Thanks to my pseudonym I show how I am

Santander (EFE).- A pseudonym with which she hides her identity as an engineer working in northern Spain, Greta Alonso, allows this author to be “more real” and overcome the “fear” of freely publishing books such as “La lady and death”, his second novel, which he promotes in telephone interviews and without meetings with readers.

The new novel by Greta Alonso -combination between a “common surname” and the name that her mother wanted to give her-, was on the verge of not being sent to the publisher, due to the “fear” of the author that they would not allow her to continue using that pseudonym.

“I was doubting a lot,” the writer confesses in a telephone interview, who recounts the difficulties of keeping her identity in the shadows while promoting a book in a large publishing house (Planeta), without meeting with readers or physical interviews.

However, the Instagram profile you use allows you to interact with your readers, to the point of creating

“ties” with some of them, whom Greta considers “already friends”.

“You don’t know who I am, but you can know very well what I am like,” adds this engineer who works in the north of Spain.

The reason is the “transparency” with which he shows himself to his followers, backed by his pseudonym and with which “I don’t lie anything,” he says.

“Sometimes, because of the job I have and the life I lead, I cannot be myself, and with the pseudonym Greta I am, because I write what I want, on social networks I show myself more as I really am and I cut myself less in say what I think,” he stresses.

Art and black novel

Her second novel comes three years after “El cielo de tus días”, a time in which the author has worked “without deadlines”, even discarding a text that “was not good”.

The result is another crime novel inspired by her passion for art, her taste for “noir” films and mystery, with a series of murders linked to the character of Dama, who also, like the author, hides her real name.

In this novel, she assures that she has devoted herself to the construction of her characters, in which she has left “something” of herself, starting with the sense of justice or the humble origins of the protagonist, the policeman Mateo Valtierra or the desire for freedom and Bianca’s independence.

Also with that character, Dama, a mysterious artist about whom “nothing is known, only that he paints” and about whom, although his motivations “have nothing to do” with those of the author, it does reflect his way of “camouflaging” .

And with the first victim of the novel Lucas Cúe, a prematurely retired soccer star in which Greta has expressed her “sensitivity”, the “defense” that her pseudonym entails and the desire to stay “out of the spotlight”. “I’m not antisocial but sometimes people overwhelm me,” Alonso abounds.

Greta Alonso’s link with Santander

All this developed in Santander, a city with which the author also has a “great relationship”, since her childhood and because she lives “in the north of Spain”.

From the capital of Cantabria, he has also taken his “contrasts” to draw characters “from the most sophisticated world” and from the “most worker”.

Despite the fact that “The Lady and Death” is a finished story, Greta Alonso confesses to having “hooked” the character of Mateo Valtierra, and does not rule out showing him again in future novels.

“I would prefer a new plot, but I have become hooked on the character”, reiterates the author, who is considering different possibilities for this Santander police officer, although without anything defined, since he works “without deadlines” and does not sit down to write “without being clear” about what what is going to capture

“I take writing as a hobby, not a job and right now I don’t write,” he says, although it will surely be a crime novel, he emphasizes.

And he will return with his pseudonym, which he does not know if he will be able to keep, but which he sees as necessary to survive in a literary world, which gives him “panic” and he believes that he would have “exceeded” him if he had shown his true name and face.

Pablo Ayerbe Caselles