In the ins and outs of the FIL with María Dueñas: “I have come to the point of not going to fairs because there was a preeminence of gentlemen” | EUROtoday

María Dueñas walks by means of the garages of the Guadalajara International Book Fair and remembers her first journey to Mexico. She was not but a best-selling author, however an assistant professor of Spanish on the University of Michigan, within the United States. He had not been capable of return to Spain to spend Christmas and with a gaggle of associates he determined to go on a street journey. They entered the Mexico of the 80s by means of Nuevo Laredo, they crossed with a map and time by means of Guanajuato, Querétaro, Mexico City, they arrived at Acapulco. The pearl of the Pacific was not the den of Hollywood boys that it was throughout its splendor, nevertheless it was additionally not the town tormented by violence and hurricanes that it’s now. Although he acknowledges that the nation has modified—Dueñas has visited Mexico greater than a dozen instances—he describes what was then with the vividness of what’s now: “This color, the food, the crowd… Mexico is a country where everything It’s great, then you return to Spain and everything is small, concentrated. “This is an impressive country.”

Dueñas (Puertollano, Spain, 1964) commemorates the fifteenth anniversary of the novel that modified her life on the FIL in Guadalajara. This professor of English philology, specialised in utilized linguistics, started writing on the age of 45, when she had an “organized, structured, uncertain-free” life. Between curricular designs and trainer coaching, Dueñas launched into the story of Sira Quiroga, a younger dressmaker who leaves a Spain at struggle for Tetouan, in Morocco. This “structured virgo” utilized to The time between seams the educational group: “What objectives do you want to achieve? With what methodology? What tools do you have? I never start writing without having an objective of where I am going.” Perhaps this planning was the key ingredient for Dueñas, who had no contacts within the publishing world and had by no means written literature earlier than, to create the novel with greater than 10 million copies.

There is sort of a life between that first second, during which Dueñas searched on Google for “literary agencies, for the A, Antonia Kerrigan” to ship her manuscript and this one: a hallway at a very powerful Spanish-speaking e-book truthful during which she walks accompanied by all of the heavyweights of Grupo Planeta. The CEO of the corporate, José Creuheras (who can also be president of the Spanish community Atresmedia), is her escort and champion (“they have told me to be María’s troupe and that is what I am going to do”), in a delegation the place additionally the CEO of the group in Latin America, José Calafell, and plenty of different executives. They will all sit within the entrance row of a packed room, the place Dueñas will communicate to tons of of readers who will take heed to her enthralled, at all times bursting with laughter and applause.

She will inform you about her seven siblings, who her mom cherished to decorate alike (“we hated it”) and the way that was her first contact with the world of stitching: “My mother bought meters and meters of fabric and we went with the dressmakers, who were almost always ladies in small, family workshops, with their mouths full of pins.” He could not comprehend it, after all, however that was the primary seed to create Sira. Before coming into the speak, the creator requested her staff to take a photograph of her with the duvet of The time between seams as if it have been the primary time he noticed it large. “It still moves me,” he admits naturally subsequent to that oil portray by the Scotsman Jack Vettriano, which his youngsters thought of nerdy the primary time they noticed it (“I didn’t care, I’m not cheesy at all”), “but I don’t care anymore.” “I spend my life thinking about Sira.”

Dueñas’ magic wand later created 4 different novels (Oblivion mission, Temperance, The captain’s daughters y Sira), all edited by Planeta, which ended up supporting her path to the highest of the best-selling Spanish writers. He left his job on the college and devoted his time to promotion, writing and documentation. This final half is essential: “It is the most fascinating. I have to force myself to stop. “I use everything I get.” That is: educational articles, journey books and memoirs, the press of the time, maps and metropolis plans, commercials to search out out what their characters ate, how a lot issues price.

Because, for now, though she has tried, María Dueñas continues to base her work on a previous period: “I have started two novels based on the present and I have stopped both of them.” One ultimately grew to become a podcast, titled fucking (“the title got here looking backhowever this was born with the intention of a recent novel, a bit loopy, it has nothing to do with what I do”) and also another “considerably superior” one that is finally going to become a television series with a Spanish production company.

Dueñas – impeccably dressed, impeccable hair – drinks a caramel macchiato and looks back: “Now I live like a queen compared to how I lived before. Before it was a much more complicated life.” What would you say to that María from 15 years ago? “I would warn him that there was going to be a big change, that he should prepare for a very pleasant life. It’s true that I work a lot too, but what we all work for. It is a rewarding life.” The author answers all the questions like this: calm, prudent, but direct, without making detours or avoiding any of them.

—How have you experienced being a woman within the industry?

—I haven’t had bad experiences in general. But I have seen a great evolution in these 15 years. When I arrived you had to overcome some stereotypes. The first question they always asked me was: “Do you write for women?”, which made me want to slap the journalist. Now no one dares to ask you that. But I do still see that prejudice a little in men. Being a woman, writing with a woman’s narrative voice, having a young lady on the cover and a majority of readers being women, many men back away. In other words, we continue to think that literature written by men is universal and that literature written by women is mostly for women. I think it’s a generational thing that is going to pass, because younger people come in with a different perspective. But it has happened to me many times in certain cultural supplements where there is a majority of male critics who, if they have to analyze my novel, assign it to a woman so that women can criticize women. I also don’t cut corners: I have come to the point of not going to big, important fairs, because when I saw the program I said: “No, I don’t participate in this,” because they gave enormous preeminence to the gentlemen, gentlemen! !, gentlemen. I have kept the issued plane ticket and I have not gone because I refuse. But come on, now commercially and editorially women are very interested, because as authors we sell more and as readers we are the ones who consume the most, so the man who is not interested…

Dueñas is about to release her next novel, under which there is summary secrecy. He only says that it will also be historical, that he still has to write the last chapter and that next year he will surely come to the FIL to present it. You will return to your unmissable date: having green chilaquiles for breakfast at the Barceló hotel.