Login
Account
Basket
Recently we caught up with Spanish crime writer Antonio Hill to find out what it is like working with a translator, why he decided to write about Voodoo in Barcelona and creating his detective Hector Salgado.
Hi Antonio,
Thank you for taking the time to answer some questions for You’re Booked.
Firstly, this year was your first visit to the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, what were your top festival moments?
Well, the whole festival was a very good experience. The possibility of meeting or even talking to authors whose novels I’ve read all my life, like John Connolly or Val McDermid, made me feel as a sort of fan looking for signatures… I attended several panels too and (must admit that) spent some time at the bar, chatting with authors and readers. Of course, I must say that my top moment was the day of my panel -Sunday morning, 10 am, 50 words for murder-, because I was more terrified than it seemed until I sat on the stage… Then terror passed and I really enjoyed the chat.
Antonio and Barry Forshaw during the 50 Words for Murder Panel at the 2012 festival
As someone who writes in Spanish and who has had their work translated in to English (and other languages) you took part in the 50 Different Words for Murder Panel about translation and crime fiction. How do you work with a translator on your novels?
It depends on the translator needs. Some of them email you with questions that I try to answer as well as possible (mostly asking for the exact meaning of expressions or jokes that appear in the text). I even met my Danish translator, a very interesting lady who likes interviewing the authors of the novels she translates. But with most of them, sadly, there is no exchange of information.
Does being translated into another language change the nature of your work at all?
It shouldn’t, don’t you think? There’s a saying in Spanish: “Traductor, traidor” (something like “translator, betrayer”). But I have not felt that way at all. Obviously I can only give an opinion on the languages I understand (English, French, Italian…), but I trust the publishers who supervise the translations. In fact, I am sure they all want to have the best translation possible…
You have previously worked as a translator yourself, how was it to be on the other side of it?
Translation is a very hard work, and although I enjoyed it, I must say it’s much more pleasant to be on the other side.
Your first book, The Summer of Dead Toys introduces Inspector Hector Salgado, a Barcelona police officer struggling with an emotionally involving case and a messy home life. How did Hector come into being?
He did not appear suddenly. It was a long thinking process (not only for him, but for all major characters). I decided I wanted to have a foreign inspector, someone who had not been born in Barcelona or Spain, so Argentina (a country I know well) was a perfect birth place for him. Then I thought about his life (his childhood, his marriage and divorce, his role as a husband and father, his hobbies…) Anyway, and though I had invested much time thinking about him, he came to life when I started writing, and his personality developed through small comments, reactions that I could not have planned beforehand.
What inspired you to write about Voodoo worshipers as part of The Summer of Dead Toys?
I read about the techniques of the African guys who deal with women (very young African women usually forced to prostitution in Spain) and how they used voodoo to terrify them (instead of physical violence) and the idea made a very strong impression on me. Then, when I thought of writing about it, I felt that the contrast between a cosmopolitan and modern city as Barcelona, described as “beautiful” by most of people, and some very ugly things that happen in the corners of the streets could work well in fiction. At the same time, the contrast between Hector (non religious, logical man of the XXI century) opposed to something as primitive as voodoo could also be a very interesting theme to explore.
What can you tell us about the Spanish crime writing scene? Who are the authors we should be looking out for?
There has been a new wave of crime writers in Spain and they are quite interesting. I hate giving names, because I always forget someone, but people like Willy Uribe, Domingo Villar or Marta Sanz have written very interesting crime novels in the last years.
What can we in the UK expect next from you?
I hope that my new novel, The Good Suicides, the second one in the Salgado series, will appear next year. And I would love to attend the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival again…
And finally, what are your top tips for aspiring writers?
Reading is the main tip I can give. Read as much as possible, and not only crime fiction. Read poetry, literary fiction, commercial fiction, everything… And the second one is when you get involved in writing a novel, just finish it: in the middle of the process you won’t like it, you’ll feel discouraged, tired of it, you will have other ideas that look more appealing then… Be strong and finish the one you were writing or you’ll never finish any.
The Summer of Dead Toys is out now in paperback. The follow up, The Good Suicides will out in 2013.