The journalist and writer Javier Sierra gives us an interview (Teruel, 1971) to talk about his twelfth work, Pandora's message (Planet). Twenty -five years ago Sierra decided to look for answers to great questions through writing, which has made him the author of works as popular as The secret dinner, The Prado teacher, The blue lady o The lost angel or The invisible fire, for which he won the planet award 2017. Con Pandora's message, of which he assures that he is his most special novel of all, Sierra faces the great challenge of the origin of life. GINÉS J. VERA
Pandora's message It comes to us in the form of a letter. A very special one writes by an aunt to his young niece. Curiously, In the first chapter, entitled "The Message", The narrator comments: “The important thing is not the original that you now have in your hands, but the way in which its content is accommodated in you, awakening the need to share it with third parties”. I say it is curious because the intention is for this "message" to go viral, is that so?
That's how it is. Although the letter may seem a personal and intimate message - which is -, Its deep content seeks to reach many more recipients than the young Arys. Ella, in fact, It is a kind of metaphor of what I think we are as a society: a group that is coming out of childhood by force of conflicts and losses. We mature like this, When we feel the breath of death close ... and, somehow, In these times that feeling of growth is accelerated.
We also read a curious phrase in which the narrator tells her niece that the mission that has been proposed when writing this letter is that "never forget that not by unknown a threat becomes unlikely". Of a threat perhaps not so unknown and very recent I think we are told in this book. Do you tell us?
Maybe I should have added that "not by unknown ... and invisible". The text refers to the disease in general and the COVID 19 in particular. At first we decided to ignore it but she, tozuda, He gained ground to become global. And not only do we ignore it on foot citizens, Also those thousands of virologists and scientists who appeared in our media by disabled and even laughing at the threat. Maybe at some point we should ask for accounts because they not only unprotected us, but they kept us in an ignorance that has cost many lives.
"Remember that whenever evil arrives we receive notices to those who do not provide ears". In Pandora's message The readers will be able to discover that this has been so throughout history, that evil - like that saying about God - does not always shout, Sometimes whisper. Is that just right now, We are not lending ears on the arrival of evil?
Now we start doing it, Although I trust that we do not forget and we do not repeat the same mistakes. Covid's evil 19 He hasn't gone. In fact, coexist with others that manifest or manifest to a greater or lesser extent soon. If we dedicate the same resources to prevent ourselves from these invisible enemies as of the visible (I mean the investment in defense that all countries of the world do every year), We would advance. Perhaps the discovery that the human being faces a common enemy, who doesn't know about races, banderas, ideologies or borders, accelerate a process of consciousness that many have been waiting for years: realize that humanity is a. And that is also one with nature.
In Pandora's message Not only do we read about events in the past related to Pandora's metaphorical box. This long letter is also in a way an invitation to present reflection and action face the future. I take the phrase we read: “… They embarked on an experience that today seems impossible, but what, within a few decades, We will also be able to undertake: create intelligent life. " Tell us about it.
My novel is a story to make the reader reflect. And for this I make science look, History and myth. The reflection that these looks give is fascinating. Pandora brought us from the skies a box from which all the diseases came out. In the twentieth century several Nobel awards proposed the theory that life, and bacteria, and viruses, They arrived on Earth aboard comets, asteroids and meteorites more than 4.000 Millions of years. deep down, Both "stories" say the same with millennia away. Life comes from outside ... but, Was it sown? Will we also sow us when we step on other worlds? Is a fascinating starting point.
"The truth is out there" was a motto that became popular thanks to a television series of the ‘90 titled The X files (File x). Reading Pandora's message It seems that it is not so crazy that it is true. For example, When reading the directed panspermia theory or the possibility that cosmic rays are behind the flu virus mutation, To put two examples. Do you tell us?
Both perspectives start from something that we often forget: that the earth is a very small piece in the tapestry complex of the universe. You think about something: A few weeks ago the University of British Columbia recalculated the number of possible “Tierra” planets that are our galaxy, The Milky Way. Encrypted them in 6.000 millions of worlds in which there could be liquid water, oxygen, severity and temperatures similar to ours. How are we not going to be open for life to jump from the world in the world? How are we not going to admit that there are also mutations of microorganisms - affected by the same cosmic rays that bombard us here - and evolve towards complex beings? Not having something like this is a form of blindness. Intellectual, Yeah, But blindness in any case.
