José Manuel Aparicio | Photography: author's website.
Jose Manuel Aparicio He is from Bilbao and is dedicated to editing and editorial consulting at the editorial services agency Rubric, specialized in self-publishing, dissemination and promotion of books. She also writes for the newspaper 20 minutes on the historical novel blog XX centuries. He was in charge of the website worldwords, which worked like writing community and was also committed to publishing authors from all Spanish-speaking shores.
He was a student in the literary workshop of Ramón Alcaraz García and, very fond of historical research, especially about lesser-known periods and events, he has written stories and two novels, flagmen, published in 2016, and Bellum Cantabricum, which appeared in 2020. In this interview He tells us about them and his entire career, where he has already achieved some recognitions, in addition to his projects and other topics. I really appreciate your time and kindness dedicated to serving me.
José Manuel Aparicio — Interview
- flagmen, winner of the IV International Historical Novel Contest Ciudad de Úbeda in 2015, and Bellum Cantabricum, finalist for the Edhasa Historical Narratives award in 2020, are your published novels of the historical genre. Where does this love for him come from?
JOSÉ MANUEL APARICIO: For me there will always be two fundamental elements that defined my inclination for history: the family trips to monumental cities that I enjoyed so much as a child and the Roman cinema, type Ben-Hur, which I also enjoyed with my parents and siblings. These are two seemingly basic facts that had a great influence on me.
- Can you go back to that first book you read? And the first story you wrote?
JMA: I fondly remember the books by Send that were read in EGB and, especially, that of the horse Clavileño. As for the first story I wrote, very good question. The truth is that I am unable to remember it. It is possible that a short novel about a scientific mission in Antarctica, back in my early twenties, but I suppose that before then I would have dabbled with some short stories and comics. I have to look for them. I just got tremendous anxiety and I need to clear up the doubt.
- A head writer? You can choose more than one and from all eras.
JMA: I'm going to stay with Edgar Allan Poe y Julio Verne. They had a big impact on me as a teenager. And what happens to you when you are young, accompanies you forever.
- What character in a book would you have liked to meet and create?
JMA: I would have liked to meet the emperor Augustus, the individual who finished the imperial project that his great-uncle, Julius Caesar, could not complete. As for creating a character, any of the ones I have invented will do. Otherwise I would have kicked him right out of the book!
- Any special hobby or habit when it comes to writing or reading?
JMA: I usually write with The music, though not always. Is he purest art that exists. An engine capable of mobilizing all types of emotions, so necessary to create.
- And your preferred place and time to do it?
JMA: Mainly in my office, at night, if possible.
- Are there other genres that you like?
JMA: Lately I'm getting a taste for dystopias. also nonfiction stories They are among my favorites. Personal experiences and things like that, due to their didactic nature. And from time to time I put a test between my chest and back.
- What are you reading now? And writing?
JMA: I'm reading Of prisons, whores and guns, by Manuel Avilés; and 1984, by George Orwell. And I'm writing a historical novel set in Roman Germany from the XNUMXst century AD. c.
- How do you think the publishing scene is?
JMA: Neither good, nor bad, nor quite the opposite. It is edited a lot and with very different qualities. I think that, within an order, it is good to have variety. Another thing is if it sells a lot. In principle, Spain is not a country with a large reading mass, so it is difficult to find many authors with large sales figures. In any case, everyone tells the story as it goes. If you sell in abundance, the outlook is good; If you sell little, a churro.
- How are you taking the cultural and social moment we are experiencing?
JMA: I think there are more possibilities of access to culture than ever. Until then, good. However, we live in a society where the rush is getting bigger and, therefore, the cultural appetite must be satisfied with easy consumption products. If we take it to the world of literature, there are many novels with a simple style, intended precisely to satisfy this hasty consumption. There is no longer time to pause and delight. It is as if, at the same time that we advance in our approach to culture, we go backwards.. A take-it-and-wet paradox.