It is the second time that Elísabet Benavent (Valencia, 37 years old) travels to Colombia, to the Book Fair in Bogotá.
Her followers, or as she calls them, her “flirties” of hers, huddle together in the rain so as not to be left without a seat to watch her.
More than a hundred girls, mothers and the occasional grandfather line up to get a photo and a signature in her favorite book.
In line there is a group of friends who have put on the Spanish team shirt to show Benavent her love for her country and for Madrid, the city in which she stars in many of her novels.
The writer has a degree in Audiovisual Communication from the Cardenal Herrera University in Valencia, but she never worked.
She started self-publishing her first novel on Amazon nine years ago,
and since then he has done the same with 21 more books that already exceed three and a half million copies sold.
In addition, Netflix has adapted the Valeria saga to a series and has produced the film
We were songs
, based on the homonymous work.
Ask.
95% of the public that reads his books are women.
Are they the same everywhere in the world?
Response.
I think there is something that unites us all, a kind of brotherhood, a perpetual sorority.
I think there is a thread that holds us together.
In the end, it is that very similar things happen to all of us.
It is a generational issue.
We care about the same things: work, financial security, love, friendship, and our aspirations.
This, in addition to trying to reconcile personal life with professional life.
In the end, we live in the same world.
P.
The majority of your readers are
millennials
, a generation that, you affirm in many of your works, considers that it is destined to fail.
What is a
millennial
for you ?
R.
Millennials
are
people who think we have come into the world to fail.
We are convinced that we have very bad karma.
On the other hand, we feel that life owes us something because at the same time we are a hyper-prepared generation.
We have focused on being very prepared for work and we have been frustrated to see that the slab of an economic crisis that caught us right at the exit of the labor market fell on us.
But we are great entrepreneurs and we have a lot of imagination.
Q.
Do you believe that love is a universal language?
A.
Totally.
Love is a universal language that affects us all, it is a little pain that afflicts us.
Well, actually I don't think it's a pain.
If it hurts, it's not love.
There is no single love in one's life, and it is wonderful to fall in love.
Falling in love is milk.
We like to fall in love and we feel very reflected when we see another do it in a book or on the screen.
Q.
You are about to launch your new book.
What has changed compared to the previous ones or what can we expect?
R.
We wanted to change a little.
When I presented the idea to the publisher, I thought they were going to tell me if I had gone crazy, but they liked it.
Let's keep the spirit of the books, it's a romantic comedy, but it has some science fiction.
We are going to do a mixture with time travel.
Actually, it is a novel that talks about the journey that a couple goes through from the beginning to the end and how, in some way, during the grieving process, we often revisit and rewrite our memories.
Q.
At what point did you decide to be a writer?
R.
I have always written.
When I was five or six years old they gave me a ten in school for a story about a worm that mediated a fight in a bar.
Then I wanted to be many things.
Writing has always been a dream, but I always thought it was too complicated a dream to even try or dream about.
Actually, I found it.
I self-published so no one could tell me I hadn't tried.
P.
Do you think that digital literature is the future?
R.
Paper will always be in our lives.
We readers are romantics, and some of us may have a Kindle or read on the iPad, but I know absolutely no one who only has a digital device.
You still buy the book on paper.
I believe that paper and digital will coexist naturally in the future.
Q.
Do you think publishers see you as a second-rate author for being self-published and powered by social media?
R.
The team that works with me has never seen me like this.
Quite the contrary.
Yes, it is true that in literary circles you suffer from many condescending looks and many comments, sometimes malicious.
But I don't much care for the pat on the back from the literary critic or other peers who think that romantic comedy is a small genre.
What interests me is that my reader, when he closes the book, does not think that he has wasted his time.
Q.
Just how much have social media influenced your success?
R.
I don't know how much because since I started they have always existed, I think it has been a fundamental part.
Social networks have changed the consumption of books and how authors approach readers and vice versa.
The author is no longer someone unknown who is in a photo on the book jacket.
Now we have the opportunity to show what's behind the scenes.
Q.
What about your life in your books?
R.
Of my life, much less than what people think.
People think that I have an exciting life, and the truth is that I don't complain about what I have, but it's not that bad.
What happens is that the romantic genre is quite given to people imagining that they are their own experiences.
In fact, I'm sure you would never have asked a crime novel writer how many dead bodies he has in his garden.
Well this is a bit the same.
Yes it is true, I am not going to deny it, that from time to time I steal some things from my friends and that I am inspired by what people tell me.
As a general rule, I apply the maxim that any information that someone gives in front of me is likely to enter one of my books.
P.
Why did you decide that your books and the series have that erotic component that breaks with many current taboos?
R.
It is precisely because one of the things we intend with the series and also with the books is to shed a little light on certain taboos, because it is in that darkness that sometimes insane things are generated.
Something that I love about the series is that it puts the point of view on female pleasure, and the woman is the protagonist of that pleasure, not only as an object of desire, but also as an object of desire.
Q.
At the book signing you did in Bogotá, one of your followers said that she didn't have money to go to Madrid, but that it was her favorite city because she had been able to travel there through her books.
Why Madrid?
R.
I never dreamed that books would even come out of my computer, imagine what this is for me.
I still get goosebumps, and it's not just saying, it's overwhelming.
On top of that I am Valencian, I am not from Madrid.
It is the city where I became an adult, where I have made my life choices, the good ones and the bad ones, the regular ones and the best ones.
I can't stop loving her.
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