Snippets of: An Interview with Carmen Laforet

"You are sweetness and light, I can see myself in your eyes."
(a Mother's Day poem from Agustin to his mother, Carmen)

Interviewer: If you could speak with a writer from the past, whom would you pick?
Laforet: No one, because I have their works. I believe that writers are their books, although once in a while you may meet someone wonderful who is both a writer and your friend.
(My true feelings about Aro...*sigh*)

CL: ...I also won a prize for La mujer nueva, but I forget what it was called.
Interviewer: Not only one, but two of the most prestigious ones: the Menorca Prize and the National Prize for Literature. So I know more about your work than you do, and I am going to become your biographer along with your son!
CL:Yes, you know a lot more, because I forget about things like this.
(yeah!)

CL:...My father remarried, which was a very trying thing for me because my stepmother was very nasty.
Interviewer: You were determined to leave home and study in Barcelona?
CL: My father and stepmother didn't want me to take the trip. So I had to blackmail my father with something I don't want to talk about. I actually turned eighteen on the boat on my way over to the mainland.
(crazy! i laughed a lot when i read this.)

"Carmencita, tell us a story, tell us a story." My brothers still remember the stories I made up about captains who had to be three years old because if they were older they were not worth mentioning.

Interviewer: Do you still play with reality and fantasy? Can you keep them apart?
CL: It is one and the same thing. Reality is made up of dreams, impulses, friendships. Sometimes I think there is no reality at all. But I don't like to philosophize, you know...
(sorry Grant!)

CL: I lead a very quiet and peaceful life, I am always available to help out someone in need, and I value my freedom, so I don't like to be surrounded by many things. In fact, I throw many things way. The other day, I came across a blouse a friend of mine gave me when I lost my suitcase during one of my trips. She thought it was a tragedy, but I didn't see it that way. I didn't mind going to the lecture not wearing a pretty dress and nice shoes. I like to think that I own very little, and that it can all fit in those two suitcases I never open. The next time I go on a trip I will take only hand baggage.
Interviewer: Who is Carmen Laforet?
CL: Who is she? I don't know.
Interviewer: But you have known her all your life! Who is she?
CL: Nobody, nobody.
Interviewer: What do you mean by nobody?
CL: An average person, for whom at any given moment friendship is what matters most. What I cannot bear is that false publicity given about me.