Elvira Lindo (Cadiz1962) I was writing another novel The ‘Wolf’s Den’ (Seix Barral) story suddenly cuts off his path. It was a trip to the “zone” of his childhood (the town of Ademuz, Valencia) that gave him the keys to telling a story that was “there but didn’t know how to approach it.” “That scene fed into a story that I perceived more and more clearly.as if it was already there and waiting to be told,” Lindo explains.
Thus, by rediscovering the emotional memory of his childhood, the author constructs a novel in which, as so many times (we must not forget that Manolito Gafotas is his mother), childhood is again the narrative heart of the story. . With this wickerwork Lindo wrote what is for many critics his best work. “I know many people say it’s the best thing I’ve ever written. I don’t know, but one thing I do know is that this novel touched me deeply.” His “emotional involvement” was so intense that he ended the book with the grief of not being able to live with his characters again: “Actually, I still got a little emotional and melancholy to leave this world behind.”
The story of eleven-year-old Juliet
‘En la boca del lobo’ tells the story of eleven-year-old Julieta who will spend her vacation with her mother in La Sabina, a lost village that seems like the best place to leave her behind. Problems for those who don’t know how to name it And Lindo manages to blow the harassment issue over the novel without naming or verbalizing it. “I could describe what happens when a child is helpless in the face of a wolf, but the reader dreams of it all, I wanted that restlessness of the unsaid to stay,” Lindo emphasizes.This suggests that The Wolf’s Den is actually a mystery novel about a helpless girl.
In this way, the Cádiz-born writer returns to pure fiction and creates his own literary realm: the depopulated La Sabina and its forests. “The first image that struck me was a girl and a woman talking after meeting in the woods. Then I started to wonder if there was a piece of us left in places we loved.If there’s some kind of ghost from our childhood,” she explains.
“It seems that only difficult childhoods matter; there is a trend to highlight all that is dark.”
Of course, the author escapes all nostalgia by creating a “very present” character. “What I am describing here is not my childhood, but the childhood of another creature, even though I visit my past. I return to that childhood with the eyes of the present,” says the author, realizing that it is “therapeutic.” direction”. “When you write about childhood, you get a little relief. My childhood is beautiful where it is.; I feel very lucky to have been so free in those years, but I don’t look at it with nostalgia.”
Lindo has created some characters who, as he himself states, walk blindly through the darkness of a literal or figurative forest, innocently entering the lion’s den like the heroes of ancient fairy tales. Here are some classic stories whose influence is obvious in a novel where truth and fable go hand in hand. “Yes, it was quite sought after. I wanted to use a language close to poetry and nature was very present. Also, I think we’re living at a stage in that autofiction trend where literature overlooks bumpy childhoods. Sometimes I think it’s getting close to exhibitionism and it’s not good. because in the end there may be a competition over who can tell the scariest story, and childhoods that were normal and happy and created so many worthwhile stories may no longer have anything to do with it,” explains Lindo, “he thinks there is a trend to put everything on the dark table”. “There’s a dark part to this novel too, but I wanted the reader to imagine the scariest part. Don’t say it outright.”
“I don’t know if this is my best novel, but my emotional involvement in the process was very deep”
Childhood has undoubtedly been a recurring sight in Lindo’s literary works. “I think it’s because I’m attracted to vulnerable and helpless characters, and because they’re resilient at the same time. There are no stronger people than kids who can take shelter in their minds. I’m very fresh about how I felt when I was little, and I think that makes me analyze the children of today,” says the woman from Cádiz.
The ‘mother’ of Manolito Gafotas
He has amply featured in the eight-novel series starring Manolito Gafotas, of which he is “very proud”. “It was born as a kind of oral story. At that time I played many characters on the radio, I put on many voices. I loved it so much that they kept repeating it until a verbal story was created. Now it has a life.” Appreciating the popularity the character brought to him, Lindo also points out that he creates “cons.” “Maybe it just cost me more to fight against the perception of being a writer. children’s storieswhen I’ve been working on other things for years”.
EXPERIENCE AS A DIRECTOR
Throughout her literary career, Elvira Lindo has been closely linked to the world of cinema. Ever since the now legendary Manolito Gafotas leapt onto the big screen, his ties to the seventh art have grown, either by writing screenplays or adapting other literary works. Now she has taken a step further by directing with Daniela Fejerman, the director of the movie ‘Someone to care with me’. “I have no intention of dedicating myself to it, but he asked me to accompany him to the end, and so I did. It was a great experience and I learned how much it costs to make a movie,” emphasizes Lindo. The film chronicles the family relationships between a grandmother, a mother and a daughter, three generations with their different existential concerns captured so well in the narrative.