Sandra Aza: «The art of prose lies in painting with letters»

sandra aza, a lawyer for years of a prestigious law firm, he left it all for a day to write and with Blood libel, historical novel with traces of black, has signed a successful debut. In this extensive interviewLike almost another novel, he tells us many things about favorite authors and books, influences and projects, and his vision of the publishing and social scene. I really appreciate the time and kindness you have dedicated.

SANDRA AZA - INTERVIEW

• ACTUALIDAD LITERATURA: Do you remember the first book you read? And the first story you wrote?

SANDRA AZA: I don't remember the first book I read and why I don't know. Perhaps it did not find roots in me or perhaps the question does not lie in the roots, but in the trunk, because I fear that too many autumns already yellow this tree and oblivion begins to requisition the sap of my remembrances.

I do remember, however, devoted to the work of Enid blyton: the five, Malory Towers, Casa Particular in Santa Clara, Naughty Elizabeth o The Seven Secrets. I also liked it Puck, Lisbeth Werner, and that half-book, half-comic book by Bruguera: Collection Stories Selection. They all devoured them and were never satiated. On Reyes or birthdays I only asked for books and every Saturday morning I looked for someone to take me to Calle Claudio de Moyano, better known in Madrid as Cuesta de Moyano and famous for its stands of books for sale.

The tedious Saturday chore of wandering around the stalls while I rummaged through the drawers trying to choose that one book that my elder was willing to buy for me used to fall back on mi padre and, for a time, in my dear cousin Manolo, who, a native of Murcia, was doing military service in the capital. On weekends that were not entrusted to her barracks, she spent the night at home and, instead of dedicating her vacation to more stimulating insurance deals, she devoted it to the reader's longing for her little cousin. Perhaps the first book I read has not left a mark on my memory, but they did those happy literary walks that my father and cousin Manolo gave me.

As for the my first letters, I remember them well. It was a tale titled The bridge of heaven and revolved around a girl who lived on a farm in a remote and isolated area. In not allowing human friends such a secluded location, he sought them out in the animal Kingdom and he imposed on them names in whose elaboration he did not invest excessive imagination. To its best friend called him Horse and it is not necessary to squeeze the magic to guess which animal it was.

One day Horse died. Broken with grief, the girl asked her father if animals went to the same sky as humans and, when the father denied it, speaking of two heavens, one of humans and the other of animals, separated by an ocean, she decided that when she was older I would be an engineer and would build a bridge able to save that ocean. True to his own baptismal creativity, he would call it "the bridge of heaven" and, when everyone lived in their respective edens, he would cross it daily to visit his friends.

I do not know why, but I have never forgotten that, my first story.

• AL: What was the first book that struck you and why?

SA: It wasn't one, it was two: The Neverending Story, by Michael Ende, and The Lord of the Ringsby JRR Tolkien.

I was given The Neverending Story on my tenth birthday and I remember how much I was impressed by the vision of Áuryn on the cover page; In reality, rather than impressing me, it enchanted me, so much so that from the beginning I sensed that that story would certainly become endless in my memory, because I would never stop evoking it.

And he was not wrong, because that is how it happened. I was fascinated by Bastian and Atreyu's red-green adventure; I was terrified by the portrait of a Fantasy threatened by Nothingness thanks to the deterioration of the human fable, and I was completely traumatized imagining Artax succumbing in the Swamps of Sadness while Atreyu whispered in his ear «I will support you, friend; I will not allow you to sink. Atreyu's Journey, only destined further to guide Bastian to the Childhood Empress, truly it got me, and he did it in an immune way over time, because even today it continues to excite me.

Regarding The Lord of the Rings, I got it on my thirteenth Christmas. I started it with some reluctanceWell, it was the bulkier book that so far he had faced; reluctance that, far from growing, began to diminish as soon as I entered Middle-earth and learned of a Ring in charge of "attracting them all and binding them in the darkness where the Shadows extend: in the Land of Mordor."

Amen to the aforementioned couple, undisputed protagonists of my kindergarten collection, four more books conquered me, these loves that, however, emerged already in adult years.

The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quijote of La Manchaby Miguel de Cervantes. Any praise poured out on such a marvel seems trivial to me; I will limit myself to saying that it is part of the meager group of books in whose reading I need to repeat from time to time. It does not matter how many journeys from La Mancha I have made and remade on the side of that noble gentleman "one of those with a shipyard spear, an old shield, a skinny nag and a running greyhound." I always find some new nuance in the story or in the way of narrating it that leaves me flabbergasted with sincere admiration.

Fortunata and Jacintaby Benito Pérez Galdós. Another novel of taking off the hat and whatever is necessary. And, to my greater good fortune, she appears dressed in old Madrid. A book that sealed title and letter in the literary affections of this lover of the bear and her strawberry tree.

The wind's shadowby Carlos Ruiz Zafón. I read it during my honeymoon and I will never forget neither the shadows of those winds nor the honeys of those moons.

The knight in the rusty armorby Robert Fisher, a great little book that taught me the healing power of tears.

• AL: Who is your favorite writer? You can choose more than one and from all eras.

TO: Miguel de Cervantes and Benito Pérez Galdós.

The works of both are authentic lined canvases; instead of reading their scenes, you visualize them in such an intense way that you feel yourself traveling beyond reality, landing in the fiefdoms of the imaginary and becoming an eyewitness of what happens in those scenes.

In my opinion, the art of prose lies in painting with letters, and such ingenuity was treasured by Cervantes and Galdós. Not surprisingly, the first drew an "ingenious" gentleman, and the second began his artistic career liking the brush more than the pen.

• AL: What character in a book would you have liked to meet and create?

SA: I would have liked to create and meet the couple they form Don Quixote and Sancho, because the first floats on fluffy entelechies of fantasy and the second rubs entelechies on hard stone of reality. While Don Quixote dreams of living, Sancho lives dreaming. This duality shows us life as a fertile amalgamation of reality and dreams, because, without Don Quixote's dreams, Sancho's reality would not seem so real and, without Sancho's reality, Don Quixote's dreams would lose their magic.

Before this cocktail standing on the ground and head in the clouds that is life, people decided to live it with concave or convex lips. And that is the human diversity, because, while some see a multitude of mills and avoid them shrugging their shoulders and limiting themselves to breaking the road, others see an army of giants and, instead of avoiding them by breaking the road, they attack them breaking lances.

• AL: Any mania when it comes to writing or reading?

TO: When I write, I need to isolate myself of my world, because, otherwise, I can't get immersed in that of the characters. When I read, temple the demands. I only need one blanket, sofa and the essential: a good book.

• AL: And your preferred place and time to do it?

SA: I always write in what I call the "panic corner"a room from my house the one I love and hate in equal measure. In it I have spent many suns and no less moons; I have cried, I have laughed, I have broken and I have recovered; I have fallen asleep, I have dreamed, I have awakened, I have gone back to sleep and I have returned to dream. Tucked there, a thousand times I thought to throw in the towel, but it was a thousand and one that, instead of throwing in the towel, I pulled willpower. How could I not love her and at the same time hate her if within her four walls I felt that only the writing fever could heal me?

• AL: What will we find in your latest novel, Blood libel?

SA: You will find one fast-paced action inlaid with friendship, family, supervivencia, fight, honorMany laughs and some tears... You will run into the Inquisition, with the Inclusa, with the Round of Bread and Egg; you will visit the gossip of the Villa and you will have fun with the gossip of the ironic Madrilenians; you will walk the streets that once they stepped on Cervantes, Lope, Gongora, Quevedo, Tirso de Molina, Calderon, and you will accompany esportilleros, water carriers, washerwomen, town criers, peddlers and countless guilds that have already been terminated thanks to the modernization of the times.

En Blood libel You will find the Madrid of 1621; rather, you will not meet that Madrid, you will find yourself in it and, when that happens, your five senses will be activated.

Entonces you will see the colors of old Madrid, you will smell its airs, you will taste its flavors, you will hear its perpetual bustle, and you will touch its corners. And, as your five senses are enhanced, there will be a sixth that may decline: that of orientation, because you will experience such immersion in the Villa and Corte that you will lose your footing in the present and you will travel to the past ... to a vibrant and at the same time dark past in which, while faith in God lit hearts, crimes against it lit bonfires.

• AL: Any other genres that you like besides the historical novel?

SA: I really like the Novelty, but I admit that today the historical one occupies the sovereign box of my attachments.

AL: What are you reading now? And writing?

TO: I always dreamed of writing a historical novel and I have succeeded. It happens, however, that no one warned me how addictive certain dreams can be, because now I need to write another one ... and I'm at it.

As for my current readings, I just finished The journey that became a legend, Mireia Gimenez Higón, whose plot revolves around the journey undertaken by a girl when she finds a mysterious leather notebook full of old legends that seem to speak of her. A very captivating story and such beautiful literature that I could not leave it until the end.

Also, I have two other books in force reader.

Madrilenian tales of a cat, Antonio Aguilera Munoza selection of tours around Madrid where, in the form of endearing fables, the author reveals the capital's secrets, its corners and also its legends. Opera prima by a truly well-versed Matritense that is sure to delight lovers of Madrid and those curious about its history.

Ink trails, John Cruz Lara. An Italian abbey, a manuscript, a merchant, and a formula. Intrigue guaranteed seasoned with very elegant prose.

The three mentioned seem to me to be works of high recommendation.

• AL: How do you think the publishing scene is for as many authors as there are or want to publish?

SA: In my opinion, there are two scenarios to consider: the editorial and the commercial.

I see the publishing scene as less complex today than yesterday thanks to multiple self-publishing options; not so the commercial, because, although endless fabulous novels wander in the market trying to make their way, the market only endorses the advance of a few.

Fortunately, social media counteract this imbalance by providing novice authors the opportunity to reach the general public. At least, such has been my experience. Me I have found enormous support from literary bloggers and also in the readers who comment or share their readings. Such support has shown me that, beyond the fourth wall of a Facebook or an Instagram, there are people of exceptional human and intellectual stature willing to bet on the novices and give us a chance.

My grateful obeisances, well, to the commendable brotherhood of readers and reviewers. His chronicles ennoble culture, swell the pillars of literature and, incidentally, provide water to the pilgrims of this arid white desert of paper and black of letters, where sometimes people suffer from great thirst.

Thank you, friends, for nicking the nets to open gaps that allow the novices of the pen to sneak into your life and, ultimately, into your library.

• 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?

TO: I do not think that the moment of current crisis is proving easy for anyone. It is a very hard stage that, on the one hand, has erased the smile from our spirits and even from our face, since we can barely wear it with a mask and, on the other hand, it has caused us excessive tears.

However, the greatness of the human being is based on their ability to excel. Numerous wars, epidemics, catastrophes and other strains have hit man throughout history and none has managed to girdle his joy or break his breath. Not in vain courage grows in the face of adversity And, although the world is now sailing through extremely distressing seas, I am convinced that it will do so as our ancestors once did: in galleons of courage, flagging solidarity and to the beat of a gallant oar and, above all, united.