Marian Benito 05/11/2024 11:30 a.m.
Emma Nogueiro poses with her book, ‘Dear Nano’(Carlos Ruiz)
The author, the writer’s last love, tells us how this novel was created: “My love is still as alive as ever”
The idea arose in the middle of the pandemic, when it was proposed to organize the trunks of the house in Castilfrío de la Sierra, in Soria.
The writer died before he could finish the work, but what he read moved him
Says Emma Nogueiro (Asturias, Gijón, 1993) who likes to put letters together to tell stories. And he was there when his partner, the writer Fernando Sánchez Dragó At the age of 86, he died suddenly of a heart attack on April 10, 2023. That same morning, with his reading glasses on the tip of his nose, he wrote his last tweet: “Nano the cat says good morning to me. “He knows that the secret to almost everything is in the head.”
In his house in Castilfrío de la Sierra, in Soria, Emma, his last love, was writing the final pages of a novel that presents on the first anniversary of Sánchez Dragó’s death, ‘Querido Nano’, a book that traces the writer’s personality through the epistolary relationship that Nano – that’s what he was called in private – maintained with Elena, his mother, for years. In 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, Emma found in the trunks of the Soria mansion a pile of files and letters crossed between mother and son that inspired this young writer to create a work in which she herself She plays the narrator taking Elena’s voice.
Emma Nogueiro, smiling with the tribute to Sánchez Dragó.©Carlos Ruiz
Before dying, Sánchez Dragó was able to read part of the book and even He contributed some comments that his wife included in the epilogue: “A strange symbiosis has occurred between Emma and my mother. “Emma, by writing this book, becomes my mother, she speaks like my mother, she reminds me of my mother saying many of the things that my mother said and I have forgotten.” The author discovered that Fernando was, to a large extent, the result of what his mother planted in him when he was a child, but letting him live his life. ‘Dear Nano’ ends with a page that he wrote and keeps in the same place where he left it: “When you have to choose between two paths, ask yourself which of them has a heart.”
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The house in Castilfrío de la Sierra (Soria) where the writer died.EUROPA PRESS
The book was born once you discovered Fernando and his mother’s correspondence in a trunk. What have these last few months been like working on ‘Querido Nano’ without him?
The book ‘Querido Nano’ finished being written while Fernando was alive. He even managed to read a little more than half of the novel. He also left a letter written about it. In any case, the correction and additions I made to the book after the death of its protagonist were not painful. Quite the opposite. It was a cure, a comfort.
What Fernando did you discover when reading this correspondence?
The same one I knew. He had taken it upon himself to introduce himself to me. Also to introduce his mother, his father and everyone who is part of ‘Querido Nano’. I didn’t discover anything new, although I did complete the incredible image I had of all of them.
Fernando Sánchez Dragó.EUROPA PRESS
What traits of the writer do you think may surprise the reader?
I suppose the most familiar, childish and personal part. At its core it is a correspondence between mother and son. I hope that everyone knows and wants to read the reality of what is being told.
Has this first person in which you write allowed you to shorten the temporal distance that separates you from Elena?
Elena died in 2001. I did not know her, although thanks to this book she has come down from her star to chat with me, to help me understand her letters and guide me to write this book.
What was that maternal-filial relationship like?
He had high doses of freedom, understanding and affection. They both complemented each other, needed each other and loved each other. Not everyone can say that.
Fernando died in your arms shortly after saying hello on his social network X. How is this mourning going?
Like all the grief of someone who loses a loved person. It has had several stages and is surely far from over. Despite everything, this book serves to toast and send a kiss to heaven.
After ‘Dear Nano’, are you still organizing your memories and files?
I organize my own memories, which are also yours, the ones we both created and shared.
Is memory allowing you to reconstruct your love story? What was this love like that, in Fernando’s case, was his last?
Memory is not necessary to reconstruct that love. He is still as alive as ever. She already said it in the verse: “Constant love beyond death.”
