2023-05-10 15:30:21
Of in the lion’s den, its author, Elvira Lindo, says that readers always want to know a little more about the suspenseful plot. It tells hard stories, of a girl who suffers helplessness and her mother, who had her when she was 16 years old, without any kind of vocation to raise her. She also says that the music that accompanies this story is the traditional one from Rincón de Ademuz, which is the salvadas, and, as a soundtrack, the one that plays while the baker kneads the bread stands out, the Italian songs that flood everything. Lindo had a conversation with her readers yesterday, within the Encounters with Writers cycle.
In the Wolf’s Den tells the story of a girl, Juliet, but also of her mother and grandmother. How do you deal with the writing of three women who are so different but who belong to the same family?
It is very difficult for me to summarize, because when we summarize, in some way, the arguments are very simplified. It is a small town in which there are many women, but in which there are also men. The main voice is carried by Juliet, who is an eleven-year-old girl, then, the woman who is in the forest, who is Emma, but around her we get to know her mother, her grandmother, the neighbors… My purpose was that each one had their moment to express themselves. The protagonist’s own voice listens to what others say, we listen to the woman in whom she places her trust, we know something about the mother, who was a strange, inexperienced and irresponsible woman, but also about a woman, Virtudes, who she represents goodness in the town, not because I want her to, but because she is a kind woman, and there is a very important man in the novel, who is Leonardo. I believe that it is a community to which Julieta gives voice with all the time she dedicates to observing it.
You take Julieta out of Valencia and take her to a much smaller place. As a child you also had to move many times. Did you use that experience to move your protagonist to such a small village?
I used it in the sense that my mother was from that land, from Rincón de Ademuz, so, between transfers, in a fairly nomadic family, that region was where we spent Christmas and summer vacations… The place has a lot of symbology for me, because it is my childhood. At first I thought it was like a reunion with the ghost of my childhood, which was still there, but then I forgot about the nostalgic idea to do the opposite: someone who arrives there and doesn’t want to leave and has powerful reasons to not want to leave The fact that it is in that village, which is based on a real village, called Skew, is because I know that nature very well and, suddenly, I felt that this was the place where I had to situate the story. .
You didn’t like school either when you were little, until you arrived in Mallorca, which was the first place where you felt good, something is wrong with this girl and, suddenly, she doesn’t do well at school…
There is no need to look for parallels with my life, because it is a completely invented character. I myself wanted to get rid of my own story to create a powerful character, maybe it has some similarity to me when looking at that, but it is nothing like my story.
Is “in the lion’s den” a synonym for patriarchy?
No, it’s an expression that suited me well for this story, also being situated in a forest, with many similarities with tales and fables, I thought it illuminated and defined it perfectly.
Is this way of narrating sought between the thriller And the children’s stories or history drifted towards this rhythm?
Depending on the story you want to tell, you have to think very carefully about the way you want to give it. In this case, this whispering and psychological suspense story, for what is so delicate that I wanted to narrate, which is childhood helplessness, was exactly the tone I was looking for.
There are many silences, secrets and things that are known and not told and that are one more pillar of history, as happens so often in towns and families.
What is not told is important, because I did not want it to be obvious or fall into drama. I don’t know if there are more silences in a small community than in a large one, of course, the characters that I have created have a great desire to communicate and, many times, within a city, it seems to you that there is more communication and it is not like that. I don’t think there is less communication in a small town.
A writer can have an idea to write a novel at the moment she has to do it or she can ruminate on that idea for years until she finds a way to tell it, how was it born in the lion’s den?
It was like a crush, it was very fast, suddenly I felt that I could situate a story in this environment that is of an overwhelming and beautiful nature and the story came to me suddenly, but you write with your experience, you cannot write in a vacuum As much as what happens to this pre-adolescent you think you have invented, suddenly, there are many things in your life, many people that you have observed and listened to that help you when creating a character.
The book narrates very serious things, such as minors who are homeless or mothers who do not want to be, and which, even today are silenced realities, why are these topics still taboo when we know they happen?
I believe that the mistakes of human beings are inevitably repeated, no matter how much society improves, because I think it has improved, and even more so in a country like Spain, but there are always secrets and things that are hidden, that is why things happen that are not we explain ourselves and that is why a boy or a girl is alone in situations that they cannot control and that they do not understand very well. Society can improve, laws can improve, the way in which the school accounts for them can improve, the family can improve, but these situations of child abandonment will always occur because when a person is small they do not have weapons to protect themselves. .
can the literature help create a better future, at least in what has to do with the protection of minors?
I don’t have a therapeutic desire, many people have already read the book, although it has come out recently, and there are people it can help, like reading helps me understand the world, with reading you understand human beings who are very different from you, or a situation or, suddenly, something enigmatic becomes something clear but not because I am trying to send any kind of message. I am always very faithful to the characters I create and I let them move with a certain freedom, I am not behind, making them speak as I speak. Many times they are victims of dire situations, but I have to let the story flow. This girl has the need to speak, but I, in the book, let her find her moment to do it, which is not on the first page.
Did any of the characters surprise you by wanting to go somewhere you hadn’t planned on while you were writing?
You have to let yourself be carried away by the personality and character of the characters, I knew what I wanted to tell and the end of the story, but the path is always mysterious, you always illuminate what you are telling with very little light. I perfectly control the story, the characters and where I want to go, but it is true that there are moments in which a certain personality of a character subjugates you and you let yourself be carried away by it.
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