When you are on your own (part III)

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Luis Buñuel‘s bulging eyes at times seemed they didn’t belong in his face, despite he was such a methodical man that he had turned his self-acceptance into a fixation.

Whether he was being polite or excessive, he was always faithful to the character he had built for himself, so loyal to both his fondness for pickled sardines, Wagner‘s music or the Monastery of El Paular‘s cloister and his loathing for Borges, awards or psychoanalysis. However, for a man so attached to the Greek aphorism “know thyself,” he loved to be in disguise. He writes it in his Memoirs: he remembers dressing as a priest in the streets of Madrid, or becoming invisible disguised as a workman. Together with Lorca, he mocked the young poets (Miguel Hernández?), while playing villains in wigs, hidden behind costumes. He became an artillery officer, a peasant in the working-class taverns. He defines becoming somebody else as an attraction, an amusement.

We can use Buñuel’s example to draw the right route that a storyteller must follow when he’s face to face with the story for the first time. In this context, “disguise” means “posession”. Being the owner of his creations, unprejudiced, knowing them inside out, becoming widowed when they eventually reach the hands of the readers. Avoiding the cliché that every writer leaves a piece of his biography behind in everything he creates.

Just as we did in a previous post, we interview eight Spanish-language writers (novelists, poets and playwrights), to find out how they approach the blank, empty page. When they’re about to be sucked into the depths of Niagara falls: do they feel panic and vertigo until they reach the safe banks of the river, or they kitesurf along with the story, enjoying its dangers?

Santiago Roncagliolo, Antonio Rivero Taravillo, Salvador Gutiérrez Solís, María Tena, Rubén Ochandiano, José Ramón Fernández, Vicente Luis Mora and Álvaro Tato answer our questions.

The Peruvian novelist Santiago Roncagliolo (2006 Alfaguara Award for his already classic novel Abril rojoRed April—) assembles a dense background of ideas before he puts himself in front of the black page. “I spend a lot of time alone. I walk the streets, I browse old magazines, I read. I think ideas over. When I eventually sit down and write, I know what to do. I pose a threat to the page, not the other way around.” He’s got the antidote for that life-robbing black mamba: thinking through before writing. He always follows Hemingway’s advice: always stop for the day while you still know what will happen next. “So, the next day, I look at the page in disdain and watch it turn black. It just shivers at my sight.”

Santiago Roncagliolo

Santiago Roncagliolo. Credit: alfaguara.com


The poet and translator Antonio Rivero Taravillo refers to stimuli and already existing characters when he speaks about writing a poem or a novel. His Poetry books (the last one, La lluvia) are born out of the fire that these impulses spark in his head. An unexplainable command “one cannot always control. My Poetry books are collections of those moments, that’s why they rarely refer to a single topic.” In Rivero Taravillo’s case,  “the narration always starts with an historical or literary character, already delimited by the information available about them. I like to study the characters, to assemble their lives, and even allow myself the privilege of inventing.”

This translator of Shakespeare, Keats, Graves, Donne or Melville, among many others, only admits feeling uncomfortable when he has to write his weekly column for El Mundo/Sevilla newspaper. But he’s got an ally: the subjects he writes about are universal, timeless.

Antonio Rivero

Antonio Rivero Taravillo. Credit: Juan María Rodríguez


It is often said that the street is the best office for a writer. Salvador Gutiérrez Solís is very much of the same opinion as Roncagliolo and Rivero Taravillo. “I don’t look for stories; they come to me. Although I’ve experienced writer’s block at some time, in recent years stories seem to pile up. They come from a news bulletin, an overheard conversation, a movie sequence or a TV advert, a song, a poem… I frequently put together stories out of non-related fragments that come to me from multiple sources.” The author of El escalador congelado sees the blank computer screen as an ally, he’s always put himself in front of it knowing what to write about. “I always wonder how much time I spend writing. Too much? Only when an idea, a sentence or a character moves me I feel the urge to put it in words and start typing on my computer. I’m a story recycler, no matter where the stories come from.” He finishes his speech with a question: “Why do I choose certain materials and not others? Maybe not everything has an explanation.”

Salvador Gutiérrez

Salvador Gutiérrez. Credit: latormentaenunvaso.blogspot.com


The novelist María Tena knows from experience the moment a story is ripe for telling. Just like the scent of an old friend you can easily recognize from the distance. Every encounter with a person you love should take place in the right environment: enjoying a nice meal in a warm place, the right words being spoken. Tena, twice semi-finalist in the Herralde award with Tenemos que vernos and Todavía tú, finalist in the Primavera award with La fragilidad de las panteras, claims there’s a previous stage in which “I walk along the blue, crooked lines of my new story. I feel it’s coming, but not just yet.” The path to follow to put the story down in words becomes her haven: the countryside, the sea, open spaces that tell everything is still possible. And lots of silence. Silence provided by her two private shelters, surrounded by greenery: Segovia and Santander. And she adds: “In addition to those places I need some poetry, little food, no social media, and a homeopathic dose of the urgent, everyday issues.” Rationing the excess to produce the exquisite, great Literature can only materialise when it relates to the pleasurable and the essential.

María Tena

María Tena. Credit: lne.es


Read Part IV →