Carolina Sarmiento (Asturias, 1981) made her heart out of letters and put aside shyness and doubts to publish her first poetry collection “Ikiru (Vivir)” in 2018. She published “Stinging Animals” stories in 2020. Then the novel “Tarada”. Now comes “Vrësno” (Pez de Plata), which he will present tomorrow in Oviedo.
How are your books similar and how are they different?
– I think that my obsession with the precision of language, my attachment to the imagination and my habit of exploring emotions sometimes through irony and hooliganism, as in some of the stories in “Stinging Animals”, and about everything in it, I think they are similar. “Tarada” and others take more serious and dark twists, as in “Vrësno”. Thanks to a few readers, I also realized that I have a taste for escape stories. I wasn’t aware of this, but it’s true, I use escape as a narrative engine.
–What special coordinates take us to the town of Vrësno?
–Intimacy is as great a mystery as surrounding Vrësno. And I mean that for each of us, not mine, but the novel intersects with themes that touch me: the fragility and doubts of the creator, the magnetism of mountains, the lure of legends, the contradiction between nature’s desire and its fear, uncertainty about who I am and whether I’m innocent about my future.
– The main character is Stanis Otief. Retrospective Otief is Feito.
-Well seen. In fact, it was Stanis Feito in the first draft. I tell you. Years ago, a friend’s family went to live in a town. They were a recently retired urban couple, and this story came to light during our visit to them, which we call “Vrësno” today. My friend’s first name is Feito, so I blinked, but I decided to reverse it to hide it… and you got me. And why would you hide it? Feito is a cowboy surname with all its historical and social burden. While all the locations in the novel were made-up names, aiming directly there seemed dangerous to me. However, in the novel, where wild humanity throbs, a town with ancient traditions, where only members of the same family live… In short, something of the cowboy remains in Otief, and it has been maintained throughout history with this point of the boundaries of the fiction. Stanis Otief composes songs about him where he says things he doesn’t understand, misses and fears. What better way to dust off what’s been hidden than a guitar and a song?
–Is it always uncomfortable to investigate the lives of parents?
It is very difficult to meet them. Maybe impossible. Fatherhood/motherhood involves so many responsibilities that the previous spark is extinguished. Therefore, who can be sure that they really know their parents if they are no longer the same? The restlessness you mention stems from the fact that he idealized her in the first years of his life. For children, their parents are always the best, because they want them, because they love them unconditionally. Then when we grow up, we learn that they, like the rest of adult life, have flaws, disappointments, and a past where we didn’t exist, where we were young and free. Perfect aliens.
– Are you afraid to know the secrets of Vrësno?
– He put it in me. Looking through the peephole, I wrote about how its inhabitants, Zaleas, behaved. I watched them, afraid of getting hurt. Partly it was. I entered a dark story and fell into its abyss from time to time. Investigating the most atavistic horror has its own dangers.
– How would you like your novel to be considered infringing?
–This is a complex question, because I do not write with the intention of infringement, but with the intention of doing so with complete freedom. This commitment may have taken me to limits I fortunately didn’t think I was violating. Specifically, perhaps the greatest risk lies in the ambiguity between the novel the reader is reading, the manuscript handed over by Stanis’ mother, and the protagonist’s own expression. I spin that kaleidoscope and the thread changes shine all the way. Let’s trade the breach for exploration.
– Is there a metaphor of the landscape in the book?
–To mark my metaphor here is to kill the reader’s reflection, something very sacred to me… like the mountains, rivers and forests of Vrësno. The wildness of thought as well as the wildness of the landscape deserves my respect. A clue, the first title was “Animal Mountain”.
–I searched for Vrësno on the Internet. There is absolutely no such thing. How did that title come about?
–As I said, I played to invent all the places that appear in the novel, but as far as Vrës’ two points are concerned, there is no justification in the story. Colons, not double dots. This is a warning and this is important. Trualla, Cozul and Méligo are other towns on Stanis’ vital route. Imaginary places for a legend to believe or not.
–Why this need for Stanis to know more about his family? Deep down, is he searching for himself?
-Certainly. He wants to understand why he didn’t act when his intuition whispered to him that something strange was going on in Vrësno, he wanted to understand where his inability to relate came from and how the distance between him and his parents formed, why they gave him that childhood. he. And above all, clear his guilt, was he guilty of his disappearance or not?
–A town where only relatives live among themselves… Does he have much to hide?
-I’m telling you. Where there is no mixture, it is suspect. And when it comes to the Zaleas, believe me, they’re hiding something.
Does writing give you freedom?
-Yes. Increasingly, because for the rest of my life freedom is shrinking, and fiction allows me to ride a dragon and destroy it, or hide in a cave, or escape like I did recently.
–Are there any secrets kept for your son as a mother?
–Yes, a little guilty-embarrassing-boy, though not much, and if there is an opportunity, I would like to tell you, just as I do not hide from day to day. I’d rather you see my flaws and faults than fake it. What I guard with greater zeal are the same secrets I keep from myself. Things I didn’t say to keep it a secret.
–The main character is a singer-songwriter, what music would go well with reading his book?
–I listened to Nick Drake on loop during the process. His voice, melodies, and responsiveness got me into the right tone for writing. The novel is written like a song. And there are songs by Antonio Vega or Nacho Vegas that make me jump because of the similarity between their lyrics and Stanis’ spirit. This is the case of “Monstruo de papel” or “La fi”. Also, “Silver Romance” by Christina Rosenvinge. You are heartbroken for a verse that makes money, is the opening line of the novel.
– What did you learn about yourself by traveling to Vrësno?
– That I’m capable. Writing a novel was a challenge. I thought I was indecisive, but discovered that it was just the opposite. I just needed time. I asked for unpaid leave and Carolina turned out to be the most perfectionist, hardworking, passionate and dedicated I’ve ever known. “Vrësno” was my first novel, even though it came out after “Tarada” and I’ve rewritten it many times since. Coming to a particular place, I still see its dark and totemic silhouette. It is not easy to escape from the mountain. I would like to say that I learned the risks of creative obsession from this trip, but that’s not the case because I fell too.