The early death of a sister shaped Dolores Redondo’s childhood. She was five when death arrived in the family’s home, casting a black shadow over that place. The young Dolores escaped into books, finding in literature a refuge that brightened her world until life offered a new light. Stories and more stories fed her imagination and freed her to imagine other possible worlds for others to inhabit. In adolescence, after exhaustively reading the established canon and seeking fresh inspiration, she began writing diaries. She wanted to ease her burdens, leave the place where she was born, and start living somewhere far away without leaving her home. Years passed, and Dolores—once a solitary girl—became a writer. Today, nearly a decade after the Baztán Trilogy captured the public’s imagination, she remains a best-selling author: a year after its publication, Waiting for the Flood became a major hit in Spain.
Do you know when you say, “I want to be a writer”?
She recalls answering that question at fourteen. She loved reading and cherished solitude, quiet, and the comfort of home. She can still picture moments from childhood when she was urged to play as if she were being punished. Facing mortality gave her a view of the world that most people do not gain until adulthood. And she believes the magic fades for a child who is too soon forced to understand life’s limits.
Literature allowed her to reclaim the magic that death had stolen.
She describes choosing movement when the place she lived in felt suffocatingly poor. From what she read at eight or nine, she was already venturing beyond the accepted canon, drawn to children’s literature in a way that felt like a pre-reading awakening. By age ten she read The Godfather, though she did not grasp the explicit material at that age.
How did growing up in a matriarchal society shape her?
It influenced her completely, albeit unknowingly at first. Her father sailed, leaving her mother at home with the children, but the influence extended beyond the nuclear family—sisters, neighbors, and friends carried the weight of everyday life. The environment was rich with shared conversations and neighborhood warmth, and Dolores listened more than she played.
Which Dolores emerged from that climate?
Her memory centers on coffee, neighbors, and women talking, laughing, and supporting one another. The era’s daily rituals formed the seeds of a later feminist consciousness, she explains, noting a type of matriarchy that was imposed yet empowering because women helped one another. Men in that social world learned to be loved in return.
Did the sense of brotherhood belong to a bygone era?
Not at all. Men in that community contributed, too. She remembers how her father would bring his salary home and give it to her mother, a simple act that reflected shared responsibility.
As years passed, she encountered references such as PD James, Juan Benet, and Agatha Christie…
Why did she become a writer?
The spark came from reading Stephen King. His dialogue thrilled her, its freshness and the way the voice carried the character. It left a lasting impression—the sense that dialogue can reveal personality without lengthy exposition. That was a masterstroke that continued to influence her.
Was there a book that profoundly affected her life?
One title that shaped her—the story of an Italian family of immigrants who strives to leave Little Italy—made her reconsider the difficulty of leaving home. Reading it at fifteen or sixteen, she heard persistent whispers that she would marry a sailor, a fate she refused. She realized she would not accept that life and decided she could become a writer despite the odds.
Why did she think this was possible?
Because she grew up in a place that felt stifling and poorly understood by outsiders. Reading made her world larger, she thought, but it also sharpened her sense of her own reality. She often felt that the local environment was limiting, imagining Madrid or another city as a different horizon altogether.
And then she left that place to become a writer. What is the difference between being a writer and merely writing?
Early in her career, when success came quickly, she faced questions about exploring other topics. Why not write about the Civil War or ETA? She recalls a moment when a journalist suggested she write something like Patria. Her reply was simple: Fernando Aramburu writes what he does well because he was born to be a writer. A writer must follow the story inside, even if its subject is not fashionable, because a writer writes because a writer must.
That is why she writes, she says. A writer chooses topics driven by the inner novel growing within, not by current politics or trends.
Do you think this question would be asked of a man in the same way?
She believes many questions would not be asked of a man, and there is a clear standard: if a question is absurd for anyone, it becomes sexist when directed at a woman.
Where does she write from?
From a happy place. She always writes from a mental palace where the stories live. It is a place with open windows, wind blowing the curtains, a sunlit room where she can wander barefoot and feel at ease.
In describing his latest novel, Waiting for the Flood, she explains the pleasure of continuing to inhabit the “sweet torture of disasters” imagined in the mind.
That pleasure is not about a specific genre, she insists. The Baztán Trilogy helped democratize the detective novel, yet her work is not a pure crime story. It is a hybrid that blends genres and voices, allowing literary boundaries to expand. Love, adventure, and historical moments mingle freely, proving that stories do not need to fit a single mold.
Why write with limits?
Because strict boundaries feel limiting. She prefers to push beyond conventions and explore what she wants, without being pinned to a single formula.
How does she understand literature?
It is a privilege to have readers and to devote oneself to it. Literature represents what she loves most and what frees her the most.
So, is writing a job, a sacrifice, or something else?
She comes from a business background and regards writing as a vocation. It often doesn’t feel like work because it is a calling she cannot ignore. She writes daily, both when she is actively writing and when she isn’t. It is not employment in the traditional sense, but a necessity. She describes writing on a train or a plane as possible, yet her preferred method is a slower, more nurturing rhythm—an image she calls “granary mode”: warmth in the front, sunlight or a stove’s glow, calm, and quiet, with soft thoughts at the ready.
Readers have always greeted her with warmth, she notes, and that reception has continued. Has the publishing world welcomed her as it did in the beginning?
She answers that the real shift is a matter of scale. The massive success of The Invisible Guardian demanded a new kind of attention, and she recalls articles insisting that it was not a conventional detective novel. She describes it as a mestizo novel, a blend that resisted easy labeling.
Do these concerns arise outside Spain as well?
Definitely not, she says. Other countries with stronger traditions of sexism have their own challenges, but the landscape is not identical. They simply had to face the facts and move on.
Do she still celebrate early successes with the same energy?
Yes, she does. The road has required immense effort. Her first novel circulated in six hundred copies and did not sell. Rights were lost when the publisher she initially worked with held onto them for a decade. There were deals that went wrong, and others that paid off. Each milestone prompted her to look ahead. Once a book publishes, she moves on to the next, with a philosophy: stay focused on what comes next. It is not about triumphs but about continuing the journey.