«In my books there are no heroes or villains because there are no good or bad children»

It started as a “gift” to her granddaughter and has become the best-selling collection in Basque. The tireless writer Toti Martínez de Lezea presented the first copy of Nur in 2008 and her main publisher, Erein, has celebrated that the collection that “exudes interculturality with characters from different cultures and sexes” has reached 18 books and more than 350,000 copies sold in its “commitment to make the imagination work” of children.

«I don’t usually write stories and this one isn’t either. It was going to be just one, but since it worked so well they asked me for the second one. Then the third, the fourth… », she said with her usual humor from Alava. Thus until the 18th, in which for the first time the protagonist travels to Africa, specifically to Nigeria, which has led Martínez de Lezea to delve even further into the already extensive days of her documentation. «I had to look for zoos in Nigeria and I found the one in Abuja. I wanted towns, jungle or savanna. “It is the richest country in Africa, it has oil and 25 million inhabitants,” she explained.

That option of “creating characters” and being able to decide what they do, when and how, makes Martínez de Lezea feel like “an all-powerful Goddess.” She explained that she limits herself to “saying what she feels” and reflecting “how she sees the world” and that, for this reason, her literature for adults is different from her – she claimed that it is not just a historical novel. – and the childish one. “I see good and bad people, but the kids are innocent.” That’s why Nur’s characters, “all real,” are “normal.” They are afraid, they laugh, they get angry. There are no good guys or bad guys, no villains or heroes. “They have their frictions and the ability to learn.” She has also explained that she seeks to “get away from lessons, from ‘if you behave badly it will happen to you…’, no. “Not that,” she concluded.

The collection also usually has a craft, in this case how to make an African mask, and an addition, a notebook, for its readers to write. Martínez de Lezea was concerned because “we no longer write by hand” and with her gesture she seeks to encourage the custom. In addition, she explained that it is a way of “giving over. Nur has already told her stories, now it’s up to them.

The day, in addition to a tribute to the writer, was a vindication of the imagination and a call to continue dreaming. As an anecdote, she said that every night, before going to sleep, she usually daydreams about two things: that she is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature or that she directs a Philharmonic. «I still imagine things, it is relatively easy for me. I start thinking about what I’m wearing to receive it and I never have time to think about the speech, which would be entirely in Basque. Or that she conducted Tchaikovsky’s ‘1812 Overture’.

This is what she has sought with Nur, to show that “with imagination you can go anywhere.” In her usual talks at schools, many children ask her if Nur has been everywhere and the writer explained that, as in the collection, “there is some reality and a lot of fantasy on my part.” Along those lines, she pointed out that “all the adventures are real in the first 12” and that most are based on trips made by her granddaughter, some with her, and then “I have added my magic.”

New novel in progress

Martínez de Lezea had words of sincere gratitude for her colleagues at Erein, who are more like her publisher than her own. “I have never had exclusivity with any publisher and I have seen how they work. It is not a utopian or bucolic world, there is no need to be romantic. They are companies that need profits to maintain themselves, to pay salaries and expenses. If they are not going to sell, they are not going to publish.” In light of this vision, she declared that of those she knows, Erein has been “the only one” that has convinced her because “the profits go to the company.” She also thanked them for recovering her old books in a library collection and for publishing “all of them in Basque as well. That is priceless.”

Finally, she noted that she is immersed in her new novel, which is “halfway done” and is currently set on the Biscayan coast. Iturri, a member of the editorial, said that “it is very good”, without wanting to reveal much more, only that it will arrive “after the summer.”