“The reason why this society is not ready for dialogue is extremism”

to read excitement. “There are more writers than readers”

He was not misdirected. There are more writers than readers. I distinguish between authors and writers. There are many people who are faced with the writing of a book. Is there a excessive ego. For most writers, I think because writing doesn’t make them any money, they pay them with their ego. Most people trying to break into the publishing market don’t realize how complex it is to publish a book or that the author’s compensation system is outdated and we are the lowest paid in the publishing industry.

Books are written on paper, in electronic format, on web pages and even on social networks. Do you perceive the risk that this proliferation of formats will degrade value? Novel forever?

The majority of booksellers, namely those who write prescriptions, cannot absorb the avalanche of books that come to them, rather than the support they receive. There is a danger of staying with books that have less of the best quality books. It is very difficult for a bookstore to write an accurate prescription with everything at hand.

We recently heard the praise of Vargas Llosa Bolsonaro. Does the writer embracing the world in the 21st century have this role? extreme right or to another extreme of politics?

We should have freedom of political thought, we all have opinions. what if showing it publicly risks losing many readersbecause it is true that society is now extremely sensitive and freedom of expression is at stake. There are whites or blacks in Spain right now, you are from Madrid or Barça, there is no middle term, there is very little dialogue and very little reflection. It’s good for me to be involved, we writers have our principles, but to mark from there… this society is not ready for dialogue, and it’s a problem with excesses, there’s too much extremism and it’s not always appropriate to take a position.

Still, you have colleagues who constantly use social networks to get positions. For example, I think of Pérez Reverte.

Pérez Reverte is a very smart man and he knows very well that if he moves the tree and the nut falls, it will benefit him, he is a man who knows exactly what he is doing. Another thing is those who show themselves for no other reason than to showcase their ideas. it doesn’t concern me at all because Being a writer doesn’t give you bragging rights. I don’t care if he’s a certain status, writer or bullfighter. A writer’s view on politics is like that of any writer, he has no different moral superiority to give an idea about politics.

So, where is the figure of the intellectual in 2022?

Everything should be reflected in the books. We must distinguish between novelists and essayists. In a novelist, thought must be reflected in his characters and through the genres he deals with. If you want to make a social complaint, use the black type. Protesting poor health, a corrupt society, a society overexposed on networks, doing it gracefully in a novel feels much more practical to me in the novel and much more comfortable than a Tweet. Moreover, the tweets never end, after a while it gets messy and is long forgotten the next day.

In ‘Sun of the Witches’ there are different profiles of the cop you worked with to write it. Is this police world you know a faithful reflection of society?

In the past, there were far more right-wing people in the police than there are now. Today, its ideology is very diverse. I believe that there are policemen whose aim is social good, who persecute the bad and defend the weakest. Police is still a kind of company: there is bosses, suspicions, jealousy, envy for promotion, a microcosm very similar to a financial company as I work, sometimes you have to move to get promotion. There are rooting problems. It is a very up-to-date institution with more and more women participating.

What was the experience of working “buried” in Santander police?

Obviously, I couldn’t go on patrol, but they wanted to take me to training at the shooting range, and I didn’t dare. Just thinking that I could buy a gun made my hands sweat. They taught me all the laboratory techniques of the Scientific Police. insecurity and the few resources they haveespecially at the La Coruña Police Station, which operates the entire laboratory division of northern Spain, where they are sometimes unable to carry out the tests due to lack of funds. A CSI to go around the housebecause they have really good facilities, they have very good materials, but often they cannot buy what they need on a daily basis, so they are delayed in some research and this is decisive for their work.

will you do more noir novel?

I want to, there are many issues that need to be dealt with and that society continues to ignore and does not want to face.

There’s an epidemic of novel events. Black Barcelona, ​​Black Cartagena, Black Valencia,… just one Black Villalpando is missing.

My father is the mayor, it’s about the offer. There are fifty-odd cases of this kind. Society needs the bad guys to go to jail and the good guys to win. We live in a time when it is difficult to focus on reading, and a well-written detective novel gives the reader the privilege of not needing too much concentration.

He has a very special technique of not being able to stop reading.

In my case these are very short episodes. While competing with digital platforms, social networks, TikTok, Instagram, trying to grab the attention of the reader, we compete with other forms of entertainment.

Are there any particular authors that triggered this ‘explosion’? Stieg Larsson, Mankell, Nesbo…

When the Scandinavian phenomenon emerged, a new golden age began. Here in Spain there was a generation of writers like Juan Madrid, Andreu Martín, Vázquez Montalbán… the next step we took is people who are now 50 years old. I remember we were very few in the early editions of Barcelona Negra and it was difficult to paint pictures of people playing the black genre. Before Juan Gómez Jurado became Dolores RedondoIt went from regular sales to bestsellers, selling the rights to his novels to a number of countries in Frankfurt and even before being published in Spain.

the evil of ‘coolturetas’

Do critics view crime fiction as a minor genre?

There is the problem of who the literary critics are in this country. If we go to the ‘coolturetas’ literary suffixes, as I said, we have a problem there because it’s a very innate world and it seems that if you don’t write heavily, you’re not a writer and they’re wrong.

making friends

No, but it’s true, there’s even a comment in my novel where I say that. It is very simple to limit literature to the intelligent. The really difficult thing in literature is to make the difficult easy. It is very difficult to make elegant and simple prose, and it is true that there are people in Spain who have not written books in the major newspapers. [risas] or that they have not sold more than 500 copies. There are many frustrated writers who don’t like people selling novels.

How do writers get along with each other? Are there ‘quevedos’ and gongora’s?

There is a nice weather in general, we get together a lot at fairs and festivals and we get along well. I usually read to my friends out of courtesy, respect, or people I meet at festivals. There are many ‘lobbies’, many groups, I do not belong to any of them. That’s not good either, because it doesn’t allow you to see beyond the world you’re in. I think the relationship is good, apart from… let’s see, there are also fights, there are jealous writers but I think overall the relationship is pretty good, I want to believe in people’s kindness.

‘Lobbies’ in the world of writers…

There are many groups that feed off each other and there seems to be no literature beyond them, but it happens in every profession.

you are the biological son Spain is empty. Are there any solutions for Spain to progress at the same pace as the rest of the country?

It has no solution because no one is interested in solving it beyond cultural tourism. If remote work was encouraged, it could be promoted through public institutions, with some tax incentives. The differences between autonomous communities do not have much explanation. It makes no sense that the communities most affected by depopulation have less tax incentives to settle than others.