Dolores Redondo: A Spanish Literary Star

Dolores Redondo, writer with an amicable and highly persuasive personality, is an outstanding figure of contemporary Spanish literature. Millions of copies of her books are being sold on the Spanish market alone.

Even though Dolores has been writing since young age and was always set on the literary path, she studied law and gastronomy. Her father was very strict and wanted her to be able to earn her own income and living. As a child she already read extensively and this hobby of hers only intensified as she grew older. At twelve she started writing. Her motivation was to write stories just like real writers do. She started by writing a diary, but soon moved on to short stories, believing that shorter texts are easier to author. Now she sees this as a great mistake and considers the art of the short story to be a master literary discipline, much harder than writing novels.

Dolores Remondo eventually became a writer in the most romantic way possible, as she herself says. She visited no workshops, no creative writing lessons, neither did she seek the acquaintance of writers. Instead she posted her works to dozens of literary competitions. At first to no avail, but this resulted in her mastering the art of writing step by step.

The highest point in her writing career so far is the Baztán trilogy of novels. It is a detective thriller set in the Basque environment, which the writer has an intimate knowledge of because she was born into it. In her works Dolores arrived at the conclusion that readers will not be satisfied simply by the dark topics of crime and the hunt for the murderer. She believes that they also want something else - the setting within the wider context of environment in which the plot unfolds. Dolores has discovered some captivating themes in the Basque mythology with its countless phantoms, as well as in the psychology of Basque women who are very strong and independent and capable of taking destiny into their own hands. Dolores perceives mythology as a protective reaction to the human fear of death and loneliness. The stories from Basque mythology were conveyed to her by her grandmother but she also talked about them at school with her schoolmates. She sees them as a topic that even today invades the everyday lives of her contemporaries.

One of her latest works that has recently been published in Czech is the novel All This I Will Give to You. The story is set in Galicia, the home of the writer's father. In her work she comes to terms with the four decades of Franco's dictatorship, which even today still traumatise the Spanish society.

RaŠ