Photography: courtesy of Leticia Sierra.
leticia sierra She is Asturian and comes from the world of journalism, but has given the jump to literature with a novel by black gender that is causing people to talk. It is Animal. In this interview He tells us about it and about many other topics. I greatly appreciate your kindness and time dedicated.
Leticia Sierra - Interview
- ACTUALIDAD LITERATURA: Do you remember the first book you read? And the first story you wrote?
LETICIA SIERRA: The first novels I read were juvenile: the adventures of Esther y The five. The first "adult" novel I do not remember exactly what it was, but I imagine it would be some title of Agatha Christie or Victoria holt.
The first story I wrote It was six or seven years old and it was a story, with drawings and that I myself sewed with thread to make it look like the ones I saw in bookstores.
- AL: What was that book that impacted you and why?
WORK: A Chronicle of a Death Foretold, by Gabriel García Márquez because he is the best-told spoiler in history. I found it wonderful, shocking, brutal.
- AL: And that favorite writer? You can choose more than one and from all eras.
LS: Gabriel García Márquez, Isabel Allende, Lorenzo Silva, Anne Perry, PD James, Agatha Christie, mary Higgins Clark, Dolores Round, Stretcher laeckberg… And I would continue to enumerate.
- AL: What do we find in your novel, Animal?
WORK: Animal is a crime novel in which I make a reflection on where is our moral limit. That the reader wonders how far he would be able to go in certain situations or circumstances, if he would cross that fine line that differentiates the human being from the animal, from the beast.
Are we capable of killing? Depending on the circumstances, I am convinced that yes, we are all capable of crossing that line of which I speak, that line that separates man from beast. And to a lesser extent, on a day-to-day basis, it is more common than we think that we let our animal's snout appear. It is easier for us to resort to insults or expletives than to a good morning, a please or a thank you. We live in a society where it is easier to be bad than good. and, what is worse, sometimes it is better seen and even standardized. It surprises us less and less and that is, to say the least, worrying, not to say dangerous.
Sfeeling that we are very vulnerable and quite prone to violence, either verbal or physical is one of the axes of the novel. And I would love to put that reflection in the mind of the reader so that, at the end of the book, he finds himself empathizing with my approach.
And for this, in Animal the investigation of a heinous crime in a small and quiet town in Asturias, but research developed in two ways: the police and the journalists. The police officer, starring an inspector from the Homicide group of the National Police, and the journalist, starring a local journalist. The first, a rigid line of investigation and very restricted by police and judicial procedures. The second, infinitely more flexible and with less means than the police, but which also achieves results and clues about the case. Both lines they are giving clues the reader of what happened, how it happened, why it happened and who was the executing hand.
- AL: What literary character would you have liked to meet and create?
L.S.: A. Hercule Poirot. He seems to me an aesthetically grotesque character, psychologically very interesting and totally timeless.
- AL: Any special habits or habits when it comes to writing or reading?
WORK: To write I need ambient noise: the television on, people talking and if it is quarreling, much better, noise, noise. Silence decenters me a lot and loneliness too. I like to notice people around. That is why it is very difficult for me to get into the office to write. I like to write in the classroom, with my husband and daughter next to me and, if possible, talking. In fact, I wrote part of this novel in a cafeteria while I was waiting for my daughter to get out of her English class.
Instead, to read I need to be in absolute silence. I can't stand reading with music in the background or the TV on. So my favorite time to read is at night and in bed. I'm that weird.
- AL: And your preferred place and time to do it?
WORK: I write at any time. Now that I'm home, at any time. Usually in the morning. When he worked, when he came home from work and that was from seven in the afternoon until ten or eleven at night. Every day. And like I told you before, my favorite place is the living room.
I reserve the reading for the night, horizontally or what is the same, in bed and in complete silence.
- AL: More literary genres?
WORK: My pending subject is poetry. I cannot understand it and there is very little poetry that I like, but because of my own ignorance.
theater, in particular that of Alejandro Casona. And the historical novel it also catches my attention. In addition, it is a gender for which he would be unfaithful to the police gender.
- AL: What are you reading now? And writing?
LS: I am reading an Asturian author: Alicia G. Garcia and his crime novel The jail. A great critique of the cynicism and lies of certain television programs and how abhorred we are or are the viewers. Highly recommended.
- AL: How do you think the publishing scene is for as many authors as there are or want to publish?
WORK: I am new to the publishing world. It's my first novel, so I don't really know what to tell you. But I am afraid that more is written, much more than is read, so that the writer is always going to be at a disadvantage. What yes I tell all those writers that they are trying to get published so that they do not stop trying, that they do not throw in the towel, that they continue to send the manuscript, that they be persevering, constant, insistent and that they believe a lot in themselves and in their work. You never know.
- AL: What is the moment of crisis that we are experiencing assuming you? Can you keep something positive or useful for future novels?
LS: At the time, you assumed that the launch of the novel, scheduled for May 2020, would have to be postponed until January 2021. And now contact with the reader is missing, because the presentations are on line, you can hardly organize meetings or face-to-face signatures.
I think this pandemic situation leaves us little positive. There are too many deaths, too many families separated for a year and too many brainless clowning despite everything to get positive readings. Being a little frivolous I think that this situation in which there is no choice but to spend a lot of time at home is read more and some have discovered that reading is entertaining. And that is very positive.