María Estévez, who began her professional career at Tiempo magazine, is “a globetrotting journalist specializing in cinema.” She has lived in London and New York, although she currently resides in Los Angeles, a city where she collaborates on different fashion and travel magazines and where she works as a correspondent for the Colpisa Agency. She is a member of
Women Film Critics Circlethat is, the Women’s Circle of Film Critics of the United States, an organization made up of fifty-nine film critics and academics from the United States, belonging to some media.
With Roca Editorial he has published his novels
elf queen (2012), which narrates the life, loves and art of Pastora Imperio, a distant relative of the author herself;
Your damn voice in my memory (2019), which narrates the love between a young Catholic and a Jewish man, involved in an espionage plot between allies and Nazis, in Tangier, to get a route, through Africa, for diamond trafficking; and Desires are not just words (2022), a novel inspired by the life of Adriana Abascal: “internationally recognized as a fashion icon, model, television presenter and businesswoman”, born in Veracruz, and “Valentino’s ambassador for Spain and Latin America”, “a renowned collector of contemporary art and an entrepreneur in the fashion industry”.
the protagonist of
Wishes are not just wordsJulia Terán, is about to turn forty, coinciding with Halloween, as the festivity of
Halloween in Mexico, at a key moment in her life, because she must begin a new personal and professional stage, with the devil crouching to catch her: «First you, even if it scares you. You take the steps when you walk, whether they are short or long, fast or slow. The devil, do not mess with you. That one always wins, lurking in the sinister hunt for him. Do not give in to the satan of complacency.” Her marriages, first with Lucho and, later, with the one he nicknames the Metal Man, thus described because of the metallic taste that his disturbing presence and bad deeds leave in his mouth, make Julia have to deal with ghosts. around her and with her own fears, to deal with problems. In addition, influenced by her nanny Timotea, from whom she learned so much about witchcraft, the protagonist believes that “fearful men and women are created by the devil”, being well aware that “life is a journey with seasons in which we got off and stayed a while. Some seasons are more colorful than others, more noisy, they deceive our senses. Once you learn, she goes back to the path, because that path always waits. She enjoys the scenery, she remembers what you learned at the last stop and looks forward to the next one. She invites your ghosts to accompany you, but do not listen to them ».
The narration reaches, in certain passages, tints of magical realism, typical of the narrative of the
boom Latin American, from the mid-20th century, for his interest in showing the unreal or strange as something everyday and common: «Julia, I have brought you to my town because I have decided that it is the moment of your initiation. My girl, I know how the devil looks for you because I know your powers, and I need to protect you »− Timotea confesses to her the first time he takes her to her hometown, Catemaco.
Witchcraft, spells, the world of spirits are also very present in the life of her sister-in-law Mo, with whom she has an excellent relationship: «She said that she and I had grown up in a country at the height of social and intellectual misogyny. She knew that she did not freely say what she thought, that she kept feelings in her silence, questioning my dependency as if I were a hierodule. I know how to dress, move, speak, desire; the archetype of woman who castrates men. In my opinion, both sexually confident women and celibate women seek independence. She is not a woman, but the world, and so am I. It is precisely in what separates them where both have found the necessary union to build their solid friendship: «The two of us lived together in a spiritual setting in which we played the same character from completely opposite perspectives. That antagonism has been a triumph for our friendship. She controls my demons tilted in a tufted spirituality ».
In Mexico City, where Julia moves to become the most beautiful woman in the country, crowning herself as Miss Mexico, Julia intends to embody the mythological Lilith who “symbolizes the power of women”, the one who “was a wife, a pioneer feminist , queen of hell” and that “also represents independence and the freedom to exist”, although her emotional dependence is complicated in a country where patriarchy is still (being) so entrenched, where insecurity is inevitable and where a A good philosophy of life can be to accept that “fate is neither an enemy nor a friend, but rather a companion that must be accepted.”
Next to one of the men who marks her life, the protagonist of the work learns that she cannot live thinking about what she does not have, “yearning for success, opportunities, an exciting life”, because she must identify the object of desire, drawing a map of how to achieve it and filling life with beauty and knowledge. However, together with another life partner, she checks how fragile it can be when the person who accompanies you is not the right one: «What happens with couples? After the time of blindness, the mirage is broken, the illusion disappears and we remain attached to a falsehood due to the effect of fear». From both experiences he will need the necessary distance that time gives, to resume his desire to improve himself, to challenge himself, to work under pressure, regaining control over his life and his nature, because “when someone feels vulnerable and makes decisions, he does it because he has reached a point of no return.
The telluric trips that Julia makes to various locations in Mexico, such as Oaxaca, for professional reasons, and Cuernavaca, to visit a spiritual healer, and through large inhospitable cities, such as Mexico City or Los Angeles, fill her with questions that she must answer within himself: “How did I get here? Consequence of my own weaknesses, I suppose. I have been asking, searching, creating a fog around me to hide my reality. Betrayal is self defense. […] I think it’s impossible to find someone incapable of betraying […]. It is a dishonest act, sometimes premeditated, sometimes spontaneous, that tears humanity apart. Therefore, the vital, transcendental journey that she must face in her life, in the decade that is about to open, is complemented by the displacements that she is forced to make around her country of origin and across the European continent, which that makes him question his reality and his personality: «I think that surviving power requires betrayal. […] How to maintain ambition without betrayal? Conditioning success requires certain manipulations of reality, exercising that indignity from within. That trip to the world of inner fears will lead to not a few defeats, but also to deserved victories: «A resistant will and mind can create whatever you want, think about it. There is no need for magic, spells, chants; if you use those rituals, you must associate an intention with them. Plan every wish to gain an advantage.”
Travel to meet (oneself) and return to recover old affections, the roots from which we come, as beings of word: «Every step we take we have taken before and we will take it again, until we find the branch of the tree that will get us out of the way, a branch that we grab only when we know we need it.” In reinventing ourselves every day seems to be the key to continue with the journey of our lives, dear readers, and for this reason, we invite you to discover the novel
Wishes are not just wordsby María Estévez, on our blog latintaentretusdedos.com, and to follow us on social networks @tintaentusdedos.
– Wishes are not just words. Maria Estevez. Publishing Rock of Books. Barcelona. 2022. 224 pages.