Eva García Sáenz de Urturi: "The best-selling writers are women and that has to be reflected in the awards"

• A female Planet Award and best seller Eva García Sáenz de Urturi, winner, and Sandra Barneda, finalist

• Sandra Barneda. The surprising finalist for the Planeta Prize: "I've been writing for a long time"

In less than 10 years she has gone from self-publishing her first novel on Amazon to being the best-selling writer in Spain: she has written seven novels, has triumphed around the world with The White City Trilogy and last night she won the Planeta Award for '

', a

medieval

of revenge, incest, murder and political intrigue. Although she studied Optometry, García Sáenz de Urturi speaks with the passion of a historian: she draws the colors and smells of the 12th century.

This year's Planet stands out for the women's double, with Sandra Barneda as a finalist.

Is it the year of women, both writers and protagonists?

Last year two men [Javier Cercas and Manuel Vilas] won with novels with male protagonists and there was not a headline about that.

It was not news, it was not an exception.

There was talk of the quality of his works.

The good news will be when in a few years there will be more female writers and it is not pointed out that they are women and literature is discussed without taking into account the gender of the writer or the characters.

When that is a normality we will have reached real equality.

In addition, the literary world is very feminine: there is a majority of readers and editors.

The best-selling writers are mostly women: María Dueñas, Dolores Redondo ... and that has to be reflected in the awards. In 'Los Señor del tiempo' she has already traveled to the 11th century and established mirrors with the contemporary.

Now he talks about the twelfth century.

Can you also find parallels with our time?

Leonor has had very good cards in life but with the handicap of being a woman and being an orphan at the age of 13 while at the helm of Aquitaine, a vast domain with the challenge of remaining rich.

Furthermore, the Aquitanian barons were very unruly, especially the southern Aquitanians, the Gascons, who were always revolutionizing and becoming independent, 1,000 years ago ... At the age of 13, Leonor had to impose her respect on a patriarchy. a feminist avant la lettre? She was responsible and promoter of the first feminist movement.

Within the Middle Ages, the 12th century was a feminist century, with the organization of the Beguines.

It is not that they were especially religious but that they did not want to live with men and were dedicated to helping people, a kind of NGO.

They only accepted women and, moreover, very cultured.

It was a very empowering movement.

And one of its founders, Hildegarda de Bingen, a very cultured woman and advisor and mentor to popes, who was listened to by everyone, had a personal friendship with Eleanor.

In addition, she separated from her first husband, the King of France, two months later to marry the King of England. Even today that would be very modern within a monarchy.

Leonor was the first influencer in history, but not only at the fashion level.

Culturally, Aquitaine was the most advanced region, with the troubadours, the silks they brought from Damascus ... The French court was sober and Christian, all in black and gray;

and Leonor arrived with her colors and braids that reached to the ground.

French women began to imitate her.

The French refinement of the Renaissance is due to Aquitaine.

When he arrived at the court of England the same and imposed that instead of beer, which by the way was the worst in Europe, wine should be drunk.

He refined Europe and the West; for one of his novels he went to a police academy.

How did you document yourself for this one? Reading 150 books and documenting myself to exhaustion for two years ... If I saw contradictory primary data, I would not enter them.

I also took a trip to Aquitaine to investigate.

Poitiers, Bordeaux, the Abbey of Fontevrault ... Eleanor is very present there.

I slept where she died and is buried, in Fontevrault, in what is now a luxury hotel where the rooms were the cells of the nuns.

The feeling of waking up, that medieval peace, the swallows, the forests around ... you are in the middle of the Middle Ages!

I brought sacred music, herbs and Aquitanian infusions with plants of the time, soaps ... I brought everything I could, all the senses. And do you capture those senses in the novel? I wanted to put the five senses, the smells, the flavors ... I learned a lot about medieval gastronomy, I wanted to rescue what they ate at the time, like the nettle soup that was served at their wedding and which was then a delight.

Oysters, for example, were not eaten because they were for the poor.

The book is very alive, it is very full of those details ... It is also a book full of poisons, starting with the death of Eleanor's father, the Duke of Aquitaine, who was poisoned ... Eleanor knew a lot about poisons because her Spies, the Aquitanian Cats, worked in the shadows and were experts in poisons and antivenoms.

In that sense, the novel has a lot of The Name of the Rose.

But there are also poisons in the sense of poisonous people: Eleanor finds a completely hostile court to a southern one, who despised the southerners.

They are authentic Machiavellians, with allies who will later be enemies and vice versa.

He had to learn from many political mistakes that cost many lives.

Does all this political intrigue refer to Game of Thrones? Yes, but to the George RR Martin saga, which is practically The Prince of Machiavelli: political strategy books, darker and more brutal than the series.

It gets you into the head of 17 characters in each novel.

And those people are not judged at all, no one has ethics.

In Game of Thrones it is not that there are good and bad, it is that there are no good.

The novel has many layers and levels of reading.

In addition to the plot to the Game of Thrones, which is the one that ends up building Europe, there is the thriller to discover the murderer.

And the emotional story of a love triangle: Eleanor and the King of France have a beautiful story, but there is also her first love, her uncle Raymond de Poitiers ...

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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