hospitals, in airports, in corridors, in bed, on the beach or anywhere. Always in the morning. Mental freshness only happens to me morning.
- AL: Are there other genres that you like?
BGH: The narrative in general. And the essay and poetry, of course.
- AL: What are you reading now? And writing?
BGH: I read the series of Ali Smith in Nordic. And I'm delivering a essay on Goya, a little surprise.
- AL: How do you think the publishing scene is and what decided you to try to publish?
BGH: If you are a writer you write, if you write you want to publish. I tried and it happened. No more. The reception was good and the publishing scene has perfectly overcome the pandemic and the paper crisis.
- 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?
BGH: There are many positive things, also from a literary point of view: awareness of vulnerability, priority setting, strength that has emerged in us. Even pain is a great raw material for writing, which is nothing more than digging deep inside ourselves.