Tania Padilla gives us an interview (Córdoba, 1985) who has recently received the Ateneo de Sevilla Young Novel Award for his work The inverted tower (Algaida). Padilla has a degree in Hispanic Philology. In 2004-2005 He enjoyed a scholarship at the Antonio Gala Foundation for young creators. He has taught creative writing workshops and published research articles., stories and poems in national magazines and anthologies. In 2013 his first novel appeared, Hospital: the black diamond. with his work A strange kidnapping (Algaida) was a finalist in the first edition of the Logroño Novel Prize for Young Writers. GINÉS J. VERA
I think there is a certain parallel between the protagonist of this novel and you.. regarding the trip and the documentation process of The Quinta da Regaleira y The inverted tower.
Yeah, actually the protagonist, Sofia Bernier, somehow acts as my alter ego. Besides, The story is presented as a meta-literary story where the protagonist takes a trip to the Quinta to document herself., and it actually coincides with that first trip I made to the Fifth, with some friends, very different, because I had not documented much about the Fifth either.; that is to say, Sofía is already knowing and I went without knowing. So, when I went and stumbled upon that amazing construction, especially because of the inverted tower, said: I have to write a story with all this. And from there I began to document myself. So, that parallel is not exactly real, but it is real in some way.
Tell us about the feminine part so present in this novel beyond the four voices of Sofia's characters., Alida, Minerva and Rebecca.
It is true that the fundamental characters of the plot are female, It is a choral novel; and also the inverted tower, that uterine space - somehow- It is also a metaphor for the descent into hell.. I wanted to play with all those architectural-symbolic keys, somehow, because they work on both an internal and external spatial level for the character himself. Yes, it is true that the feminine is very present throughout the novel.. Also the feminine under siege, somehow, by masculine forces, there are some violations; The woman has to open her own space and find her own space in the novel. I think that in the novel the displacement of woman as object to subject works a lot.. That is to say, I believe that the protagonists begin, somehow, that displacement: They are objects, a priori, sexual objects, who become - through their own movement of conquest or self-conquest- in owners of their own stories.
And as a great object is the tower, which gives the novel its title.
And, and as a great object the tower and the house, all of Quinta da Regaleira.
Among the themes that are interwoven in The inverted tower, in addition to the metaliterature that we mentioned, there is that of the subtle paradox between the falsehood of the truth and the realness of the lie, Isn't that so?
Yeah, a lot is played with the truth in the novel. The game of truth and lies and, above all, with the historical story. And that's where I think the character of Fernando Pessoa comes in.. Pessoa was always in favor of a false literary historical nationalist discourse. He had no problem recognizing that literature is a lie and that this national discourse, of Portuguese nationalism, of the fifth empire and Sebastianism was a lie, a beautiful lie, and how a lie and how beautiful it was necessary for the construction of a national identity.
