Albert Espinosa: "My doctor told me that I would die at 50 and I have turned 51"

The writer and screenwriter has released 'Life is life', a film set in the 80s. Next weekend he signs his copy 'I was prepared for everything except for you' at the Madrid Book Fair.

You said you were retiring from doing interviews and here we are. My doctor told me that at 50 I would die from the type of cancer I had.

I have turned 51 and I am alive.

I took some time from 47 to 50 years old to be able to rest and prepare to die, but I have not died. I think there was even a date for your death: April 23, 2023. He told me that he would feel that my liver and my only lung would begin to fail.

I have done the tests and nothing has failed.

I think I have rope for a while.

This weekend your new movie 'Life is life' was released.

What's it about?It's an adventure story of some kids from the 80's who go on a day trip and each one of them recounts his emotional backpack.

He talks about how people lived in the 80s when there were no social networks,

but there was something more interesting, which was total freedom of movement. Next Friday and Saturday you sign books at the Madrid Book Fair and it's like you're a rock star. It's crazy.

In Sant Jordi there were five hours followed by signatures with 800 people.

And here in Madrid more public will come.

People have read me a lot in the pandemic and don't know me.

I notice that there is a great desire to touch me and kiss me.

I am very excited.

My books have been translated into 51 languages.

I never would have imagined it.

Don't you like literary parties? I am an industrial engineer who dedicated myself to writing.

So, the engineers consider me a writer and these, an engineer.

But I've also gotten into film and theater.

Those of the cinema consider me a writer and those of the theater, of the cinema. Let's say that they do not accept you in any circle. No,

I am an outcast.

I have the feeling of not being part of any group and I don't feel part of anything in particular either.

What I like is being able to do everything, which is part of my engineering brain.

To tell you the truth, I've never been anywhere where there were writers at close range. Do reputable writers look down on you? They look down on me because of their queues.

If you have more tail than them, they look at you very badly. Do you notice it? Yes.

I have sat next to well-known authors who don't understand how I can have these queues.

Many people ask not to be in the same booth as me because of the comparison issue.

This year they have offered me some new booths where you are alone and I don't like them.

I've told them no.

I like to sign in the normal booths, which is when you live from day to day.

So nobody wants to match you?

I have the feeling of not being part of any group and I don't feel part of anything in particular either.

What I like is being able to do everything, which is part of my engineering brain.

To tell you the truth, I've never been anywhere where there were writers at close range. Do reputable writers look down on you? They look down on me because of their queues.

If you have more tail than them, they look at you very badly. Do you notice it? Yes.

I have sat next to well-known authors who don't understand how I can have these queues.

Many people ask not to be in the same booth as me because of the comparison issue.

This year they have offered me some new booths where you are alone and I don't like them.

I've told them no.

I like to sign in the normal booths, which is when you live from day to day.

So nobody wants to match you?

I have the feeling of not being part of any group and I don't feel part of anything in particular either.

What I like is being able to do everything, which is part of my engineering brain.

To tell you the truth, I've never been anywhere where there were writers at close range. Do reputable writers look down on you? They look down on me because of their queues.

If you have more tail than them, they look at you very badly. Do you notice it? Yes.

I have sat next to well-known authors who don't understand how I can have these queues.

Many people ask not to be in the same booth as me because of the comparison issue.

This year they have offered me some new booths where you are alone and I don't like them.

I've told them no.

I like to sign in the normal booths, which is when you live from day to day.

So nobody wants to match you?

No, many writers have told me.

But when I started I didn't sign anything either.

I liked to enjoy other people's queuesWhat is the most shocking thing a reader has said to you? Before the pandemic, a 16-year-old girl came to me with the book of her father who had just died and had half a chapter left .

She asked me to read it together and it was one of the most exciting moments of my life.

She hadn't finished the book for six months and it was very nice to read it with her.

I also have 600 tattoos.

I take a picture of them and collect them. Tattoos of your phrases? Yes, of "love your chaos", "to believe is to create"... They overwhelm me when they show it to me and it moves me a lot because it continues to be ink written on the body of the reader. The most important thing in this life is not taught.

What is it? It has to do with pain.

Have you become the psychologist of your readers? Yes, it is true.

I receive 2,000 or 3,000 emails a day from people in many countries who tell me how my books have helped them.

I don't know why they connect with me so much, but I don't wonder either.

I enjoy doing my stories and I also enjoy saying no.

They offer me many series and movies, but if they don't contribute anything, I prefer not to do them. Is the worst of the disease the pain? No, the worst is loneliness.

In the end, the pain is almost non-existent.

In cancer it exists in 3% of cases, but there is a lot of loneliness.

If you have a friend with cancer, call them once a week on the same day at the same time for three years.

Cancer is very long.

This way you will help him by maintaining a bond. Throughout the illness you would also have your moments of rage and anger. Yes, of course.

They taught us to mourn the loss of the leg, a friend, when the cancer returned... It helped me.

Stopping doing interviews for three years was a way of grieving because if I really died I wanted to spend those years enjoying my family and friends.

But I'm a lucky boy and I don't die. When you were young you were also in a palliative hospital. At 15 they gave me the option of 0.0007 chances of living and they told me to go to Menorca.

The average was 23 days there and, when I had been 45, I thought they would kick me out of that hospital because I didn't die.

I have always had the feeling of making the most of time because it is so short. You will be one of the few people who is prepared for the moment of death. We must not forget it.

People now tell me that my movies and books are successful,

but there was a time when nothing worked.

It was very difficult to like my world.

From 18 to 22 years old, I have 32 letters from publishers rejecting everything.

But I have a feeling that if you believe in dreams, they will be created. When the time comes, if necessary, would you ask to be euthanized? Yes, without a doubt.

I believe a lot in being able to decide in life and in death and when pain stalks you and you feel that you are not a person.

A disease like Alzheimer's can take away who you are.

These patients need to be able to choose.

In the same way as to eradicate the

Would you ask to be euthanized? Yes, without a doubt.

I believe a lot in being able to decide in life and in death and when pain stalks you and you feel that you are not a person.

A disease like Alzheimer's can take away who you are.

These patients need to be able to choose.

In the same way as to eradicate the

Would you ask to be euthanized? Yes, without a doubt.

I believe a lot in being able to decide in life and in death and when pain stalks you and you feel that you are not a person.

A disease like Alzheimer's can take away who you are.

These patients need to be able to choose.

In the same way as to eradicate the

should be able to punish the parents of the bullies. Yes? The parents of these minors should have criminal responsibilities.

Many times I go to schools to talk to kids who have been

, the big problem is when you talk to the parents of the bullies.

They treat you like: "Why are you messing with my son?"

When you explain the problem to them, you think they have a responsibility.

The only way to solve it is that they have an economic punishment or prison.

do not always have to commit suicide

.

It seems very terrible to me. In the end, in most cases of 'bullying', no action is taken against the harasser and the only option left for the victim is to leave school. kids".

I am lucky that many boys read my books and find strength and energy.

What is needed is for politicians and footballers to show that it is no use

another person and that everything remains the same.

I sometimes watch TV shows and I get overwhelmed by the

that make anyone, famous or not.

People see it and think it's okay.

It seems that in this time of optimism we also demand that patients be happy and smile. It is wrong.

In the hospital I had my moments of sadness and mourning.

What is important is to understand that the survivors are also the ones who died.

I have friends who lost the battle and are still just as survivors.

When I go to see the kids, I tell them that so they don't throw in the towel, you don't have to have a towel.

You shouldn't have an expectation of how far you can fight. Isn't the false belief spreading that optimism influences healing too much? I don't think being optimistic has anything to do with healing.

People think I'm very optimistic.

I am very realistic and see things as they are.

In the end,

dying doesn't seem excessively sad to me either, but rather not living intensely.

I also tell kids that cancer is a detector of passions: if you like soccer like me, you will lose your leg;

if you like to paint, you will lose your arm... But, in the end, it is also a detector to find a second vocation in what you are good at.

It is looking at life differently.

Accept what happens to you and learn to die in order to learn to live. The journalist Sergio del Molino also complained another day about the idea that those who have suffered a lot in life reach a kind of sanctity that consoles everyone.

in the end, it is also a detector to find yourself a second vocation in what you are good at.

It is looking at life differently.

Accept what happens to you and learn to die in order to learn to live. The journalist Sergio del Molino also complained another day about the idea that those who have suffered a lot in life reach a kind of sanctity that consoles everyone.

in the end, it is also a detector to find yourself a second vocation in what you are good at.

It is looking at life differently.

Accept what happens to you and learn to die in order to learn to live. The journalist Sergio del Molino also complained another day about the idea that those who have suffered a lot in life reach a kind of sanctity that consoles everyone.

and the one who doesn't like me always thinks that when I talk about my illness I place myself in a superior world.

Actually, I am explaining the loss and death of what I have learned to see if it helps someone.

Destroying takes a second or two and building takes a lifetime.

In a movie if you kill and murder, they applaud you.

But if you show a friendship or an emotion, they hate you.

It's the world upside down.

When they write hateful messages to me on social networks, I like them because I know that it drives them crazy. Jodorosky affirms that hate is the best of teachers. handle.

They hate me on networks and they write me wonderful niceties and it has to do with the fact that they cannot change you. You believe little in friendship because you affirm that it is limited to a context of a time. Yes.

I think people don't change, but the six people closest to you do.

Every six years I try to change one of those people because that forces you to change.

Friendship is an evolution.

I have never had the feeling of losing a friend, but rather that we have both evolved and we are not the same. There are many people who have lifelong friends and keep them. I consider that there is a hard core of friends and other people who They are still in your life, but they no longer contribute to you.

In the end, telling someone that they are no longer part of your core is not about losing a friendship, but about the fact that you have evolved.

I believe much more in the yellow ones, which are specific people that you meet on any given day in a place and you notice a connection.

I believe a lot in those sporadic connections that force you to discover the other person.

So little is so easy to find those yellow.

In everyday life, I also don't suddenly meet people who seem wonderful to me.

What I do is ask.

When I came on the AVE I talked to three people I didn't know at all.

People at first are very surprised that you talk to them and they think about what they want or what they are looking for, but, in the end, we need to establish those relationships.

For me it is the most interesting thing that has been lost with the networks. You think that it is useless to fight against noise people who feed on obscuring you and that it is better to get away from them.

Isn't that cowardly? These are people the only way to beat them is to yell at them and make noise.

They are very empty inside.

In the end, it's better to kick them out of your life and tell everyone so they don't interfere.

Giving them a voice and arguing with them ends up turning you into noise.

Currently, we should be around 40% of noise people. Books have cured you.

Which one has impacted you the most?

by Mitch Albom.

It is the book that I have given the most times.

I read it when I was 25 years old and it made my heart turn.

I read it again recently thinking that I was not going to like it and I liked it even more. Is there little authenticity and a lot of posturing in these times? Social networks can only evolve to pure nudity or maximum madness.

There's no more.

I think there is a trivialization of emotion.

We are killing the idea of ​​being able to find your place in the world.

There are 19-year-olds who tell me they've done it all, but on the Internet, not in real life. Do we live in a throwaway world? People want new shining stars and then they're broken toys.

Before, a film could be on the bill for two years and now after 12 days, it is withdrawn and at 40, it is on a platform.

It doesn't give time for word of mouth, which was precious.

It has to do with something as simple as enjoying.

The other day I was on the AVE and I asked the stewardess when the newspapers were going to come back.

Reading a newspaper on a trip excited me.

And she told me that they were not going to come back anymore.

And I don't understand it because the virus is already ending.

If we lose the enjoyment of reading a newspaper on a train trip, it's terrible. Are you a believer? My religion is good people.

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