Nieves Concostrina, journalist and writer, on the 19th at her home in Madrid.Claudio Álvarez
The voice and ironic character of Nieves Concostrina (Madrid, 62 years old) hit the airwaves in the afternoon.
Part of that historical and research legacy has been reflected in the journalist and writer's latest book,
Acontece que no es poco
(La Esfera de los Libros), which has the same title as her space on Cadena SER.
Her long career began when she joined
Diario 16
already in the first year of Journalism, studies that he did not finish.
“I learned in half a day the same as I did in three months in college.
I loved journalism.
In classes, they told me about the French Revolution again,” she admits with some sarcasm.
Throughout his professional career he has published a dozen books and has won numerous awards.
He has left his native Madrid for the tranquility of the Almeria coast.
Ask.
How did this new book come about?
Answer.
Just like the previous ones arise.
I feed myself back.
What I study I put on the radio and from the radio I put it into books, where I expand it or correct it.
Sometimes I see a topic and leave it on hold and then come back to it.
I don't differentiate.
Q.
Had you set out to be a writer?
A.
No, I was a journalist.
We write, but little else.
In 2007, when I was doing
PolvoEres,
on Radio 5, a man wrote me an email in which he asked me for the books from which he took the stories he told.
There was no one in particular and he documented me a lot.
Then he invited me to write because he wanted to see what I said compiled in a book.
And from there, it all began.
Q.
From there, to being bestsellers and having endless queues at the Madrid Book Fair, for example.
A.
They have all worked very well.
But I am aware that the radio helps a lot.
There are thousands of writers better than me who don't have the radio speaker.
Of course, I tell the story as I would like it to have been told to me and I have also gained fluency.
Having a person like Carles Francino in front of you is a luxury and enormous luck.
Q.
There is total complicity between the two.
A.
He is a very empathetic guy, very curious and very honest, professionally and humanly.
He moves far away from solemnity and protocols.
He admits that he doesn't know a thing and without any shame.
And that since 2013.
Q.
Do you miss being in a newsroom?
A.
No, not anymore.
Now I need a lot of peace to document myself, I need my space.
At the beginning of the nineties, I would say yes, but I have been organizing myself for 20 years on my own at home.
Q.
Character to whom you would have liked to say four things.
A.
Say no to Ferdinand VII four things, but hit that bastard yes.
He carried out a coup d'état, overthrew the Constitution, had the liberals shot... All those things that they don't tell you in school and that he himself said that he was a son of a bitch.
He called her mother, María Luisa de Parma, a “toothless whore” and she a “cowardly mako.”
It is a tradition for the Bourbons to get along badly with each other.
Also, all of them until today.
Nieves Concostrina, journalist and writer, photographed at her home in Madrid.Claudio Álvarez
Q.
You don't get along with the monarchy, right?
A.
No, I don't like gentlemen who live like God by right of birth, by surname.
I don't like a monarchy that every time it has a problem it goes to a private clinic or studies abroad.
It is a shabby institution, absolutely useless and unnecessary.
If it were deleted from today to tomorrow, someone tell me how they will be missed.
They don't do anything except walk around.
A.
He also doesn't like the Catholic Church.
What has he done to you?
Q.
Well, ever since a priest, Don Ángel, slapped me when I was eight years old... I had to take communion the day before receiving my first communion and I told him that he didn't have to confess to any beating.
He slapped me so hard that he knocked me off the chair.
Furthermore, any religion is a fraud and this one in particular is a moral scam.
Everything that nullifies wills and critical thinking doesn't work for me.
Of course, all the money that goes to the Church with the lack of research in Spain and with the brains that are draining sickens me.
Q.
Where does the love for the dead come from?
A.
I didn't have it.
It comes because I went unemployed when
Diario 16
closed . From then on I started knocking on the doors of other media and nothing came of it.
The Mixed Company of Funeral Services of Madrid offered to make a sector magazine for my husband, Jesús Pozo.
Jesús had a business vision and made a magazine that also included culture, ecology and the environment... And through writing there I discovered that there were many interesting topics with death.
I was very interested, with all the history it has.
And from there over the years I jumped to Radio 5 in 2003.
Q.
You now live in Almería.
Don't you like Madrid anymore?
A.
No. Madrid is very dirty, full of people, full of franchises and noise.
It is impersonal and with the problem of damn tourist apartments.
They are expelling people from the neighborhoods, with rents going through the air.
I want a neighbor and not some tourists who don't even know how the front door works.
I believe that people are more from where they graze than from where they are born.
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