Photography: Rare Rosario. Courtesy of the author.
Rare Rosary She is a writer, doctor in Hispanic Philology and professor of Spanish Language and Creative Writing at the University of Castellón. She was the Aragonese Prize of the year 2022 granted by the booksellers of the province of Huesca for her novel The sky over Canfranc. In this interview He tells us about her and I thank him very much for his kindness and time dedicated.
Rare Rosary — Interview
- ACTUALIDAD LITERATURA: Your last published novel is The sky over Canfranc. What do you tell us about it and where did the idea come from?
RARE ROSARY: It was some people who now live in the town of Canfranc who told me about the events that I narrate: the fire from April 24 1944 and the relationships of german soldiers, a parachutist in the case of my novel, with the girls there.
Then I saw in the newspaper ABC of April 29, 1944 some overwhelming images of the catastrophe. In the Francoist newsreel that during the regime was projected in cinemas before the films, NO-DO, the Canfranc fire also appeared in its broadcast on May 8, 1944, after giving an account of a Georgian musical evening in Warsaw and before a sports report. in this brief documentary The extent of the devastation can be seen from less than a minute above the burned town.
Canfranc was not rebuilt. This fact is the greatest evidence that the money never arrived, but that it fell by the wayside.
The amount of millions that were raised was so exorbitant that it is implausible. It came from the most diverse sources: the donation to rebuild Canfranc of a day's wages for all Spanish civil servants, both civil and military, an initiative to which many workers and peasants voluntarily joined, with what this reduction of their postwar income. In addition, numerous collections, collections and shows to help those affected: bullfights, football matches and music magazines. In France and in many American countries, through popular subscriptions, a lot of money was also raised.
It is calculated, based on the words of some witnesses of the time, that it would have served to rebuild Canfranc five times. For my detective work I drew a line on the map of Spain from Madrid to Canfranc to start find out at what point of our geography those hundreds of million pesetas had changed address, destination and, above all, hands. The find surprised me. He was not the one she expected, far from it. That amazement was what pushed me to tell this story.
- AL: Can you remember any of your first readings? And the first story you wrote?
RR: The two books that made me start reading continuously were: Beetles fly at sunset, of María Gripe, in which the Swedish naturalist Linnaeus appeared and a couple of years later sentimental chronicle in red, by Francisco González Ledesma, winner of the Planeta 1984 award. Perhaps this second was not very appropriate for my age —then I was only thirteen years old— but it was decisive. I didn't feel like I was reading about specific events in Barcelona, I felt there and then.
The following year I read Dawn Chronicle of the Aragonese writer who died in San Diego, California, Ramón J. Sender. It helped me for something very important: to know without any doubt that I wanted to dedicate myself to writing. From that time I also remember reading The way, by Miguel Delibes, and diamond square, by Mercè Rodoreda.
Mi first story, to call it in some way, I titled it My journey in a cloud. I wrote it when I was under ten years and I won with him a literary prize of some importance. It began in the castle on the hill of La Estrella. On the slope of that mountain is where I still live, in this landscape facing the Palancia valley between the Sierra Espadán and the Calderona.
- AL: A head writer? You can choose more than one and from all eras.
RR: Max Aub, Cervantes, some French writers like Benoite Groult and among the current ones whom I now read quite frequently: Évelyne pisier and Leila Slimani, Goncourt Award 2016.
- AL: What character in a book would you have liked to meet and create?
RR: Without a doubt, the Quijote.
- AL: Any special hobby or habit when it comes to writing or reading?
RR: silence and solitude.
- AL: And your preferred place and time to do it?
RR: in the very first hour of the day, many times before dawn, and in my chaise longue orange. Although I always say that my own room is my laptop with which I can write anywhere where the conditions of the previous question are met.
- AL: Are there other genres that you like?
RR: All and also its hybridization. I read without complexes and without prejudice.
- AL: What are you reading now? And writing?
RR: The fourteen finalist novels of a literary prize of which I am jury.
Regarding the subject of my next novel I cannot reveal it. I consider that the surprise effect is also very important. Furthermore, García Márquez used to say something like: if you tell it, you no longer write it.
- AL: How do you think the publishing scene is?
RR: In a transition moment from the ways and customs of the nineteenth century to the twenty-first century with all that that implies of complexity and confusion. Although it is a fact that the physical book is the only medium that resists the digitization of other content such as music or film.
- AL: Is the moment of crisis that we are experiencing being difficult for you or can you keep something positive for future stories?
RR: We are always in crisis for one reason or another. As they say, the only permanent thing is change. Reflecting to adjust is always positive because, in this way, we become aware that it is necessary to seek happiness for ourselves and those around us. After all, that is the most human desire: to be well and that our loved ones are. That's why I think that nobody, in his right mind, wants a war.