A lot has happened in the last year and a half in the journalist’s life. Sonsoles Ónega. A brief account says that he leads the afternoons of Antena 3 after a notable signing; She has separated from the father of her children and found a new love, according to gossip magazines, and now without apparent stress she finishes all that off by winning a Planet whose final period of development coincides with those turbulent dates. ‘Too much’. She would think that to spin so many plates at once she would have to be a tough girl, but in some parts of the interview her eyes watered.
Normally, they don’t usually ask him about his role as a novelist, but with a Planet maybe that’s over, right?
I’ve half-jokingly said that they tend to ask me more about my boyfriends than about my books, but in the end I’m not complaining. I consider myself fairly treated. It is true that television buries everything, but I understand that this is the case. I have pampered both careers equally, although in the literary one I have accumulated more failures.
Failure doesn’t seem like a word that fits you.
Well, failures have probably shaped me more than successes. When I started writing I received many ‘polite’ and formal rejections from publishers before I managed to see my stories in print.
I have never written taking advantage of my fame on television
Do you think that your television work mediates your reception as a novelist?
Yes and no. I have never written taking advantage of my fame on TV. But it is good for the future reader to have knowledge of the person because he sees you, knows you and listens to you. That can only be good. It is an open door to reach people. From then on, only my books will tell if I am less of a writer for appearing on TV. The readers have the last word. That said, I personally am more excited when someone tells me “I read your book.” than when they recognize me for appearing on television.
How have you managed to combine two such demanding facets? Any special superpowers?
Well I do not know. Every time I finish a novel I tell myself that I won’t be able to do another one, but I lie to myself. I couldn’t stop doing it. It is something that stimulates me and makes me happy. I couldn’t live without writing.
She is also a mother of two children.
Yes, one in pre-adolescence and another at 11 years old who demand a lot and are in a moment where if they get out of line we have made a mess.
I have to say that I handle myself well in chaos.
And to make matters worse, with a separation to deal with.
Everything affects you. When you write, personal circumstances weigh a lot and you need a certain stability, but I have to say that I handle chaos well. I have written in the dressing rooms between two programs or in the congress booth, between plenary sessions or in the middle of tedious sessions. I’m not going to play the victim. Nobody has put a gun to my head to do this. I brought it on myself. But I have discovered that with almost Germanic time management it can be achieved.
Her novel, about a canning emporium run by a woman, connects with her Galician roots.
It’s been a way to get back there when in real life I haven’t been able to as much as I would like. I listened to the stories that my grandmother told in Galician in the magical village where my father was born. [el periodista Fernando Ónega]. That was true magical realism. I also wanted to talk about the profound injustice that the women of the sea have faced there.
What injustice was that?
Historically, there has not been a single patron saint in the world of canning, although unofficially they have ruled more than men. That’s why I thought it was nice to imagine one, my protagonist, who did have power with her face revealed.
My father has advised me not to let this award go to my head because next year they will give it to someone else.
At the gala, upon receiving the award, he honored his father. What does he think of her writing career?
My father has advised me not to let this award go to my head because next year they will give it to someone else. And everything my father says goes to mass. I think he didn’t take me very seriously as a novelist at first, but book after book, after having written seven, he has changed his mind.
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Do you only imagine yourself as a writer away from journalistic stress?
I will be where they want me. In my professional life I have never decided anything. They have all been opportunities that have come to me without looking for them and I have been surfing in the best way possible. At the moment I have the strength to be able to do both things.