Sonsoles Ónega faced the most difficult live performance of his life last night. Speaking after winning the Planeta Prize, the best-endowed literary award in the world – a little more than the Nobel Prize – "is the most complicated thing I have done so far," acknowledged the television presenter when the jury announced that her work, The Daughters of The maid was the prize winner.
The novel takes place between Galicia and exotic Cuba and covers the first two thirds of the 20th century with the help of a family of Galician businessmen, the Valdés, who are behind an entire canning empire but who hide a terrible secret that will mark their lives for the ages. always.
The author dedicated the recognition to "women writers with children and to the writers' children" and announced that hers is "a novel of brave women who fought at sea and worked at sea for a hundred years without recognition" and that "finally “They are going to have it.”
Destiny is the driving force of many of his novels. Was yours to win the Planeta award?
Well I do not know. It's something you always think is not going to happen to you. But the truth is that it is a brutal boost for my literary career. When I won the Fernando Lara I realized that awards help novels reach every corner and that is the most beautiful thing that can happen to a writer.
Since then, have you submitted all your novels to competitions?
In my youth I did it constantly. I came to have a list in which all the awards were registered. He introduced me to everything there was and to be. I achieved several, but the prize for short novel letters made me quite excited at the time. From then on I knew I would become a writer.
In fact, he is celebrating eighteen years in the field of letters.
Reaching literary adulthood with this award is something I can't quite believe.
What is it like to combine this facet with journalism? Has time?
I don't know how to live without writing and I do it where I can. This novel, the one that the Planet gave me, was written between dressing rooms, with a notebook resting on my lap and with parts written on the phone when I didn't have paper at hand.
A frenetic pace to which is now added the promotion of an award like the Planet
Where I handle myself best is in chaos and in the thousands of obligations. When everything is calm I get lost. And now I will continue installed in the tsunami, I have no other choice. I know I will get through it, it is not in my plans to miss any of my obligations.
But you now have the opportunity to dedicate yourself to literature full time, if you wish.
I know I'm going to continue being a part-time writer. It's probably my regret, but I like the journalist Sonsoles and the one she writes. One complements the other.
So much so that your novel is inspired by a news story that you yourself told on your program.
Indeed. I learned that two girls had been exchanged at a hospital in Logroño at birth. It seemed to me that there was a novel behind that news and it was the trigger that encouraged me to write.
Did you know them?
I tried, but they didn't want to talk. I imagine that they will experience all this with me in some way. I would love for you to know that a novel has been born from your story.
Are you still hoping that they will end up getting in touch now?
Don't know. Probably not but, in any case, I would love to meet and interview them.
Maybe then a second part will emerge
The only thing I know is that I believe there is no better literary ingredient than reality. I always write with the newspaper archives open. This novel focuses on events that I have found to be repeated from time to time.
An example?
The 18th century flu, which has many similarities with the pandemic. The journalistic chronicles of the moment seem as if they had been written in 2020. News about what medications to take, about restrictions, about empty streets... Reality helps me a lot to texture the novels and understand how things were experienced in a certain time.
The novel covers the first two thirds of the 20th century with the help of a family of Galician businessmen, the Valdés. Do you think anyone will identify?
I doubt it. It is based on my imagination, although it is true that I incorporate anecdotes that exist, but are not exclusive to one family. They are the fusion of small scraps from there and there that allowed me to address how the seafood industry was built, something that interested me a lot.
Because?
Novels are journeys that I want to take to learn. And I like to share what you discover with readers. The greatest compliment is when someone tells me that they have discovered something new with my novel. The canning industry fed the sides in all wars and won them all without firing a cannon. It was, for example, fascinating to discover that the soldiers ate Galician sardines on the Teruel front or that the whale benefits more than the pig, because even the blood serves to attract the sardines.
And, as happens in other of his novels, the singing voice belongs to women.
It comes naturally to me, there is nothing deliberate in the selection of the characters. I undoubtedly feel more comfortable with female characters than with male ones. Historically, men have written to women. Maybe we have something to say in the voice of women in novels. We feel, fight and look differently, so it is necessary for this to be reflected, but we have never had it easy. I hope one day a real balance will be reached.
Do you think it will happen sooner rather than later?
The reality is that everything is more complicated, not only for being a woman but for being a mother. Being a writer, a mother, and in my case also a journalist, is more complicated for a woman than for any of her male colleagues. It is not an ideological or gender issue, it is a description of what happens.
If you add to that that he is a familiar face... I don't know if it's more of a pressure or a help.
The reader feels that they know you and that you are part of their life because they see you. If that helps sell and more books are sold, welcome. I am not going to give up my label as a television journalist who writes. But I want to clarify that a publisher has never called me to ask me to write a novel for the simple fact of being in the media. As for pressure, yes, without a doubt, I will have a lot more in my future books. If there is something that tramples me, it is the fear of disappointing, that is why I did not notify anyone, not even my father or my children, that I had submitted myself for this award. I'm afraid of generating expectations that I can't meet.
