THE writer Elvira Sastre (Segovia, 1992) called for the “continuous” denunciation of gender violence, which he considers a “very cruel form of terrorism” that, along with other violence, can “anesthetize” society.
“We must talk about it, we must denounce it, we must try to avoid this total anesthesia and not stop,” said the author in an interview with Europa Press on the occasion of her participation in the Hay Festival, which will celebrate its 19th edition in Segovia from September 12 to 15 with various conversations featuring references in literature, art, performance, science, music and other disciplines.
About this scourge, after days “of terror and nightmare” For various cases of gender violence in Spain and around the world, the winner of the Brief Library Award 2019 also criticized the fact that in these cases, “the responsibility always falls” on the victim: “The first thing that is said is whether or not she reported it, whether she had returned to her partner.
“We need to change the discourse a little bit,” he said, to emphasize that this should be “basic,” even if “for a large sector it is not,” and that they also do not know “another facet of abuse, the psychological consequences.”
Precisely, in his latest novel, “Vulnerabilities” (Seix Barral, 2024), which she will address as part of the Hay Festival, the Segovian presents a story of psychological suspense due to a trauma derived from sexual abuse and a relationship of power and dependency between two injured women, to delve deeper into the consequences of this violence.
“It seems like you put the perpetrator in jail and that’s it, but what happens to these victims?”questioned this, warning that they have “serious psychological damage that can lead to a million different things.” “That’s what I explored in the book, to also try to delve into it and think about possible solutions,” he explained.
In this sense, he also condemned the negationist speeches of this reality and warned that these are “amplified”, like hate speech, by criticizing them on social networks or giving them space in the media.
“We must try to take greater care of collective spaces, of the news that reaches everyone, because in the end, it is the consequence of these speeches that reach and reach people,” he added in this regard.
The author, on the other hand, emphasized the racist hate speechsociety “grows by listening.” “In the end there is hate everywhere“Because every time there is a minority, there is a majority that feels threatened,” he warned, asking for “correction and attention for people who need it.”
The “misunderstood” vulnerability
Regarding “Les Vulnérabilités”, a novel which, although fictional, is inspired by an event she herself experienced after receiving a message from a young woman who claimed to have been a victim of abuse and to be in a desperate situation, the writer admitted that she had “her fears” about publishing it because of the “intimate” nature of the story.
In the book, the protagonist offers help to the victim, opening the doors to her privacy, even if nothing is enough, thus creating a situation in which the young woman becomes a “suffocating but necessary” presence.
Sastre expected “affection” for this story, even if he feared that it would not be understood, which ultimately was not the case, which he celebrated because it is a “complex story, with double shadows, many hiding places and widely scattered elements of clues.”
Similarly, he said the text exposes people’s vulnerabilities, which he said requires “courage.”Being vulnerable is not being fragile”the author defended himself, adding that he was “not referring to that misunderstood fragility of something delicate or small that can break,” but rather “quite the opposite”: “When someone shows themselves like that, it’s a good thing.”
However, he believes that it is a “difficult time to be vulnerable” because even if it is “well seen by society”, it also means giving “many tools to another party to do harm”. In this regard, he praised the new generations for being “very connected to what they want and their emotions”, which opens them to better assume and manage vulnerability.
Projects
On the other hand, the author argues that after the next events related to his latest novelwill work on different projects “in the world of books”, but “in other areas”.
Although he could not reveal what it is about, he indicated that he plans to “combine literature and film photography”, while having a project “related to the editorial field” in which he will “put the other side”.
It is a collective project “among friends” with which he aims to “give space to new voices and bring Latin American voices, poetry and narrative to Spain”, as he said. “I find the world of publishing very inaccessible, very complicated and you have to treat the authors well, so I’m exploring that side a little bit,” he said.
While waiting for this project and others, her next stop is the Hay Festival in Segovia, an event in which she has already participated as a speaker and volunteer since her youth,
