Photographs courtesy of Paco Álvarez.
Paco Álvarez, publicist from Madrid, has a new essay on the market, We are crazy, these Romans. From The flat earth and nationalism y We are Romans Álvarez continues with Ancient Rome in a book that does not pretend to be about History but about adventures told in an informative and entertaining tone. You grant me this interview, and I thank you very much for the time you spent and the kindness with which you have assisted me.
Paco Alvarez
Born in Madrid, riding a 1965, and publicist Since the eighties, he has also presented on TVE 2, he is a poet and curator of exhibitions. In addition, he has ties to my land of La Mancha and is meditating on a project in that area. In your first rehearsal We are romans, we recovered those roman roots that we continue to have and that he continues to talk about in this new work.
INTERVIEW
- ACTUALIDAD LITERATURA: Do you remember the first book you read? And the first story you wrote?
PACO ÁLVAREZ: I think my first book, which was not a comic or comic book, was The Little Prince, which I'm still reading. The first story I wrote was a leaflet for a sculpture exhibition of the students in my class, when I was 14 years old.
- AL: What was the first book that struck you and why?
PA: All books give us something. Of course, as we will not have time to read them all, we must choose well. Perhaps Gods, Graves and Sages, Ceramic, opened my eyes, as a child, to ancient civilizations.
- AL: Who is your favorite writer? You can choose more than one and from all eras.
PA: John Slav Galán, Perez-Reverte, Lorenzo Silva, Dolores Round, Marcus Valerius Marcial... Cervantesof course and his cousin Shakespeare, Plautus, Carlos Ruiz-Zafon… From Homer to today, there are many good guys and all good guys are eternal.
- AL: What fictional character would you have liked to meet and create?
PA: I guess a lot. I would have liked to share a wine and an adventure with Alatriste, or be part of the group of Villa in the books of Silva, the fifth musketeer, a friend of Sandokan, or live in the village of Asterix. I would have liked to create so many characters that they would not fit here.
- AL: Any mania when it comes to writing or reading?
PA: Write; always with music. Read whenever I can. All the time and anywhere.
- AL: And your preferred place and time to do it?
PA: To write, in the morning. To read, I guess at night.
- AL: What are you telling us in We are crazy these Romans?
PA: I talk about the conquest of the west, that is, of Hispania, the end of the world, the most fantastic land and further west 2.300 years ago. The adventure through which the Indian tribes here became more Roman than anyone else.
- AL: Other genres that you like?
PAN: All. I love the novel, the poetry, although publishing is more difficult, but everything will go with luck. Surely with a pseudonym, so as not to mix too much churras with merino.
- AL: What are you reading now? And writing?
PA: Reading: The secretary, the secretary and Victoria's secret by Luis Carlos Hernández when we have the information. Terrific, cult. Typing: a mythology story very curious ... well, I hope so.
- AL: How do you think the publishing scene is for as many authors as there are or want to publish?
PAN: It is difficult, but you have to insist. The problem is that, as Cervantes said, "the year that is abundant in poetry is usually hungry", and now we are more and more writers and fewer large publishers, who are betting, of course, only on insurance. In any case, I think that this decade that is going to begin in January will be that of the movement, this time not musical, but written.
- 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 novels?
PA: Crisis? The barbarian invasions were crises. This is terrible, because we continue to apply measures from 2.000 years ago today, but it is nothing that is going to end our civilization, at least, I hope so.