Photography: Maria Montesinos. Author's website.
Maria Montesinos has a new novel called an unavoidable decision. In this interview He tells us about her and much more. I thank you a lot of your time and kindness to assist me.
Maria Montesinos — Interview
- ACTUALIDAD LITERATURA: Your latest book is titled an unavoidable decision. What do you tell us about it and where did the idea come from?
MARIA MOUNTSINOS: The idea of this novel emerged many years ago, during a trip to the Riotinto mines, in Huelva. I visited the museum of the mines where it is shown how the deposits were exploited and the conditions in which it was done; I got on the old mining railway that runs parallel to the riverbed of the Riotinto river, red as blood, whose route ended in the port of Huelva, and I walked along the paths of what had been the former british colony where the employees of the Rio Tinto Company lived, owner of the mines between 1873 and 1954. The Spanish state, so in need of capital at that time at the end of the XNUMXth century, had sold the soil and subsoil of the land where the rich copper mines of Huelva were located to the British company.
Yo did not know that story, and also the fact that that a British colony had existed there built in the image and likeness of the life they had in the United Kingdom —with the little houses or cottage, the English club, the tennis court—. As in other colonies they had around the world, the English they lived with their backs to the villagers from the mines of Riotinto and from the other surrounding towns, closed in on themselves and their rigid Victorian customs, isolated from the people of the area —“natives” whom they despised— by the walls that surrounded the colony.
As I walked around that place, I began to wonder what would those people be like, what would their lives have been like there, what his relationship with the people of the region would be like, and I thought that there was a good story there. It had all the ingredients: a torn landscape, a conflict between the powerful Rio Tinto company and the miners, a problem of environmental pollution caused by fumes from mining operations that seriously affected the inhabitants of the villages, and a clash between two cultures. , two ways of understanding the world.
However, At that time, I had not yet dedicated myself to writing, nor did I feel prepared to tackle a novel set in an era, that of the monarchical Restoration, so unknown to me at that time. It was several years and a few novels later that I thought his time had come and he could tell that story he had in his head.
The novel is set between 1887 and 1888., a fateful date in Riotinto, because the first manifestation of the local people against the contamination of the sulphurous fumes, which was shot down by a military regiment.
- AL: Can you remember any of your first readings? And the first story you wrote?
MM: Yes of course. I have been a great reader since I was a child. My first reading memories are of those fascicles of great illustrated novels from the Bruguera publishing house: Ivanhoe, by Walter Scott; Michael Strogoff, Jules Verne; prince and pauper, by Dickens… I went with my father to the Rastro de Madrid and bought them for myself.
I have a vivid memory of my after-school snacks, sitting at the kitchen table with a sandwich in hand and reading the open fascicle of vignettes in front of me. Then I was a great reader of all the youth collections of that time, The five, The Hollisters, etc, and from there I went on to any title that caught my attention in the Las Rozas library, where we lived. I read everything, I loved it. I took an author and if I liked it, I devoured all his books: I remember Pearl S. Buck, Agatha Christie, or authors of 50s-60s romance novel that my grandmother had in her library like the sisters Linares Becerra (Luisa and Concha) or Maria Teresa Sese.
La first story i wrote It was when I was fifteen Juvenile novel that I submitted to a literary contest in my town that, of course, I did not win. I keep it at home and when I reread it I feel a mixture of tenderness and shame.
- AL: A head writer? You can choose more than one and from all eras.
MM: Really, I'm not much of an immovable "head" writer. My favorites have been changing according to the stages of my life and my reading evolution, I imagine. There was a time when I loved sigrid undset, Milan Kundera, Javier Marias, Soledad Puertolas, Joseph Saramago… It has always been very present Carmen Martin Gaite, which I think I've read everything about, including their diaries (I'm addicted to writers' diaries). Right now, my references are very changeable. I like them very much Edith Wharton, Elizabeth Strout, Siri Husvedt, both his narrative and his essays, Almudena Grandes and Sara Mesa, For example.
- AL: What character in a book would you have liked to meet and create?
MM: oh! I'm going to cheat a little: the Henry james which portrays Colm Cobin en The master. I was totally seduced, even though my reading of Henry James is very few. I would have loved to meet him.
- AL: Any special habits or habits when it comes to writing or reading?
MM: No, I don't have big maniasneither to write nor to read. Perhaps, when writing, I need silence and solitude, but I have verified that I can also write without those two conditions.
- AL: And your preferred place and time to do it?
MM: I have a desk in a corner of my house that has been expanding around with my papers, books and notebooks until it colonizes a good part of the room. I usually sit down to write after eating throughout the afternoon, every day. I feel more alert, more active.
- AL: Are there other genres that you like?
MM: Yes, I really like detective novels and writers' diaries, as I said before.
- What are you reading now? And writing?
MM: Right now i'm reading Five winters, Olga Merino, which recounts his years as a correspondent in the Soviet Union in the 90s. I'm liking him a lot, both for his writing style and for the fact that I get to know a bit about the character of a country that is so unknown and incomprehensible to me.
And regarding writing, right now I'm spinning a couple of stories, but I'm not writing anything yet.
- AL: How do you think the publishing scene is and what decided you to try to publish?
MM: I guess the publishing landscape it's always complicated, for one reason or another. Now there is a lot of publishing, news doesn't last even two weeks on bookstore shelves, and for authors, who spend so much time to create a story, sometimes it's quite disheartening.
I started self-publishing my novels in 2015 because I didn't know anyone in the publishing sector and my references from friends who did publish with a publisher weren't too positive. They complained of manuscripts being withheld for a long time, of lack of response, of sometimes disrespectful treatment.
I was lucky that my first self-published novel On Amazon it worked very well in terms of sales and reviews, and I did not consider sending anything to publishers until they contacted me about the latest novel that I had self-published at that time, a historical love novel set in Spain at the end of the XNUMXth century, in Comillas (Cantabria), and which would later be published under the title of A destiny of my own, the first of the trilogy, which would be followed A written passion y an unavoidable decision, the latter.
Now that I publish with a publisher like Ediciones B of Penguin Random House, I must say that my experience with them has been magnificent, impeccable. I feel privileged for that.
- 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?
MM: It's being difficult because I'm in that huge group of people who discouragement has won us a little, melancholy, sometimes even anxiety. Surely something will remain inside me for the future, but right now, the only thing I intend in my writing is get as far away from reality as possible that surrounds me.