Photography: Jesús Cañadas, Twitter profile.
Jesus Canadas He is from Cádiz and in 2011 he published his first novel, The dance of secrets. then I would follow Dead names, which led him to become one of the most valued emerging authors of the fantasy genre. With It will soon be night it goes to thriller apocalyptic and gets qualifiers as "new master of horror". He was also a writer for the second season of the series Vis to Vis. In this interview He talk to us about Red teeth, his latest novel, and much more. I really appreciate your dedicated time and kindness.
Jesus Canadas — Interview
- ACTUALIDAD LITERATURA: Your latest novel is titled Red teeth. What do you tell us about it and where did the idea come from?
Jesus Canadas: En Red teeth I have given myself the pleasure of approaching in the form of thriller the city where I live: Berlin. I was tired of Berlin in fiction appearing as a partying, multicultural and good-natured city, because there is a much harsher Berlin, hostile to immigrants and cold; and I wanted to photograph it.
En Red teeth we will enjoy (or suffer) a thriller supernatural in which Berlin is one more charactera sinister character that is hovering over the main couple, two policemen who are looking for a missing teenager that has only left behind a pool of blood and a knocked out tooth. We will soon discover that neither the policemen nor the missing girl are who they seem to be at first. I could tell you more, but it would spoil the surprise and maybe save you a bad drink or two.
- AL: Can you go back to that first book you read? And the first story you wrote?
JC: I don't remember the very first book I read, but I do remember the first one that impacted me, which was even a stolen book! It is The little Vampire, by Angela Sommer-Bodenburg, and I stole it from my cousin. I saw it on the table at his house when I was visiting and I took it without him noticing. Then he found out, forgave me and even gave it to me, because I loved the book. Since then, stories with monsters drive me crazy. And so I came out.
As for the the first story I wrote, I also remember it, although I would prefer not to. Like most writers, he was a filthy, indecent copy of the writers I liked at the time: Lovecraft, King, and Bradbury, but without a fraction of their talent. Better that it be buried in oblivion, although it was necessary for it to begin to improve. You have to start from the bottom.
- AL: How do you get on writing crime and fantasy novels like the Athenea saga? Which one do you feel more comfortable creating?
JC: I feel comfortable with everything because I like everything. I always say I love the tomato meatballs my mom makes, but if I had to eat them three times a day every day, I'd get fed up. The same thing happens with literature, I enjoy all kinds of stories and sometimes they are youthful, other fantastic, other science fiction or thriller or even romantic. All that hodgepodge ends up appearing in my novels, of course.
- AL: A head writer? You can choose more than one and from all eras.
JC: I have streaks. Lately I'm very heavy with Marian Enriquez, but other times it gives me the wind of Daniel Pennac, Angela Carter or Jack Ketchum. There is to choose.
- AL: What character in a book would you have liked to meet and create?
JC: I will tell you the protagonist of one of the last books I have translated: Jack Sparks, from the horror novel The last days of Jack Sparks. Jack is an unforgettable character, a disgusting bastard who you end up taking an unusual affection for, considering that he is nothing more than ink on paper.
- AL: Any special habits or habits when it comes to writing or reading?
JC: All of us writers have them because we're insecure and prefer to think that a writing session went well because there was a Mickey Mouse stuffed animal on the table. For me it has more to do with the place: always in the same place, always at same hourAlways with two coffees in the body. This is how my brain prepares. And always with the same music, which varies from novel to novel.
- AL: And your preferred place and time to do it?
JC: In the early stages of a novel, the coffee shop which is 500 meters from my house, in the back, where the waiters already know me and don't care if they see me making faces or talking in a low key while I write. I start at 9 in the morning and stop to prepare my little one's food. In the final stages, anytime and in any place, because I turn into a cockroach that doesn't want sunlight, but only keyboard and monitor.
- AL: Are there other genres that you like?
JC: I like them all genres as long as they are well written. What attracts me most in a book is always the style, rather than the story. If you recommend a book to me because it is well written, you have already sold it to me. Nevertheless, what usually stays with me are the characters.
- AL: What are you reading now? And writing?
JC: This summer I have started revisit one of my fetish books: Salem's Lot, a story I return to every two or three summers or so. As soon as to what I am writing, I prefer to say it as a finished draftBecause you never know if you're going to get it. Although so far I have been lucky.
- AL: How do you think the publishing scene is and what decided you to try to publish?
JC: Good and bad, that is, as always. There are more opportunities to publish than when I dreamed of doing it, and yet there are also a lot of factors that make it difficult for people a little younger than me: paper shortages, covid, low sales, a certain conservative trend in some publishers… There is hope, but a lot of patience is also needed.
- 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?
JC: It's hard to analyze a crisis when you haven't come out of it yet. The positive thing that remains for me is that my mother has hardly been affected by covid after the vaccines and neither have I. With that I give a song in the teeth. First life, then literature.