Booker Prize Finalist Eva Baltasar: ‘I write in a room where there is hardly any natural light’

with the novel “the rocks”written in Catalan, Eva Balthazar He may inadvertently achieve two things: 1/ It Almodovar He wants to adapt it to cinema, 2 / be one of the five finalists for the International Booker Prize, the most requested Anglo-Saxon letter. After participating in a poetry forum at the CaixaForum, accompanied by her editor, Maria Bohigas, and her partner, printer Elisenda Romanyà, she was this afternoon at London Sky GardenWhere the error was issued. [Va zen porque su cabeza está okupada por una nueva novela].

First of all, did Almodóvar call you?

not me. And my agent knows that if something isn’t fixed, he doesn’t need to explain it to me. Whatever it is, it will appear.

Are you a Manchego fan?

I’m a good reader of dead authors and not a movie buff. What I saw from him, I liked. It’s funny, once I dreamed of the “Boulder” trailer: a ship was crossing the sea, the music was playing in great tempo, and two women were arguing.

Don’t look too excited. Is it as cold as it seems?

I would say no – with my daughters [la mayor tiene 20 años] I am very affectionate and with my partner too – but there are those who say yes to me. I look back and see myself as a spinning top, from here to there, adding falls from all sides. I have learned to set boundaries when I feel like someone is trying to manipulate me. I calmly say “No thanks”.

What did she look like as a girl?

Single. My parents had jobs, and despite living in a community with a playground and pool, my sister and I weren’t allowed to go out.

because?

Out of fear, I think. We looked at him from the window. I was lucky because my mother was from Círculo de Lectores and one day she gave me a library card. At the age of 10, I compulsively read, in my room, eat the biscuits or chocolates I bought on the sly. He waited 18 years patiently without confrontation.

You started writing earlier, right?

When I was 3 years old, I filled out the yellow notebooks they gave me at school. And throughout my childhood and adolescence I kept a diary. I always felt like a writer. I always put writing first. Not with the aim of living off her, but I didn’t want to marry any job because I felt I was deviating from freedom. I cleaned houses, was a waitress, pastor’s assistant, council technologist, worked in public and private education.

Have you always been confident?

Yes, though during the years I lived as a peasant I used to burn a lot of hair in the stove. Until one day—I was twenty-eight—I fell in love with a woman named Laya, and wrote love poems. Since I didn’t want to give him four shoddy staples, I applied for and won the Miquel de Palol Prize [y acabó casada con ella 10 años]. For over a decade, my method of publishing has been to present myself for awards.

He is now a Poker finalist.

And I’m so happy, but lucky to be working on a new novel. I don’t want to get out of it.

come back, come back.

I can only reveal that there is no motherhood or sex.

Oh. Draw where you are writing.

I am writing in an interior room, which has hardly any natural light. It’s like a nun’s cell. There is only a bed and a desk. When I go there, I am at peace. Sometimes I think I have so much turmoil in my head, and it’s so full of images, that I need the environment to be so empty and orderly. Maybe that’s why I meditate.

Do you meditate or pray?

I’m going for a walk along the Cànoves stream, I’m sitting on a stone and listening. This is my way of praying.

A little bit of hate?

Suppose I feel more comfortable being alone, in Cardedeu, or with my partner, in Alt Empordà. I’m from the nineteenth century.

What usually happens in that private room?

I start from landscapes of my life – like the hero of “Permagel”, I shared an apartment in Eixample; Like the one in Mammut, I went to Bergida, with my two-year-old daughter, to a house without electricity, but I needed to find a sound. I speak with the Holy Spirit – I studied with the priests – and ask him: “Please, a picture of the beginning of the book.” And I use the mouths of the characters to show the inconveniences I also suffer from.

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His biggest annoyance?

We live in societies where we think we’re safe, but we’ve been out in the open, for maybe five or six centuries. We press the button and the light turns on, but one day it may not light up. On the other hand, in the past, if you took care to look for firewood and had a place to make a fire, you were guaranteed light and heat. This timer is very inconvenient for me.