Fernanda Tres: “We are living in a moment of great female writers’ emergence”

Jorge Gil Angel

Bogotá, November 3 (EFE). Fernanda Trias is proud to have won the Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz Prize for Literature at the Guadalajara International Book Fair (FIL) not only because of its recognition but because it puts her on the side of women. She admires her “big female writers moment”.

This was stated by the Uruguayan writer and translator in an interview with Effie in Bogotá, where she has lived for more than six years, and she appreciates with great joy the “award of high legitimacy”.

“We are living, on the one hand, a moment of reparations for the writers of previous generations (who were not recognized), and on the other hand, a more conspicuous moment for the writers of my generation and youth,” Trias (Montevideo, 1976), who took home the prize with the film “Pink Filth” (Penguin) Random House).

For the Uruguayan, professor at the University of Los Andes in Bogota, the Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Prize was created precisely in 1993 “to combat the disappearance of women writers” in a context completely different from the current one.

“Of course it is an award that today generates an extra joy for me to win at a time when there were a lot of writers doing publication and the standard was very high (…) but the awarding of the award began in 1993 when the situation was completely different and I know that because I published in 2001 And I can attest that it was another world to us,” she says.

literary research

Jury transcripts note that the Pink Muggre writer “is able to look bravely into the void, but also tenderly addresses themes central to defining the human being, such as disease, uncertainty, empathy, and pain.”

This, she says, “summarizes the literary research” of her career as a writer: “The thing that stands out in these very subtle, very beautiful words is my subject, and it’s the subject I’ve been writing about ever since I published La Azotea.”

“It’s a human paradox, and I’m glad the jury shed light on that, because I feel like it read very sharply what I tried to do in Pink Filth,” he says.

He further explains that although the novel is “a dystopia in which a lot of importance has been given to the background of history, which is the environmental catastrophe” and even to parallels with what happened during the COVID-19 pandemic, he feels that he “has lost focus on that other, which I worked on.” always, which is the complexity of romantic relationships.”

Install margins

Tris, who holds a master’s degree in creative writing from New York University (NYU) and author of other works such as “Cuaderno para una solo ojos” and “La Azotea”, highlights that in her country she was awarded the direct 2021 Bartolome Hidalgo Prize in the Narrative category. .

“It is always a pleasure to be recognized in your land and now this one that already has an international scope has been added,” she explains, adding that she hopes the award obtained in Guadalajara will give “greater insight into what writers are writing in Uruguay.”

For the writer, the fact that her country is so small means she has a “smaller focus” and gets less international attention than others, which is why she welcomes the impact of her award on literature in Uruguay.

“I’ve always talked about this, for me, living in literary margins is ultimately a positive thing for literature,” he says.

To explain his position, he notes that “it doesn’t feel good when you try to write, make it read to you, post it to you and you will feel that if you were born on the other side of the Río de la Plata, you would have another vision, just because you were born on this side of the Río de la Plata.” “.

“But then, on a literary level, I think it’s very good to be on the sidelines, which always results in rare, interesting and very personal literature,” he adds.

international scope

Trías’ books have been published in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Spain, France, Mexico, Peru, and Uruguay, and will soon be translated into English, Danish, Italian, Greek, Turkish and Portuguese.

In addition, he was awarded a UNESCO-Achberg Scholarship in 2004, and the Uruguayan National Culture Prize in 2006, among other awards.

“Mogri Rosa”, highlighted by the New York Times in Spanish as one of the ten books of 2020, has also made a huge impact thanks to “word of mouth, which gives recognition to the book.”

“You begin to realize that everyone recommends it, mentions it, and eventually I like it because (…) special readers have a much more important role than we can imagine, because in that word of mouth it is fixed in books to live several lives.” EFE

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