The Alfonsina Storni room was packed with a mostly female audience. Florencia Canale, author of eleven successful works, spoke about her novels, how she builds her characters and how she recreates historical contexts.
The story of Camila O’Gorman, the protagonist of her latest novel, “Pecadora”, became popular in 1984. That year the film “Camila” was released, directed by María Luisa Bemberg and starring Susú Pecoraro and the Spanish Imanol Arias. . Canale in his 384-page book delves into and shows aspects that were not revealed on the movie screen. Her text delves into the tragic end of a story of love and passion censored in the nineteenth century.
News: In “A sinner” a rebellious woman is warned and that she “doubles the bet”. Taking into account the current context, what would Camila O’Gorman rebel against?
Florence Canale: He would rebel against the structures. Of course I suppose that she would not have been shot for that (ndr: when rosismo discovered romance with a priest, he had her shot), for defying the status quo, but she would have rebelled against impositions, against oppressions, and would be seeking her freedom. And she would do it her way, quietly. Her way was silent, she would not have sought freedom screaming, as is done now, tantrums, like capricious and abject children, but really how freedom is sought, how freedom is found: in silence.
News: What motivates each story and how is its creation process taking place?
Channel: I choose each story because its characters are contradictory, full of chiaroscuros. Where there is the need for it to be like the path of the hero or heroine, full of obstacles. Smooth lives do not interest me, I am interested in passion, because passion in general is abysmal and then it proposes extreme situations, falls and repositions. In all my books there are characters dominated by passions, by excess, by overflow and nineteenth-century.
News: Does it dimension what it generates in the readers?
Channel: No, I don’t know if I’m aware. If what happens to me is that I pay close attention to what happens to readers with my novels. I’m interested in the exchange, I’m interested in hearing what they have to tell me, to tell me, especially in this latest novel, maybe because it’s the last, I don’t know, but lately this novel has moved readers a lot, and we’ve been moved together.
News: How do you describe your writing style?
Channel: I don’t know. My style is precise, it’s excessive (laughs). I write about excess, but it’s a very worked style, it’s not an automatic exercise, it’s very thoughtful, very detailed, obsessive.
News: In your research prior to each book, do you find a pattern or behavior that is repeated, especially in the female characters?
Channel: I don’t know if conduct, but surely there is a timeline. In general, I have had to write about women, women on the run, who have found that flight, the power to breathe. Sometimes it was all quite oppressive, not really understanding that there were alternatives. Let’s remember that we are talking about the 19th century, so this was unheard of, unthinkable, but surely it is about anguished women. Heartbreak is the common pattern, women looking for a way out, some could and some couldn’t, but all were defiant in their own way.
News: Was your profession as a journalist the platform from which you launch into the stories you write?
Channel: Journalism -I did graphic journalism- I think it was like a kind of laboratory in terms of the exercise of writing. Yes, it surely has something to do with it.
*Guillermina Rizzo is a student at the Profile School of Communication.
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