Paloma Sánchez-Garnica (Madrid, 1962) loves to write. He has always liked it a lot and says that it has been difficult for him to win over his readers. That she has gone little by little, tenacious, building her narrative universe. Sánchez-Garnica began his career but his passion for history and literature made him bet everything on books. It turned out well. Especially when The Sonata of Silence (2014) was adapted into a television series. Today she is an author best-seller in national territory with a defined and recognized style in works of historical significance in which he addresses the themes of exile, love and survival.
The Madrid native 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 dark hair loose at her collarbone. He points out, as he reaches for a glass of water, that this is the same room where former US President Joe Biden stayed on 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 are once again the backdrop. What fascinates you about this universe?
Berlin has a novel in every corner. especially in the 20th century from the First World War until the fall of the wall. I think it is a city that is built and destroyed, it is occupied, demolished… It has hundreds of experiences worthy of a novel. And, furthermore, I am very fascinated by the fact that in the period that I wanted to cover it became the most dangerous city in the world. The most conflictive with the most spies per square meter where the two hegemonic powers, the Soviet Union and the United States, competed for domination of that new world that was beginning to awaken.
The novels of love, grief and revenge in the Second World War are a classic, have you ever been afraid that the season will run out? That they are no longer interesting?
I write about things that fascinate me, I never think about whether or not they will reach the public. If I don’t like it, I drop it, I can’t continue. In this novel, what I wanted was to understand that world, to see what was happening in the state of Alabama with the Jane Crow laws that were in full force, 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 that established itself as the cradle of freedom, there were laws that directly violated the civil rights of part of the population due to the fact of being black or thinking differently, such as was the case of McCarthyism. And, from those contexts, I spin stories where love is always there because, along with ingratitude and injustice, it is part of our society.
Yours 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 similar to each other, but that the unhappy ones are each in their own way. Well, that’s what happens to me with stories, just as it happens to journalists. More sad stories are written than happy ones and I like to investigate human feelings and see how the characters face the dilemmas that arise. That 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 when ingratitude or betrayal can destroy everything? That is the question with which I structure the relationship between the sisters in the novel.
Speaking of dilemmas, you draw 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 try to outline what happens with those secrets that become entrenched and, over time, destroy everything. What are we willing to do for the people we love even when ingratitude or betrayal can destroy everything? That is the question with which I structure the relationship between the sisters. Navigating the unresolved contradictions that we harbor when we get into a vicious circle, 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 longed for. On a day like today, with Trump’s victory, it is almost mandatory to ask him about his vision of the American country.
The United States has an almost unfathomable complexity. Its ethnic diversity escapes us from our European perspective. We have many prejudices, for better and for worse, manufactured by Hollywood. We believe that the United States is the population of New York or Washington, but there are many rural, isolated, jaded people, as reflected, for example, in the film The Madison Bridges.
I believe that what has happened for Trump to win is that the Democratic Party has not known how to satisfy or serve the population. We will have to wait and see what he did wrong. It seems that he has turned all his efforts in favor of minorities at the expense of the white, Anglo-Saxon and Protestant middle class. And this has consequences for the reactionary vote. We will see what happens in the long term even if this is bad news for Europe. But this is the greatness of democracy, it gives the opportunity to change things. Although it is not always for the better.
I believe that what has happened for Trump to win is that the Democratic Party has not known how to satisfy or serve the population. We’ll have to wait and see what he did wrong.
In the part of the plot set in the United States, it tells an episode in which 400 black men are treated like human guinea pigs to see the effect of syphilis on their bodies… Let’s talk about that episode.
Yes, 400 poor black men were victims of a very cruel experiment that took years to stop. They were sick and were not informed that they had syphilis, they were told that they had another disease which they called bad blood. And, without their consent, they watched the disease progress in their bodies. A terrible, cruel and devastating disease.
It should be noted that in the second Nuremberg trials a code was established, the Nuremberg code, which required for the first time that in any clinical trial with a patient all guarantees must be given to the patient. It was not applied here and that experiment continued until 1969. And some officials wanted to denounce it! But they were ignored until someone leaked it to a local newspaper and it ended up appearing on the front page of the New York Times. Then a commission of investigation was opened and in 1974 the culprits were arrested, but it was not until 1992, during Bill Clinton’s term, when the survivors were asked for forgiveness.
This terrible story is the one that marked me the most during the research for the novel.
In 2021 I lived the story of the Carmen Mola and, now, with this novel, I was encouraged again. Let’s try it, 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 am grateful for everything I am experiencing
Changing the third. This is the second time that he has approached the Planeta award. In 2021, he was a finalist with Last days in Berlin, How does it feel to get closer to the award again, this time in first place?
For me it is like reaching a goal after a long journey of more than four decades in which, during the last two, I have only dedicated myself to writing.
In 2021 I lived the story of the Carmen Mola and, now, with this novel, I was encouraged again. Let’s try it, 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 am grateful for everything I am experiencing. Reading my partner’s book, [la finalista Beatriz Serrano]I see myself in the character of the mother and I think about my generation and all those women who revolutionize everything so that young women can be as they are.
What do you plan to do with the million euros of the prize?
The first thing is to pay the taxes that will go towards all these materially destroyed lives in Valencia. And, later, living doing what I like most, enjoying my retired husband and writing.
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