Inés González Lozano, author: “Lies are a painkiller. The truth, surgery without anesthesia” | Culture | EUROtoday

Of all of the struggle units that seem in Iron Threads, the primary novel by Inés González Lozano, probably the most fearsome is the mirror weapon: enemies are paralyzed when considering the scene of their very own demise. “The naked truth is an irresistible weapon, knowing your destiny is a sentence,” displays the creator. “That is why the mantics [videntes] They have deformed faces. The stark reality is ugly.” His e-book is the rigorously documented and scrupulously dependable historical past of a non-existent republic in an imaginary geography.

Ask. In his work seems a madman with out a shadow who takes his stigma as a reward. What he says remembers the lyrics of the youngsters's music Let's inform lies and, when he asks the protagonist if he desires to inform him his life, he solutions: “The real thing or a lie?” Tell me yours.

Answer. I used to be born in Madrid 47 years in the past, I’m an solely baby and I’ve a daughter, my mother and father have been labor attorneys and PCE activists. My mom was pregnant with me when the Atocha bloodbath came about. One of the injured, Lola González Ruiz, was her shut buddy. Another of the survivors, Luis Ramos, was my regulation instructor.

P. She then married a diplomat and went to Equatorial Guinea. There she couldn’t defend the employees in courtroom..

R. I dominated it out to keep away from a battle of curiosity, however I arrange an NGO with ladies from a shanty city who made baggage and bought them. The brother of one in all them was very sick and so they requested me to assist him, though I couldn't go see him as a result of they mentioned that, being white and having lengthy hair, he would take me for a mermaid coming to harm him. So I gave them an infusion referred to as Carmencita Good Night. Two days later they returned shouting “miracle! miracle!” and they asked me to give it to them because white people's medicines are better. I spent the day preparing infusions and I felt like a scammer.

P. His book is full of masterful herbal formulas…

R. They are all in the Hippocratic treatises and medical texts of antiquity, just like the dream cures from the Greek sanctuary of Asclepius.

P. In his novel, as in Guinea, medicine and magic, superstition and science are confused…

R. In ancient Rome, from which I am inspired, there was an official religion, in which they believed but less, and another popular one to solve everyday problems by appealing to supernatural powers. Tablets with curses, hexes or spells have been found.

P. There is also a trial, in which she will have poured her profession as a lawyer, and a corruption scandal.

R. My father's name was Cristóbal, but my mother called him Tobal and the lawyer in the book, the one who defends the poor potter, is called Tobalano. Corruption seems very new, but in Rome it was the order of the day. Grain was subsidized by the state and, when a rotten batch arrived, there were debates in the Senate and riots. My father died when he was writing the novel and perhaps that is why it came out sadder than he had thought.

P. You talk about full moons lasting 30 nights, rivers that flow from the sea to the land and floating forests, also women who command the Army.

R. I wanted women to be warriors and that didn't happen in Rome and even less so in Greece. A novel is a lie that the reader is willing to believe, leaving his disbelief in suspense. What is required of the writer is not that the story be real, but true.

P. One gets lost in the game between reality and fiction. It is not even easy to differentiate which words are archaic and which are invented.

R. I am a bit of a defender of lying, although as a journalist you will not agree. Always going with the truth first, the truth even if the world perishes, is a bit cruel. Lying doesn't cure you, but at times it can relieve your pain, as long as you know how to control it. Lies can be a pain reliever and the truth, surgery without anesthesia.

Postscript. When I get home I find a message from her: “Something I told you is not true.”

_