What is happening to Julieta that seems to be neither here nor now? What is behind his silence and her attitude? Maybe it’s just that she’s 11 and growing up. Or is she hiding something? To try to find a solution to these unknowns, her mother has decided to take her to an old village in Valencia, with barely a dozen inhabitants and where an old house still exists, upstairs, very close to the forest, where the trees seem to move like animals. at will.
This is the approach of the novel En la boca del lobo (Seix Barral, 2023), by the Spanish writer Elvira Lindo.
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“Julieta is a helpless girl, so this novel turns her into a search to find the words to express what is happening to her and who to say them to. The novel suggests that it is a story of growth, where she goes to the village and then returns happily to the city; but as the pages turn, one realizes that there are secrets. It is a novel in which, apart from the mystery, other issues intervene, such as child neglect, mistreatment and abuse,” explains Elvira Lindo in an interview with El Sol de México.
RESPONSIBILITIES AND STIGMA
Told from “the soul of Juliet”, the novel reveals the complex relationship of three generations of women who have seen their lives cut short, with the responsibility of being mothers. The bitterness of these relationships in the play can be perceived through actions and comments that may be annoying and even hurtful to Julieta, who is only 11 years old.
In this sense, Elvira points out that there are at least three types of responsibilities of adult society that must be considered and constantly reviewed: the social and political, related to children’s rights; the cultural one, which although it is in the process of change, continues to be deeply patriarchal; and the family, which is of primary importance, since neglect, abandonment and abuse is “devastating” for those who suffer from it.
“It is very difficult for a child to express what is happening, because they do not really understand what is happening to them. He knows that there is something that bothers him, but if it is something that happens systematically, he will seek to normalize it, because he cannot live with it or, as happens in this novel, he dissociates, it makes the mind go one way and reality the other, as a defense mechanism.
“I believe that, if society did not place stigma on the victim, overcoming traumas such as abuse would probably be much easier. This is because human beings are very resilient and we overcome things. There are facts that are very ominous and that are understandable to others, but when it comes to abuse when one is little, no one is trained to console or listen,” adds Elvira.
WITHOUT TAKING ADVANTAGE
Author of books with different approaches and literary resources, Elvira Lindo explains that the reason for approaching this novel from the format of suspense and mystery, responds in part to the nature of the phenomenon that she seeks to narrate, as a literary resource, but also due to a decision moral.
“If you talk about how a child is mistreated, that can be told in two pages. You can do it explicitly and luridly. I did not want to take advantage of other people’s misfortune, but rather seek a respectful approach for those who have suffered this type of damage. That is why I chose this way of writing, between fable, fantasy and mystery.
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“I find that we live in a very exhibitionist world, in which it seems that things to be credible have to be told with great crudeness, but literature allows the opportunity to tell things in other ways. “I have preferred to tell it in a subtle way, so that the reader completes what I do not say in it,” concludes the writer, who last year was present at the Guadalajara International Book Fair, where she presented this novel.
2024-01-09 11:39:51
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