TALKS WITH MARTA J. SERRANO - WRITER & POET

It’s not unusual to spot Marta Jiménez Serrano wearing a pair of Naguisa shoes. And we won’t deny it: every time it happens, it makes us especially happy. We’re great admirers of her books.

A writer and poet, Marta has spent years putting words to what we feel and think but don’t always know how to explain. As our paths cross once again, this time around GLORIA, we wanted to ask her a few questions.

We talked about the women writers she returns to again and again, the small rituals that accompany her writing, Oxígeno, her latest book, and what happens when a question becomes literature.

Maybe you’ve already read one of her books. Maybe this is your first encounter with Marta. Either way, we recommend staying awhile.

Do you remember the first time you thought, “I want to write”? Do you still have any of those early texts?

I never thought it, I’ve always done it! Writing was how I played. I made up stories, wrote them down, illustrated them, even gave them little cardstock covers... I still have some of those early texts, yes. I wish I had kept them all...

You’ve written poetry, novels, and short stories. Is there a different Marta behind each form of writing?

I suppose there’s a different Marta behind each way of writing, just as there’s a different story behind each genre. Not everything can be told in the same way, with the same tools, the same narrators, or the same genres. I think part of a writer’s job is figuring that out understanding what form the story you’re working with needs to take.

In Los nombres propios, you write about growing up, and in No todo el mundo, about the way we relate to others. Do you write to understand things better, or to ask yourself even more questions?

I write about things that fascinate me but that I don’t understand, either to understand them better or to continue not understanding them—but in any case, to unfold the question and see what’s inside it. It’s not about finding answers, but about navigating the question.

You’ve said that Oxígeno is the book you never would have wanted to write. At what point does such an intimate experience stop belonging only to you, and you feel able to turn it into literature?

Sublimating pain through art is the way I relate to pain, or at least one of the main ways. There isn’t a separation between something belonging to me and it becoming literature. What does happen is that, once something is published, I somehow let go of it and it begins to belong to the readers. From that point on, everyone takes the text wherever they want to take it.

It happens gradually: first I write alone, then I show it to a friend, to my editor, to several friends; then people read about it in the press, and eventually it reaches the public...

Is there a woman writer you return to again and again, the way you might return to
a familiar place?

Virginia Woolf, Mary Oliver, Joan Didion, Carmen Martín Gaite, Emily Dickinson... They’re old friends by now.

Where do you write best? Do you have any small rituals, habits, or objects that are always with you?

I love writing in my office with a coffee, but sometimes that happens and sometimes it doesn’t. You’ve caught me answering these questions from Querétaro, sitting on the bed with my legs stretched out, my laptop resting on them, my back propped up against two pillows by the headboard, and a bottle of mineral water on the nightstand. That’s how I’ve written many pages during this trip to Mexico. I’ve also written on the plane, at the airport over a pretty mediocre coffee, and in a few cafés in Mexico City...

If you could recommend just one book to (our) Gloria, which one would you leave on her nightstand?

A Room of One’s Own, by Virginia Woolf.