Photographs: courtesy of Helena Tur.
A Helena Tur it is also known as Jane kelder, the pseudonym under which he has signed several titles of romance novels set in the period of the British regency in the XNUMXth century, due to his fondness for the English literature of that century. Teacher, now on leave to write, sign the first with his name, Bad blood, released last year. You have been kind enough to grant me this interview where he talks about her and everything a little.
Helena Tur - Interview
- ACTUALIDAD LITERATURA: The title of your novel is Bad blood. What do you tell us about it and where did the idea come from?
HELENA TUR:Actually the title is Bad blood, but we decided to play with the ambiguity on the cover. It's a Historical fiction thriller set in Las Médulas in 1858. While the Civil Guard is deployed in the area to prevent attacks against Isabel II, who will pass there shortly, bleeding girls begin to appear in El Sil. That coincides with the arrival of a young orphan who will be dedicated to taking care of a deaf girl, daughter of the owner of a bee farm. But, in his eagerness to protect her, little by little he will get into the wolf's mouth. The first idea, on which everything else was built, was the motive for the crimes. From there, and in different rewrites, the characters appeared and the text was woven together.
- AL: Can you remember that first book you read? And the first story you wrote?
HT: As a child, my grandfather always gave me books about animals. They were informative, no narration. I think the first narrative book I read was a compilation of short stories including The happy Prince, by Oscar Wilde, and with him I cried like a rip for weeks.
The first thing I remember writing was with 9 years. Also, from a storybook, then I summarized them and I versified them by way of romances. Things to combat boredom as an only child, I guess.
- AL: A head writer? You can choose more than one and from all eras.
HT: I always go back to Nietzsche, Vincent Valero, Mallarme, rilke, Kafka, Thomas Man, Not me austen… I am more about rereading than discovering.
- AL: What character in a book would you have liked to meet and create?
HT: I know this one: Lord henry, The Portrait of Dorian Gray. I find it fascinating.
- AL: Any special habits or habits when it comes to writing or reading?
HT: For write, needed know that I have time in front. I am unable to write at odd times, it is so difficult to enter your text that I want nothing to remove me.
To read, anywhere, there is noise, people talk or whatever. I disconnect from the world very easily.
- AL: And your preferred place and time to do it?
HT: For write, I do better for the mornings (I'm an early riser) and, of course, in my office and with an old computer. I'm not one to take a laptop anywhere. For read, no bad moment.
- AL: Are there other genres that you like?
HT: I like everything I have quality, genres are nothing more than a label. But, using them, there are two things that I cannot with them: self-help and eroticism.
- AL: What are you reading now? And writing?
HT: Now I was rereading Red and Black, from Stendhal, but I interrupted it to read The nonconformist killer, by Carlos Bardem, because I have to conduct a talk between him and Domingo Villar.
At the same time, I am rwriting an Ágatha Christie type novel, although with a mixture of genres, set in the Villa de Ochandiano in 1897. I still don't know how it will be titled.
- AL: How do you think the publishing scene is?
HT: Publishers, with exceptions, are companies that they want sales and they are forced to look for the balance between profitability and quality. Now, the panorama has been filled with media people who give good results, but, luckily, there are opportunities for strangers (continuity will depend on sales, of course).
I have always written, but I decided to publish a few years ago because I am a high school teacher and wanted to run away the one that has come down on us. It is very hard to see how you are pushed to treat intelligent people as if they were stupid until they become stupid. It hurts much.
- 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?
HT: I have taken advantage of the situation to ask for one leave and I'm spending the time writing. I am very homely and confinement has not affected me too much. But of course I don't feel like writing anything about the pandemic, I think there is already a general tiredness about the lack of normality.