Informed Sources interview with Alba Oliva, an author from Córdoba: «When I write it is because I previously have something to say, I never face a blank page and a novel is a good tool to express oneself»
Alba Olive (1980) is a writer born in Córdoba. Her academic training includes studies in Fine Arts at the Mateo Inurria School of Applied Arts and Artistic Crafts, followed by a Diploma in Teaching from the University of Córdoba in the specialties of Primary Education and Music Education. Moved by a strong vocation for service, she joined the National Police Force in 2005, which gives some of her texts a relevant accent of thriller police. His literary production begins with novels the color of rhythm Y Those who look at the stars, both published by the editorial Amarante. She collaborates with approximately thirty stories in the New York cultural magazine Visit me Magazine, with diffusion in the United States, a good part of Latin America and Europe. Likewise, she collaborates in the Madrid cultural magazine Acalanda Magazine through visual narrative. At Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing she publishes her novels quantum nexus Y Relatives: story of a reincarnation.
INFORMED SOURCES He has met Alba Oliva at the República de las Letras, a cozy Cordoba bookstore, the focus of the lively culture of this city, and where, in addition to buying a book, you can read, chat and have a few glasses of Montilla. A place where literature and life seem to blend into the natural rhythm of words.
Question (Q): What is the first thing you remember writing?
Answer (R): At the age of eleven I wrote the second parts of the films that I particularly liked. I remember how I was left wanting more after seeing Dancing with Wolves either Thelma and Louise; so he would wildly write chapters to lengthen those stories after doing his homework.
Q: When did you start to conceive your first novel?
A: At the age of fifteen I began to write what would be my first novel pouring into my writings the artistic concerns I had, without knowing where to take the plot, until a documentary in Discovery Channel it got my full attention, I started to do research and I knew I was going to write a novel.
Q: Why, what and for whom do you write?
A: I write because I try to condense what I learn giving free rein to creativityIt’s like a toroid effect: I absorb knowledge and then I give it back to the world in the form of stories where I install what I’ve learned, it’s my way of contributing my humble grain of sand for a better world. And I do it for myself because I enjoy the creative process, it’s exciting to bring characters to life and direct them towards destinations that I feel like inventing. At the same time I do it for others, it is a form of generosity and helping.
“INSPIRATION COMES TO ME from the impact of nature on my senses”
Q: What authors did you read before writing your first novel?
A: I would highlight Michael Ende, Charlotte, Annie and Emily Brönte or Stephen King. Also to Benito Pérez Galdós, Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, among other Spanish authors from the 19th century, my favorite period in terms of literature and art.
Q: Do you have any idol or any special inspiration in literature?
A: I have no idols in literature; I don’t know any author so much as to have it in such a high visual. To do this, you would have to know absolutely all of his work and personal life and it is not viable. As for inspiration, it almost always comes from the impact of nature on my senses. And I like that it is like that, that it is not impregnated with anything or anyone, inspiration must be pure and for this it must arise from the most intimate.
Q: What is a novel for you: a path to knowledge or a tool to transform the world?
A: A way to order my knowledge and ideas and thus transmit them in an exciting and entertaining way. The world transforms by itself at its own pace, I only propose content for you to do so from what I consider to be good. When I write it is because previously I have something to say, I never face a blank sheet and a novel is a good tool to express yourself; you can extend as much as you consider, accentuate what you want and present it with the clothing you want.
«MY PREVIOUS novels have suddenly emerged, from one second to the next the plot and the characters burst into me»
Q: Is there a clear creative process behind your novels, or is it something spontaneous or even chaotic?
A: The four published novels have suddenly emerged, from one second to the next the plot and the characters burst into me -then comes a documentation and argument work to create plot twists and try to be as original as possible. The novel that I am currently writing is being different, what I have just commented has not happened to me, which is leading me to be more reflective from the beginning. The content is clear to me, as I answered in the previous question: I am not facing a blank sheet, although the magic of receiving in a single gush the approach, middle and end has not happened, something that I accept gracefully because It is a new challenge that perhaps marks a new creative stage.
Q: Do you read yourself or do you prefer to turn the page?
A: I prefer to turn the page, but I must correct my works and I feel the responsibility of reviewing them. It’s tedious work and I don’t like it, because as much as I try to correct the orthotypography, it’s hard to get off the creative side and focus on revising the form. I would love to be able to allow myself in the future to have someone else do that job and turn the page directly, I don’t like to stop or look back.
Q: You like music and you practice the piano. Is there for you any connection between music and literature?
A: Definitely. The sense of rhythm helps me shape the stories and the musical language offers me formulas to introduce stylistic resources that make my works more colorful. It is always appreciated to have all kinds of knowledge -artistic or whatever the field- to make them allies of your projects. Music is delightfully abstract and can be introduced into literature from infinite perspectives: from long allegories to subtle nuances.
“Literature is part of my real world”
Q: Are you interested in the real world or do you prefer literature?
Response: Literature is part of my real world. I couldn’t separate reality from literature; the novels drink directly from the mundane, from the crudely earthly and costumbrista –regardless of the literary genre they are-. If you detach a book that tells a story from the reality from which it was created, what do you have left? How do you affect the reader? Even the most innocent stories have a reality check.
Q: In your works, some characters show a scientific perspective of reality. What is science for you?
Reply: One of the two factions that shape the universe, the other: the spirituality. We live in a dual cosmos, of light and shadow. Science supports half of us by offering us understanding, opportunities for growth and evolution, just as spirituality does from another point of support, completing our other half. Thus, science is half of the essence that makes us up and that surrounds us at every moment and in everything.
P: Are you attracted to other visions of reality that are not strictly scientific? Do you think that these multiple visions are compatible?
A: Yes, I am attracted to the theories about parallel realities proposed by some quantum mechanical theorists: if a particle can be in several places at the same time, as the double-slit experiment shows, and we are made up of particles… why? not? Yes, I think it is compatible, taking into account that the cosmos is an infinity of possibilities. Besides, I think that reality should not be strictly what people understand as such, since we are limited by biology. For example, there are more than seven colors and their mixtures: infrared and ultraviolet, we are not able to perceive them, but they exist. There must be innumerable aspects of reality that escape us, so reality could be very different from a non-human perspective.
Q: What is reality for you?
A: The greatest mystery that humanity has access to every day