Paloma Sánchez-Garnica (Madrid, 1962) loves to write. He always liked it very much and says that it was difficult for him to convince his readers. That she has little by little, with tenacity, built her narrative universe. Sánchez-Garnica started his career but his passion for history and literature made him focus everything on books. It went well. Especially when The Sonata of Silence (2014) was adapted into a television series. Today she is an author bestseller on the national territory with a defined and recognized style in works of historical importance in which he addresses the themes of exile, love and survival.
The Madrid player receives elDiario.es in the presidential suite of the InterContinental hotel, in the heart of the capital and during the promotion of Victory, novel with which he won the Planeta Prize this year. She is dressed in black and white, her black hair is loose at her collarbone. He points out, while taking a glass of water, that this is the same room where former US President Joe Biden stayed during his last visit to Spain.
Looking at his literary career, it is clear that he remains faithful to his own narrative universe, Berlin and its historical context after the Second World War once again being the backdrop. What fascinates you in this universe?
Berlin has a novel on every street corner. especially in the 20th century from the First World War until the fall of the wall. I think it’s a city that is built and destroyed, occupied, demolished… It has hundreds of experiences worthy of a novel. And what’s more, I’m very fascinated by the fact that during the period I wanted to cover, it became the most dangerous city in the world. The most conflictual with the most spies per square meter where the two hegemonic powers, the Soviet Union and the United States, competed for domination of this new world which was beginning to awaken.
Novels of love, heartbreak and revenge set during World War II are a classic, have you ever worried that the season will run out? That they are no longer interesting?
I write about things that fascinate me, I never wonder whether or not they will reach the public. If I don’t like it, I’ll give up, I can’t continue. In this novel, what I wanted was to understand this world, to see what was happening in the state of Alabama with the Jane Crow laws that were in effect, etc.
I was very aware of the horror of Nazism. Not only with the Holocaust but with its consequences: the violation of fundamental rights, of human rights. It turns out that on the other side of the Atlantic, in a democratic country which established itself as the cradle of freedom, there were laws which directly violated the civil rights of part of the population due to to be black or to think differently, as was the case of McCarthyism. And from these contexts, I tell stories where love is always there because, along with ingratitude and injustice, it is part of our society.
Your story is a story of losers, are those who don’t win more interesting?
I always quote the beginning of Anna Karenina, that all happy families are alike, but unhappy families are each in their own way. Well, that’s what happens to me with reporting, just like it happens to journalists. We write more sad stories than happy ones and I like to investigate human feelings and see how the characters deal with the dilemmas that arise. This fight between justice and revenge that we all go through at some point.
What are we willing to do for the people we love even if ingratitude or betrayal can destroy everything? This is the question with which I structure the relationship between the sisters in the novel.
Speaking of dilemmas, you depict a tumultuous relationship between two sisters. Two women who almost hate each other and build a wall between them.
Yes, in the relationship between Victoria, the protagonist, and her sister Rebecca, I am trying to describe what is happening with these secrets that take root and, over time, destroy everything. What are we willing to do for the people we love even if ingratitude or betrayal can destroy everything? This is the question with which I structure the relationship between the sisters. Navigate the unresolved contradictions we maintain when we enter a vicious cycle, the misunderstandings that cannot be resolved, etc.
In the novel, Victoria, the main character, discovers that the United States is not the land of freedom she dreamed of. On a day like today, with Trump’s victory, it is almost obligatory to ask him about his vision of the American country.
The United States is almost unfathomably complex. Its ethnic diversity escapes our European perspective. We have many prejudices, for better and for worse, manufactured by Hollywood. We think of the United States as the population of New York or Washington, but there are a lot of rural, isolated and jaded people, as reflected for example in the film The Madison Bridges.
I believe what happened to Trump’s victory was that the Democratic Party did not know how to satisfy or serve the people. We’ll have to wait and see what he did wrong. It seems that he has directed all his efforts in favor of minorities to the detriment of the white, Anglo-Saxon and Protestant middle class. And this has consequences for reactionary voting. We will see what happens in the long term even if it is bad news for Europe. But that is the greatness of democracy, it gives the possibility of changing things. Even if it’s not always for the best.
I believe what happened to Trump’s victory was that the Democratic Party did not know how to satisfy or serve the people. We’ll have to wait and see what he did wrong.
In the part of the plot that takes place in the United States, an episode is told in which 400 black men are treated like human guinea pigs to see the effects of syphilis on their bodies… Let’s talk about this episode.
Yes, 400 poor black men were subjected to a very cruel experiment that took years to stop. They were sick and they weren’t told they had syphilis, they were told they had another disease they called bad blood. And, without their consent, they saw the disease progress in their bodies. A terrible, cruel and devastating disease.
It should be noted that during the second Nuremberg clinical trial a code was established, the Nuremberg Code, which required for the first time that in any clinical trial with a patient, all guarantees be given to the patient. It was not applied here and this experiment continued until 1969. And some officials wanted to denounce it, but they were ignored until someone leaked it to a local newspaper and she ends up making the front page of the New York Times! Then a commission of inquiry was opened and in 1974 the culprits were arrested, but it was not until 1992, under the mandate of Bill Clinton, that forgiveness was asked from the survivors.
This terrible story is the one that struck me the most when researching the novel.
In 2021 I experienced the story of Carmen Mola and, now, with this novel, I have been encouraged again. Let’s try, I told myself. You have to enjoy life and take risks. And here I am, at 62 years old and I look back throughout my life and I’m grateful for everything I’m experiencing
Change the third. This is the second time he has entered the Planeta Prize. In 2021 he was a finalist with Last days in Berlin, How does it feel to get close to the prize again, this time in first place?
For me, it’s like achieving a goal after a long journey of more than four decades in which, for the last two, I devoted myself solely to writing.
In 2021 I experienced the story of Carmen Mola and, now, with this novel, I have been encouraged again. Let’s try, I told myself. You have to enjoy life and take risks. And here I am, at 62 years old, looking back throughout my life and being grateful for everything I experience. While reading my partner’s book, [la finalista Beatriz Serrano]I see myself in the character of the mother and I think of my generation and all these women who revolutionize everything so that young women are as they are.
What do you plan to do with the million euros prize money?
The first thing is to pay the taxes that will be used to finance all these lives materially destroyed in Valencia. And, later, live doing what I love most, enjoying my retired husband and writing.
