Maria Solar She is Galician, cultural journalist and writer. Presents the veteran space of Galician television Zigzag Weekend with which he has garnered several awards. In literature he addresses various genres, from children's and youth to the thriller, the historical novel or the fantastic. His last published title is The blame, with which he won Xerais Award of Novel. This interview He tells us about her and various other issues. Thank you very much for your time and kindness.
Maria Solar — Interview
- ACTUALIDAD LITERATURA: Your new novel is titled The blame. What do you tell us about it and where did the idea come from?
MARY SOLAR: The blame is the story of Amanda, a young woman bank worker who receives the The heritage millionaire of a client old woman which he has only served once. Amanda pulls the string to discover her identity, and meets the life story of two women who have fled Spain as teenagers running away from a great secret. Two friends wounded, brave, talented who seek to survive and succeed, and they succeed, but over time a perverse situation of domination. When someone kills for you, that debt is never paid off and traps you with that person. That's why The blame is a story of one terrible and toxic friendship taken to the extreme. We will see how Amanda can inherit the guilt of others.
About the initial idea of the novel, I wanted to write about the perverse friendships that destroy you while it seems that they help you, and from there this whole story has arisen.
- AL: Can you go back to that first book you read? And the first story you wrote?
MS: The first book I remember reading (I'm sure there were many books and comics before) was Robinson Crusoe. I had asked my brother to buy me Robin Hood and he was wrong and brought me, instead of a hero, the story of a castaway who is also very heroic, by the way.
La first story that I wrote I don't know what it was either, but I remember the first one that I sent to a competition in high school and I won it. He was about 15 years old and I think he was saying something about the postwar period.
Writers and characters
- AL: A head writer? You can choose more than one and from all eras.
MARÍA SOLAR: It could be hundreds. I am not a mythomaniac about the authors but I am about their works. There are books, paragraphs or phrases that fascinate me and are references. I could forget who wrote it but not that moment or story, that for me is a reference. Some of the last ones I remember were signed by: Maggie O'Farrell, Ledicia Costas, annie ernaux, Marguerite Duras or Mayte López, David Trueba, Julian Barnes, Pierre Lemaitre...
But I could go on an endless list from classics like García Márquez o Rosalia de Castro, even authors of genres through which I have passed very young as Ray bradbury, Tolkien … That said, an infinite list.
- AL: What character in a book would you have liked to meet and create?
MS: Carmilla, the forgotten first female vampire, who was born 25 years before Dracula but it did not transcend like Bram Stoker's novel.
Customs and genres
- AL: Any special habits or habits when it comes to writing or reading?
MARY SOLAR: None mania. I am a journalist, a mother, the daughter of a very old lady, a couple… I write when I can and where I can. Hobbies are not operational when you have to squeeze time.
- AL: And your preferred place and time to do it?
MS: I write in a big variety of sites, even inside the house. rarely in my office (which I recovered in my last move, after losing it for years in the previous house because I turned it into my little son's room). The living room, bed... For years I wrote a lot in a sociocultural center while my son practiced karate there and lately I write a lot in Trains.
Readings and projects
- AL: Are there other genres that you like?
MARÍA SOLAR: How? reader I've been through all the stages and types of genres. Even obsessively. As writer I have published novels fiction, historical, fantastic, thriller, intimate, also popular books. And I have covered a wide range of readers. I write novels for adults, but I never leave the children's and youth literature that has given me so much and that I enjoy so much.
- AL: What are you reading now? And writing?
MS: I am a cultural journalist in Television of Galicia, I present a veteran program called Zigzag Weekend, that's why throughout the year I read many news in Galician for the program and the rest of my time I spend with all kinds of novels, but very sparingly, until this time of year when the vacation allow me Catch up of everything pending. I always buy books beyond my reading possibilities.
Right now I just planted a book that I didn't like and reread Musa de Jonathan Galaxy. Next in the pile is a book about María Casares written by Béatrix Dussane, actress and her teacher, a peculiar rarity that I look forward to reading.
And what I'm writing about, I'm in that difficult time to write the first and decisive pages of a new novel.
publishing landscape
- AL: How do you think the publishing scene is?
MARÍA SOLAR: I think there is a phenomenon best sellers with some people who fit little with the concept that I have of a writer or a writer. Sometimes I don't quite understand some huge queues that I see in the signatures that stick more to the character than to the book. I find some blockbusters extravagant and very unliterary. Faced with this phenomenon, every year there are a good number of extraordinary books, some also best sellersOthers don't, but all of them make this profession continue to be wonderful. I applaud the publishers who give those opportunities and who promote them so that those books are also known.
- AL: How are you living the current moment? Can you stay with something positive in both the cultural and social spheres?
MS: I am an optimist by nature. I believe in the cultural product and in talent extraordinary many people. What worries me is that culture, as industry and concept, depends as much on the political moment. that the color of a government local, regional or state can make extreme differences in the policies cultural, in freedoms or in the survival of many events. sometimes the culture He looks like a giant with feet of clay.
On the positive… there is so much. I who work in cultural journalism always say that see our program where so many arts come out, so many artists, so much innovation, so much success, gives a positive image of the country. In culture we do many things and they come out very good. I I prefer that, with the undeniable talent of so many people from culture.