Félix J. Palma will participate in the 42nd festival in Barcelona, in the round table “Conan Doyle and the fairies of Cottingley: scam, myth and plot”, on November 8.
Text: Susana Picos Photo: Asís G. Ayerbe
Felix J. Palma He is a discreet author who lives literature without the fuss and noise that surrounds the profession. He was born in Sanlúcar de Barrameda in 1968, but for years he changed the beaches of Cádiz for those of the Costa Brava out of love and currently resides in the Baix Llobregat region of Barcelona. He began his career in literature with stories, but his recognition came in 2008 with the novel The time mapwith which he won the Ateneo de Seville Prize. It was the beginning of a trilogy that they completed The sky map and The chaos mapand its entry into the international publishing scene. The combination of real historical events with numerous literary references and science fiction/fantasy in a Victorian setting was a cocktail that won the favor of readers and critics.
When we ask Félix J. Palma if this “literary formula” can be considered his hallmark, he answers: “I think so, that it can be considered a kind of personal hallmark. Now it no longer worries me, rather I enhance it; but I remember that when I wrote The time map I had doubts about what I was doing. It was a novel so different from what was done in Spain (not so much in the Anglo-Saxon market), that I was worried about the readers’ reaction. She didn’t know if they would turn their backs on her because it was too strange, or embrace her precisely because of it. Luckily, not only did the latter happen, but it opened the doors to the international market for me and, as you say, it ended up becoming my trademark. Apart from the theme and the plot twistsalso a trademark of the house, I am very easily recognized by my writing.”
After the trilogy, Palma published a couple more books, one of them Writing is crazyhalfway between a writer’s diary and a writing manual where he captures his experiences as a teacher; but it was not until his recent novel The great fairy scam who has returned to that London universe, although “the novel basically takes place in the 1920s, with some flashbacks to the past of the characters located in the late 19th century.” About that time, Félix J. Palma tells us that: “Apart from its aesthetics, I am attracted to that mix between naivety and science that I explore in my novels, how progress tried to delimit the world, tell the citizen what was real and what was not, and how it resisted it, which is why occult societies, spiritualism or the belief in fairies and the fairy community, for example, proliferated.”
In Palma’s novel, Alan and Violet are two young photographers who specialize in photographing fairies and magical beings in London in 1922. They have come to this profession through different routes, avoiding gangsters and unbelievers. The confrontation between magic and science, between deception and illusion, are concepts that hover over this story filled with literary references and lyricism: “Alan pulled the bell that he had attached to the wall, which emitted a faint tinkle, like tears of heartbreak falling to the ground.” Félix J. Palma has the soul of a poet: “Many people ask me if I write poetry, but I have never done so. I am a narrative animal, and ideas always end up turning into stories, but I like to apply the modes of poetry to my writing. I aspire to stimulating, lyrical and playful prose, which is not a mere vehicle to tell the story, but rather has value on its own, and I am obsessed with the rhythm, the music of the narrative. I am also aware that my style changes over the years. I try to make formal pyrotechnics give way to depth.”
In The great fairy scamAs in his trilogy, Félix J. Palma creates a complex universe where each character has their micro-story, which if extended would give rise to another novel. His role as a story writer remains with him when he immerses himself in the creation of an extensive story. “There were almost seven or eight years of exclusive dedication to the story, and that has to be noted in my way of structuring the novels, where I always try to introduce small stories camouflaged in the tapestry of the plot. It’s something that comes out to me
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