Julio Alejandre. Interview with the author of The islands of Poniente

Julius Alexandre, Madrid writer of historical novel based in Extremadura, is the author of The islands of Poniente, his latest novel. Has granted me this interview where he tells us about her and everything a little about her tastes, favorite authors, her writing habits or the current publishing scene. You I really appreciate your time and kindness.

Interview with Julio Alejandre

• ACTUALIDAD LITERATURA: Do you remember the first book you read? And the first story you wrote?

JULIO ALEJANDRE: A story child that came in the first reading card, it was called Stork and I remember that it was very sad; then came the comics and later the youth novels. I think I started to become a reader when I realized that I would rather read the comic strips than just look at the cartoons.

La first story I would write it as a child, eight or nine years old at the most, because during the summer holidays my mother organized between the brothers story contestsI guess so we could let her rest a bit. And there we all jumped - there were five of us - to make up stories. 

• AL: What was the first book that struck you and why?

JA: Many of the books I read as a teenager, especially adventures:Captain Grant's children, by Jules Verne, The last Mohican, by Fenimore Cooper, etc., but perhaps the one that struck me the most of all was The love of the big bearby Serguisz Piasecki, which deals with their adventures as smugglers on the Russian-Soviet border, in the interwar era. The allure of that wild and crazy life, without rules, without tomorrow, made me want to become a smuggler. It was published in the Reno collection and I still have the copy. It has the yellow and loose pages, but I am excited to have it handy and, from time to time, I return to it.

• AL: Who is your favorite writer? You can choose more than one and from all eras.

JA: My favorite writer is Juan Rulfo. He only wrote one book and a collection of stories, but he didn't need more. In general I like the authors of the magical realism, which have greatly influenced my way of writing and understanding literature, Mario Vargas Llosa, García Márquez, Mona Lisa Belli. From the Spanish, I stay with Gonzalo Torrent Ballester and Ramón J. Sénder. Also Vazquez Montalban I like very much. All from the XNUMXth century. From the XIX, Bécquer, already between the two centuries, Pío baroja.

• AL: What character in a book would you have liked to meet and create?

JA: I would have liked know to so many characters, fictional and historical, that it is difficult to choose one of them, but of course I would have loved to rub shoulders with that tormented Conradian character from Lord jim, with Carlos Deza, the melancholic protagonist of The cum and the shadows or with the adventurer Shanti Andiaby Baroja.

As for the can bring to life, I love the Hannibal that he managed to outline Gisbert haefs in his homonymous novel.

• AL: Any mania when it comes to writing or reading?

JA: Leo from night, In the bed, and if one day I don't, it seems that something is missing I like to write with the radio on and the volume very low. Another hobby: while i'm writing a novel I only read genre police. It helps me disconnect.

• AL: And your preferred place and time to do it?

JA: I prefer to write for the morning, which is when I better concentrate, although work gives me few opportunities to do so. And the place, next to a window facing the outside, to look up and be able to contemplate the landscape.

• AL: What do we find in your novel The islands of Poniente?

JA: The probable odyssey of a ship that loss in the Southern pacific, In the late XNUMXth century, and was never heard from again.

It falls within the historical genre, but it is actually the eternal drama of the struggle for life: one hundred and eighty-two people of all ranks and qualities, from sailors to settlers, nobles and commoners, men, women and some children, who are thrown through inhospitable seas and wild lands in search of a better life. They were going to meet the Solomon Islands, but they discovered Australia; They sought glory, but they found hell; and instead of renown, history relegated them to oblivion. A microcosm of friendships, hatreds, loves, loyalties and betrayals, miseries and greatness, the matter, in short, of which we are all made.

• AL: Any other genres that you like besides the historical novel?

JA: I have a good mouth and I read almost everything: poetry, history, science and a lot of narrative, of any era, genre or literary current, novel or short story, written in Spanish or translated, established writers or indies. But, trying to specify, I will tell you that I like the magical realism, black gender, social novelThat of adventure, victorian, science fiction, suspense, some of the fantasy genre (I devoured the Lord of the Rings in a week), juvenile, utopias ... Anyway, I have not specified much either.

• AL: What are you reading now? And writing?

JA: I like it read several books at the same time. Now I'm involved with a book of documentation historical, Thirds of the sea, by Magdalena de Pazzis, a selection of stories from Stevenson and a novel about him murder of Olof Palme, In free fall, as in a dreamby Leif G. Persson, very interesting, by the way.

And I'm typing a historical novel set in the XNUMXth century, like Las Islas de Poniente, but whose theme focuses on the long war by Atlantic domain.

• AL: How do you think the publishing scene is for as many authors as there are or want to publish?

HA: Authors increase and publishers decrease. It is the perfect definition of a difficult panorama. The extensive publishing houses that existed in Spain a few decades ago are now in the hands of large groups who tend to bet on insurance, publishers medium and small are saturated of originals, and desktop publishing becomes a very viable alternative to publish.

Personally, literary competitions have helped me a lot, of story and novel. If it hadn't been for them, I might never have published.

• AL: Is the moment of crisis that we are experiencing being difficult for you or will you be able to stay with something positive?

JA: Where I live, in a small town in the Estremadura deep, I think the crisis is coping better: it is not the same to confine yourself to a floor of eighty square meters than a house with a patio, orchard or corral. Anyway, I have always liked to see the positive side of things, however difficult they may be, and this pandemic has allowed me spend more time with my family and write as never before.