Have I seen a chicken?

I have chickens, I have sheep and a big garden – everything we eat at home we grow here.

Until, until?

Less oil, sugar, coffee… and chocolate! I need it to write, the voice on my desk?

I see her…

I strive to balance body and mind and to leave a minimal ecological footprint.

One of the themes of his books…

What are the environment, animals, feminism and social justice.

I read that he lived in Tenerife.

Yes, in 1991 and 1992, sick of my country’s war against Iraq… I isolated myself. I learned a little Spanish. I remember Teide…

When did you start writing?

At the age of eight I started a diary in a notebook… and I didn’t stop! Look, I have it here! do you see him

Yes. Do you read something to me?

“This morning, after breakfast, I broke my bike.”

Where did you live then?

Here in Appalachia. My grandparents were from here and are today my pride, but when I was young I was ashamed of them.

Because?

Because of their country talk, their rural customs (hill billies, they call them pejoratively), but I matured and changed.

In what sense did it change?

I understood that his voice was my voice, I felt that Appalachia is my place… after traveling a lot. And today I’m here!

Where have you lived before?

My father was a doctor and to help the poor he attended leprosariums in the Congo, where I lived for a few years as a child.

What mark did it leave on you?

I found out that I was white, right away. I learned to live in a mud hut with a palm roof, no electricity or running water… and hunger. My father was very altruistic, and I inherited that from him.

And how do you help your neighbor?

I write books that move hearts against injustices. For my readers to demand solutions from politicians.

Does it in his Demon Copperhead?

Inspired by my beloved Charles Dickens, I do it in this novel of mine.

Charles Dickens!

Dickens touched his time with David Copperfield, the story of a poor boy mistreated by the British society of his time. That’s why I asked permission from Dickens…

And has Dickens given him permission?

It seemed very good to him. My protagonist is also another poor child, but a child from today and from here, in the United States.

In our first world.

The first world indecently makes the poor, the poor children, invisible. I wanted to see them and explain it to you properly.

But you did not live like that child.

Yes, I experienced my mother’s unhappiness: at that time a woman brought the coffees. My mother kept telling me to study and work so as not to depend on a man.

And what did you dream about?

Only by not bringing coffees, in short.

Studied?

Piano… until I fell in love with biology: I understood that nature teaches us everything and we must study it.

Is Dickens a form of nature?

Yes, when I was young I read his Christmas Story and it opened my mind, and that’s how I knew that people are capable of change.

What would Charles Dickens say about Demon Copperhead?

“This boy talks too much!”, he would say. And I would explain to him that times have changed.

What did Dickens want to tell us?

That David Copperfield was him.

And what do you want to explain?

The same as him: make visible the disadvantaged, orphaned, poor, drug-addicted child.

How was it documented?

Through interviews with caregivers, social workers, doctors, nurses… How poorly paid! And many children get lost.

Are they lost?

From the age of 18, they are lost sight of, or before that, in bureaucratic labyrinths.

What changes would you like to see?

I would like to see more compassion translated into more money for children’s services.

Which country would you point to as a model?

Iceland and the Scandinavian countries.

Because?

They reduce the gap between rich and poor.

Are the poor today and yesterday the same?

Today they are more aware of inequalities. Also between women and men: feminism pushes hard. And one day our species supremacism will fall!