Gonzalo Sanchez |
Venice (Italy) (EFE) If my novels were reviewed after a hundred years, I don’t think it would bother me”, he assures EFE about the premiere in Venice of his new installment, “El ángel de la ciudad”.
“If there are novels with a very racist bias, for example, that used to be normalized and now can hurt our sensibilities or others, I don’t know… I consider myself as an author that in a hundred years, if my novels were reviewed, I don’t think I would It would bother me, even if I were dead”, she predicts from Venice, where her latest book is set.
García Sáenz de Urturi (Vitoria, 1972) returns to bookstores with “El ángel de la ciudad” (Planeta), the fifth installment of the saga of the investigator Kraken with which he has hooked three million readers and has accumulated a hundred of editions in half the world.
The success of this “thriller” universe is unquestionable, but the author knows that its appreciation may change in the future, given that the tolerance of societies varies, as demonstrated by the recent reissue of Agatha Christie’s classics.
In this sense, he “sincerely” emphasizes that he “would always leave the original version” of the works, but he also does not disdain revisionism in the event that they have “aged badly”, including his own.
“I think it would be a good sign of the times, if society’s sensitivities had changed and my novels had aged poorly, it would be good because it would mean that society has indeed made progress in sensitivities, I don’t see it badly”, he responds to what which, he predicts between laughs, will be “this year’s question.”
Although, for now, he prefers to write according to his own sensibility: “If I took into account all this marabunta of offended… I believe that we should not reach such self-censorship either,” he defends.
Fifth installment of the “Kraken Universe”
In this way, after almost two years of work, the writer, Planeta Award winner for “Aquitania” (2020), has published the fifth installment of the “Kraken Universe” that began with “The silence of the white city” (2016) and entangled to millions of readers in Spain and Latin America.
“The City of the Angel” takes place on horseback between Vitoria and Venice to continue revealing the painful past of this famous researcher with the nickname of a sea monster, but little by little, with the mystery of the mist that hides the canals at dawn in winter. .
The stories of Unai “Kraken” and his elusive mother Ithaca will be intertwined three decades apart, in the midst of a world of artistic smuggling, burning palaces and legends of witches and demons that seem to regain a glimpse of reality.
This is a highly anticipated book by his legion of followers, the “Krakenians”, but also by the market, which generates a certain “pressure” for him, he vehemently acknowledges, in a hotel with the entrance to the Grand Canal in the background.
“Readers have been asking these past few months when ‘Kraken 6’ would be out. Wait till ‘Kraken 5’ comes out, buy it, read it and then ask me for the next one. But they are already asking you about the next book of the next one”, he vents.
However, the pressure also comes from the publishing industry itself since his previous work, “El Libro Negro de las Horas” was the best seller in 2022 in Spain. And that naturally comes with responsibility.
“Everything is built on the basis that a few books, thanks to what is sold, can publish many more authors and many more books that may not sell as much. That is to say, a very few of us bear all the pressure of the sales figure for the Spanish publishing industry to continue forward ”, he maintains.
Sáenz de Urturi claims to be “very aware” that the quality of what he writes “many families depend on, publishers, carriers or booksellers.”
Write without further embellishment
But this optician who has become a renowned writer takes it “professionally” because writing, without further ado, is her “job”. In fact, she admits that she was always annoyed when, in a moment of creative slump, they advise her to wait for inspiration.
“If writing were inspired by inspiration, it might take 22 years, like Marguerite Yourcenar with “Memoirs of Adriano” (1951). I cannot afford to spend 22 years waiting only for the days of inspiration, ”she claims.
Behind this confession there is a philippic against the romantic vision of the writer illuminated by the muses that, in his opinion, harms the very profession of the writer, which in any case requires a routine at the desk.
“That romantic vision does a lot of damage and biases many careers (…) There are many good and good novelists that we will never get to read because they are soaked in all that mystique of talent, the muse and inspiration and not taking this profession as something professional ”, warns.
Surely this will not be the case because as soon as the promotion of “The Angel of the City” ends, he promises to get down to work on the next installment of Kraken. His fans can be sure.
The entry The writer Eva García Sáenz de Urturi presents her new novel: “The angel of the city” was first published in EFE Noticias.