Photography: courtesy of the author
Júlia Pero She was born in Barcelona and is a multidisciplinary writer and artist. She had already published poetry, but Ant smell It is his first novel, which is getting a great echo among critics and readers for approaching a topic that is rarely discussed and that breaks the taboos about old age, loneliness and desire.
In this interview He tells us about her and many other topics. I am very grateful for her time and kindness dedicated to assisting me.
Júlia Pero
He has participated in different poetry anthologies and began publishing a first collection of poems titled Anatomy of a bathtub (Planeta, 2020) and the book of conversations This message was deleted (Planeta, 2021), which adapts its digital project @este.mensaje.fue.eliminado to physical format. Run the book club crisp books and currently works at his second collection of poems, in a collection of conceptual art and in a new novel.
Júlia Peró — Interview
- CURRENT LITERATURE: Your last published novel is titled Ant smell. What do you tell us in it and why will it be interesting?
JÚLIA PERÓ: In Ant smell I explore my fear of getting old through the story of Olvido, an old woman who spends her last days of life alone and locked up at home while she remembers her childhood or her most recent past, when a girl came to take care of her apartment and her.
It is a violent and tender story At the same time, it aims to lead the reader to feel very contrasting emotions and explore her own fear of old age.
- AL: Can you remember any of your first readings? And the first thing you wrote?
JP: I'm not very sure what the first thing I read was, but I do know that reading was not interesting to me until I was a teenager. Maybe, due to lack of references, my first readings had an aftertaste of Paulo Coelho o THE JAMES (author of the famous saga Fifty Shades of Grey), authors who Now I wouldn't recommend anyone who wanted to get started in literature..
The first thing I wrote, on the contrary, I do remember clearly and vividly: I developed a great love for counting. fantastic stories about mermaids or ogres that then dissipated to make way for my first real debut: Fliss's somni. A novel written in Catalan, Infant and full of spelling mistakes, about a girl who narrated an entire day in her life and who discovered, when she woke up again, that it had all been a dream. Writing that little book, perhaps, was the push I needed to write everything that came after. It's funny because I started writing before reading.
Writers and customs
- AL: A leading author? You can choose more than one and from all periods.
JP: Irene Solá, Alessandro Baricco, Sarah Table, Delphine de Vigan, Alejandro Zambra, Ottessa Moshfegh or annie ernaux, For example.
- AL: What character would you have liked to meet and create?
JP: Amélie Nothomb, the writer, it has always seemed to me that in his books – both autobiographical and fiction – he has created a very interesting character from his personality.
- AL: Any special habits or habits when it comes to writing or reading?
JP: I like it. write silently –or with some sound of nature that does not incorporate human speech–, alone and locked in a room. If it is for the morning, better, because I feel like I have more energy to face the words.
Reading costs me less, so I don't mind doing it surrounded by people, with music in the background or at any time of the day.
Both actions, yes, are accompanied by a cup of black tea with oat milk.
- AL: And your preferred place and time to do it?
JP: I write, as I have mentioned, locked in a room – it is usually in my little studio– and in the mornings, if time allows.
But I prefer read in cafes and in the afternoon. Feeling accompanied, if possible, by other people who are also reading.
- AL: What other genres do you like?
JP: I feel attracted to independent style literature. And the more original or rare, the better. I also like all that dark writing, where a female character is not as socially she should be.
Current outlook
- AL: What are you reading now? And writing?
JP: I'm reading Dad loves us, by Leticia G. Domínguez, and about to begin Paradais, by Fernanda Melchor.
As for writing, I'm working on a commissioned story, also in me second collection of poems and already writing down the first ideas of what will be my second novel.
- AL: How do you think the publishing scene is?
JP: Hard to get into and, then, to live off of it. Driven by redundant ideas and economic interests. But I remain hopeful.
- AL: How are you handling the current moment we live in?
JP: a bit the same than with the publishing scene.