This week our interviewee in the book section is the writer Antonio Garrido (Linares, 1963). His first novel, I wrote it (2008), Also with the Readers' Selection Prize 2010, and was a finalist for the Prix Fulbert de Chartres. With The Corpse Reader (2011), won the City of Zaragoza International Historical Novel Award and the Prix Griffe Noire, and was selected for the Edgar Allan Poe Awards USA in the Best Original Paperback category.. On this occasion we interviewed him about his latest novel The Last Paradise (Planet, 2015) endorsed with the Fernando Lara Novel Prize 2015. Antonio Garrido joins his name to the winners of previous editions of this award such as Terenci Moix, Angeles Case, Francisco Umbral or Zoé Valdés.
Does having been the recipient of such a prestigious award as the Fernando Lara Novel Award give a plus to the work in these times of fleeting titles in bookstores??
Definitely, ¿no? It is an award that has previously gone to Umbral, Terenci Moix, dragon, or Zoe Valdes, of great prestige; It's a responsibility. On the one hand, it will allow many people to delve into a reading that I think will be very satisfactory and, on the other hand, it is a responsibility for future novels., I have always tried to give the best of myself, I don't know if I get it when I write. The fact of being recognized with this award forces me to continue fighting for what I have always dreamed of, which is that a novel, in addition to entertaining, has to excite.
A novel with the framework of the great crisis of the 29 in the United States that reaches bookstores when we are also immersed in a crisis, even people in the same shoes as Jack Beilis. The shoes thing is a wink.
It is one of the great stories that this novel contains., that of the drama that immigration to the Soviet Union meant for these Americans and that unfortunately we have seen very closely in many of our acquaintances or in ourselves.. And it is curious how a circumstance is repeated with the same ingredients that are unscrupulous people who manage power for their own benefit at the expense of the innocent and at the same time the weakest.. I thought about that parallelism and that it was also the ideal time to rescue this story and learn from what happened on that occasion and from this one so that it does not happen again.; The experience of these people was dramatic., because unlike what has happened now, there was no type of social support, there was no unemployment, There was no type of benefit..., Not paying the rent meant that the bullies would come and throw you out the window if necessary..
It is true that there are many similarities, but what I would take away is the fight for survival and the hope that exists after so much suffering and this is reflected in the novel, how these men left their skin, they did what was necessary, even leave your country and go to the end of the world, to an uncertain destiny, although they sold it to you as the last paradise looking for happiness, what we are all looking for, looking for a future, without knowing that they were going to face their own doom.
Returning to the novel, tell us about the character of Elizabeth Hewit, Well, a story of love and envy also beats in these pages..
There are three female protagonists in the novel who have quite a lot of weight., one is Andrew's girlfriend, Sue, she is an ambitious girl, pizpiretta. Andrew is an idealistic young man who accompanies her to the U. Soviet. This girl represents a humble social stratum with an ambition, with few resources and willing to do anything to progress, even betray her boyfriend by trying to hook up with her boyfriend's friend, Jack.
Another character is Elisabeth, a graceful girl not only physically but also economically because she is the niece of a potentate; is presumptuous, is used to living well, she is also ambitious, He likes to interact with people of his level and does not mind using his charms to, somehow, stay above the protagonist, I wouldn't say make him suffer but I would say play with him a little... He has a name, arrogant, she is arrogant.
And then, finally, There is a doctor named Natacha, which is soviet, which perhaps represents all the nobility and all the utopia that really wanted to change the world in the U. Soviet because its ideals, in principle, They were very praiseworthy; She represents everything good and is the third female character who will have a relationship with Jack, between the three they will face each other and bring out the best or the worst in him, as the three relationships occur. GINÉS VERA
