Photography: Eva Zamora. Alberto Santos, Editor.
Eve Zamora He was born in Madrid and has already published 10 novels where he combines the noir and romantic genres. They are between them The essence of my life What hides the truth, All for Daniel, Lost in my mistrust o Love overlooking the sea. In this interview He talk to us about Revenge does not prescribe although its last title is angelic face of evil. I really appreciate his time and attention.
Eva Zamora — Interview
- ACTUALIDAD LITERATURA: Your latest novel is titled Revenge does not prescribe. What do you tell us about it and where did the idea come from?
Eve Zamora: Revenge does not prescribe It is not my last novel, it is the Angelic face of evil. But about her I can tell you that it was the primer thriller police what i wrote I had a lot of fun narrating it in the first person but in three different voices, that of the Homicide inspector, who is the protagonist, and those of the two murderers that she is looking for, and whose identities in the work are hidden under a pseudonym to lengthen the suspense
The idea of this novel had been around my head for a long time, I had something basic written for more than a year in my notebook of ideas. But after rereading a novel that opens an important moral debate about whether a lawyer must defend a murderer of whom he was a victim years ago, I thought about my idea many things and focused on one question: Victim or executioner? Around her the story begins to grow, whose weight falls on discovering the reason for the revenge and not so much on uncovering the true identity of the murderers.
- AL: Can you go back to that first book you read? And the first story you wrote?
EZ: I learned to read at an early age, when I was four years old. My parents taught me. I remember when I was six I started reading Grimm brothers' stories and with nine fell into my hands the famous Rhymes and Legends of the great Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, who fascinated me and motivated me to write. I started writing small poems and later short stories. I couldn't say what the first story he believed was, because during adolescence I spent the day writing stories.
Then, for different reasons, and for many years, I stopped writing. But at the age of forty I decided to go back to what I liked so much and this time I started writing with the idea of finding a publisher for my story. thus was born Lost in my mistrust, the first novel I wrote, although not the first one published for me.
- AL: A head writer? You can choose more than one and from all eras.
EZ: For a long time my bedside books were any title from Agatha Christie, from Mary Higgins-Clark and Harlan coben. I have also reread the occasional classic, because there are authors who have left an important mark on me and rereading their work is always a pleasure, like Bécquer, Galdós, Benavente, Wilde, Dumas, Austen, Kafka, Tolstoy… But I must confess that currently I don't have a particular bedside book, nor an author. Years ago I discovered that in our country there are many authors and very good ones, and I want to get to know them all.
- AL: What character in a book would you have liked to meet and create?
EZ: to hercules Poirot and Miss Marple, and I would have a thousand questions for them. I would have loved to create them too, just like the character in Dorian Gray.
- AL: Any special habits or habits when it comes to writing or reading?
EZ: Tranquility and silence, that's what I need when creating and when I want to recreate myself with reading.
- AL: And your preferred place and time to do it?
EZ: I rather write early in the morning, that my mind is fresher, and then a little while later in the afternoon. I always write in my study, where I have the computer, my notebooks, diagrams, and others. I don't have a defined time to read, I read whenever I can, and I don't have a specific place either, it is enough for me that there is silence.
- AL: Are there other genres that you like?
EZ: Whenever the synopsis of a work seduces me, I don't care about gender. What I want is for them to tell me a story that catches me.
- AL: What are you reading now? And writing?
EZ: I have started three books and I am slow in reading due to lack of time. I am with The Secret Life of Úrsula Bas, by Arantza Portabales, The good father, by Santiago Diaz, and land of mist and honey, by Marta Abello. I'm not progressing as I'd like precisely because I'm polishing my next novel and I can't give it my all, I have hours left for everything. If everything goes fine, my eleventh novel will be published in the fall.
- AL: How do you think the publishing scene is and what decided you to try to publish?
EZ: The publishing world It's complex, it always has been, and I think it always will be.. We are many writers and many annual publications, but it is true that there are not that many recognized authors and that many of us feel that good opportunities are only offered to a few.
I sent my first manuscript to many publishers, I received quite a few refusals and even more silence in response. I thought about self-publishing, but in the end I didn't do it because I needed to know the opinion of someone with knowledge in the publishing world, who wouldn't ask me for money to publish my novel, but would bet on it. Because no one takes risks if they don't believe there is potential, regardless of how subjective literature is, like any art. Luckily I met my editor, Alberto Santos, director of the Imágica-Ediciones publishing house, a small, independent and traditional publishing house from Madrid that published my first one in 2014. Currently, they have published nine of the ten novels I have, and I am very happy with them.
- 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?
EZ: In particular, it has taken me a long time to reconnect with my creative self since the lockdown.. I have been more than fifteen months without being able to write, with the imaginary in dry dock. It has affected me so much that I have decided not to mention the pandemic in my next novels, to freeze time until the year 2019. I I write to escape and to evade, and I believe that readers do not need to see novels as an extension of the news, nor that they are a reminder of the convulsive time we are living. I'll see if in the future I mention these complex times or directly take a time jump. Because I am positive and I am sure that the waters will return to their normal course.