Men Marias released last May his latest novel entitled The last pigeon. Carmen Salinas, who is behind Men, is from Granada and has already won the Carmen Martín Gaite Novel Prize in 2017 with her debut, Pukata, fish and seafood. I thank you very much the time and attention dedicated to grant me this interview where he tells us about this new work and above all a little.
Men Marías - Interview
- ACTUALIDAD LITERATURA: The last pigeon it's your new novel. What do you tell us about it and where did the idea come from?
MEN MARÍAS: Andalusia it was always the origin. The need to unmask her. And it is that Andalusia is like good murderers: nobody would ever suspect it. Who can distrust the light? It is the shadow that scares us. But behind such clarity there are very murky stories. Very dark. Very well hidden. What the arrival of the Americans in Rota in the 50s.
Rota, a lost town in southern Spain that only had four streets traveled by donkeys loaded with saddlebags, where the water came from the wells and there was no electricity, suddenly welcomed the arrival of the United States of America to the demand of the naval base, the Rolling Stones, Coca-Cola and Mickey Mouse. The Americans arrived after months under the sea with their pockets loaded with money and eager to party. Everything was light, color, music ... and disappearances. Women disappeared daily and no one investigated him. One of them was Inés, the young woman Diana was looking for today. But that search has been frustrated because Diana has appeared in front of the savagely mutilated naval base and with huge wings sewn on her back.
- AL: Do you remember the first book you read? And the first story you wrote?
MM: I don't remember the first book I read, to be honest. I do remember the first one that really impacted me: This is how Zarathustra spoke, Nietzsche, which I ran into at the age of eleven or twelve. The first story yes, of course. I think I've been writing the same story all my life: that of a woman who can't find her place in the world.
- AL: A head writer? You can choose more than one and from all eras.
MM: My head writer is Dostoyevsky, without a doubt, but there are many others that I would highlight: Camus, Max Aub, Clarín, Lorca, Pessoa, Thoreau, Zweig ... Regarding the current literary scene, Victor of the Tree It is second to none.
- AL: What character in a book would you have liked to meet and create?
MM: Ana Ozores, La Regenta, from the novel that bears the same name. He seems to me to be one of the most fascinating characters in the history of literature and he is proud that he comes from Spain.
- AL: Any special habits or habits when it comes to writing or reading?
MM: The place has to be very clean and tidy. I don't work among the clutter, I block, I do not think clearly.
- AL: And your preferred place and time to do it?
MM: La night, undoubtedly. There is something in the night that is the home of ghosts. And literature knows a lot about this.
- AL: Are there other genres that you like?
MM: There is no genre that I don't like. Gender is just a color box black, pink, yellow ... what is important is what is inside it.
- AL: What are you reading now? And writing?
MM: I read several books at the same time. Right now i'm with El pozo, the last of Berna González Harbor; an anthology of Mayakovsky; The secrets of works of art, by Rose-Marie & Rainer Hagen and The voyeur's motel, by Talese. I recommend them all.
- AL: How do you think the publishing scene is and what decided you to try to publish?
MM: Complicated. It is complicated, it is unquestionable. There are high-end authors with the most exciting plots launching their books on the market relentlessly. The offer that the reader has is vast. I hope to make a hole for myself between them and that my novels can also make people enjoy themselves. Maybe help them, as other books have helped me. That would be the best. That is the reason that led me to publish: books have given me so much, so much, that, if somehow I can do for other people what other authors have done for me, I would feel satisfied with life. In peace.
- 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: This whole nightmare has hurt us all, without exception, and I think I will write about it in the future. But it has yet to rest. Things are not understood in our moment but in yours and, in this case, there is still a lot left for us to consider what has happened. To find an explanation, a way to accept it.
Paradigm changes need to obey a why, we work that way. We need all of this to settle. Once I have done that I am sure that art will try to explain it. Always happens. That's what art is for. Hopefully I can contribute my grain of sand. And hopefully all of this ends soon. "Soon" according to our conception of time, not according to that of history.