when the Valencian Elizabeth Benavent He wrote his first book, he never imagined that I would write 24 more and that I would sell more than 4 and a half million copies. Them saga Valeria It was taken to Netflix in 2020 increasing its popularity throughout the world. Snob (Penguin Random house) is the novel that comes to present at the Book Fairthis Saturday, May 10, at 17.30 in the José Hernández room. But before, he spoke with Clarion.
– How was a male narrator to make?
– Well, it was very rare, the truth, but I had a challenge with myself, I wanted each new book to be a novelty and that it is not repeated with the previous ones because 25 books, 22 novels behind my back, my maximum concern is not to repeat me. I also believe that the writer’s obligation is to put the awkward things not to accommodate and continue learning, if you do not repeat a formula that has worked well and in the end it is more of the same with different names. Thus it was that I gave birth to Alejo, who is also a bit of the character in itself, but an adorable fool, a manual snob. Then I thought that if he did not speak, it was possible that the reader and the reader would fall badly and would not want to know him.
–It is once and sometimes overall. It cost me enough to find his voice, but when I found him, I didn’t let go. I had to ask my friends a lot, but I always raised from the beginning that had to be plausible but not realistic, which is one of the things I like most about this genre that also allows us to dream. This type of man does not exist, or if it exists does not have this dramatic arch, but in the novel yes.
– Can you deepen this that you say about the plausible and the realistic?
– For me, the romantic novel, at least from the point where I write, feeds a lot of reality and is a referential: we look for ourselves in the text, we look for our friends, our own fears, our aspirations. But it also allows us the aspirational, it allows us to dream who we want to be, what we will do in the future, who will be.
“Many want to be like Valeria, isn’t it?
– I write some characters that are mixing how I am and how I would like to be.
– And what do you have from Valeria?
– At that time I wrote Valeria, I had never published a book, I didn’t know the editorial market, I didn’t know how I worked and I started writing a novel about someone who is going to get her second novel. I aspired to have Valeria’s problems.
– What was your childhood? Was it also in a city with sea?
– Yes, I am from Valencia, which is a city of the Mediterranean. The Valencians need to have the sea nearby, but maybe we are 6 months without seeing it. It is one of our contradictions. I come from a working class family, I am the little sister, my older sister takes me 6 and a half years. My mother is a housewife and my father had several jobs. In my house the books have been considered a gift, reading at home was never imposed, reading was a choice and it was a happy choice, the books were given, there was no imposition there. My sister was a great reader since I was little and instilled the taste for reading. As at 13 I found a book by Isabel Allende at home and I couldn’t stop reading.
– What was that book?
–The House of Spirits: I have reread it I believe more than four times and every time it seems more beautiful.
– And what other things did you read?
– I was very much of my sister’s recommendations. At that time, when my sister was 19 years old, having a little sister seems to you a bass. Then, many times he told me, ‘Read the ones you have in your room’, which was yours before, and I read. I really liked the story books, adventure novels and then I started to like horror novels. I read everything that fell into my hands, but at home we were not very loose with the money.
– Does Mariana Enriquez like?
– Mariana Enriquez loves, I have read everything of her. I am fascinated by this way of including terror within everyday life, which seems to me the most terrifying of everything. And the cosmos of his literature, I think he has a language that makes his ghosts very recognizable: you know that you are reading Mariana Enriquez, even if you don’t see the cover of the book.
– And in relation to the Valeria series that premiered its fourth season, how was it when they told you or asked if they could take your books to the Netflix series?
– Well, at that time you live it with joy, but also carefully, you try not to make many illusions, until the contract is signed and then your imagination overflows. The first season for me was hard because I had to let go of the character, I had to understand that Netflix raised a more open adaptation. In the second season there is already a clear will to return to the original and I entered into part of the executive production and I have to start learning what it means to be an executive producer. I have been lucky to go hand in hand with the flat to plane producer, who has always been very aware of me and to learn, to participate and I am very grateful and has opened a lot of doors.
– How is the relationship with actresses and actors?
– It is magnificent, they are all wonderful. It also happens to me with them and that is that I can no longer think of my characters without thinking of them. For me, Valeria will always have Diana Gómez’s face, Victor will always be Maxi Iglesias and the same thing happens to me with the rest of the girls, with Paula Amalia, with Teresa Riu and with Sima. It was very difficult, we must always consider it as a challenge, because the collective imaginary is very complicated to reach and be able to reach an intermediate point that content to everyone is practically impossible. But we had hope that when they saw the series, they were going to become fond of them. Yes, Lola is incredible too. Well, it’s wonderful. 7 years passed since the entire preproduction began until we already give Valera an end and we will miss it, but this closure was also missing and new things are coming.
–Alejo, the protagonist of SnobDo you think it represents a generation of young people who find it hard to imagine a future?
–Yes, Alejo’s problem is that as he has trouble imagining his own future, what he does is project himself in his father’s past. Then think about how to achieve the same success as him: he thinks, I have to marry, have children, a dog, a villa, being a partner of the company before 40. But of course, there also his ego plays the game with him and that will be the first piece of domino that falls and causes in some way his dismissal, his girlfriend leaves him, his parents licen him we are already fed up with you Years, on an apartment that is an authentic pigsty, aspiring to jobs that he considers that they are below their skills and is slaughtered of reality to put it a bit in its place. We are a generation, or at least I felt like that, that we have left the degree lost, without knowing in what direction to go; I think that at 18 we decided very important things, how is the course of our life and it seems very early to choose the training that will mark you for life. And in the case of Alejo, it is added that it is a snob, which believes that it deserves certain things and that it has that shark mentality of Wall Street, which is not and that it believes that it can step on top of others.
Elisabeth Benavent in Buenos Aires. Photo: Luciano Thieberger.– Have you found Alejos in your life?
– I worked in an office, in a multinational and there were many Alejos around, with his tailored little bag, with his dad that gave them the keys of his first car, they are quite detached from reality. I come from a very different reality, but each one has their way and matters is that he lives life as he wants as long as he does not bother others.
– What do you feel and think about today’s world?
– I think that in the era of information in which we are constantly hyperconnected, we are living a very lonely time.
– Is you aware that your books accompany your readers a lot?
– Well, they also accompany me during the process, so I think it is a reciprocal relationship. But I am also a little scary of responsibility, especially when someone very young buys one of my books. I hope that with my books there is a positive feeling, that takes care of mental health, that they understand that no one is going to change for love, that you always have to be you, that your friends are the love of your life and they will always be there, but above all he loves himself well and having empathy with others.
– And what are you working on now?
–It just deliver a manuscript and we are now in the phase of the edition, which contrary to what happens to many of my classmates, it is my favorite part because I have already shown myself that I can finish a book again, so it is like a Uff, less bad.
– And you can tell what the book is about?
–Well, I can say that it is a female narrative voice again, which is set in the world of cinema and that does not happen in Madrid, it is the first novel that is set outside Madrid.
Elisabeth Benavent in Buenos Aires. Photo: Luciano Thieberger.– What expectations do you have for the Book Fair?
– The last time I was impressed a lot, I live it with enthusiasm and wanting to meet readers that I know since 2016 that was the first time I came.
– When you started writing, did you imagine that you were going to pass the borders of Spain and arrive America?
– I didn’t even think they were going to publish me in Spain, so not, what is going. And when I already published in Spain, I thought it was going to be a single book and that I would not get another again. It has been a long time since everything exceeded my expectations and to be able to take a plane and come here, it even gives vertigo because it is very big and that I could never imagine that it was going to happen.
Elisabet Benavent Basico
- He was born in Valencia, in 1984. The publication of the Valeria saga was his debut and the beginning of his career as a novelist.
- Since then he has written more than twenty -three books and has become an editorial phenomenon with more than 4,500,000 copies sold.
- Some of his novels have been translated into several languages and published in various countries.
- In 2020 Netflix premiered the series Valeria; In 2021 the film We were songs and in 2023 the miniseries A perfect storywith which it has been at the number 1 global of the platform for several weeks.
- This success joins the conquest of the Anglo -Saxon market with the English translation of its homonymous novel and its publication in the United States and England. Esnob is his latest book.
