welcome to between the covers summer series where we Spotlight South Florida authors I'm Anne bocock and joining me is author and syndicated columnist annavasiana Suarez her new book is dulcinea a beautiful novel The heroine is the fictional Muse behind Don Quixote it's a story about choices and love and Duty and regrets and I don't know how you did it this book is simply brilliant oh thank you I'd love to hear that you created this fictional character she's very wealthy Barcelona woman actually she starts as a young girl in the book and then becomes a woman who I'm not giving too much away but she's involved in this very taboo relationship who is she now for me this how I imagine and as an author you begin to live with your character long before you sit down to write I knew she was going to be a conflicted woman and I knew she had to be older because part of what I wanted to bring out as a theme in the book was really how you get to a certain age and when you look back you realize how certain decisions you make determine your Life Path so it's about her living with these regrets and trying to make things right it is from your imagination and yet it is so richly detailed it becomes to feel very real she became very real to me and watch came first the character development or the story that you wanted to tell for me it was kind of a combination I have been wanting to write this book I'm not kidding for 50 years and I first read Don Quixote in Spanish for in the original Spanish um and I thought who is this woman who is so important to the most famous novel in the Spanish language yet she's always off stage so I knew I wanted to move her kind of from the shadows and give her her own voice so I also knew that part of the book had to be a journey because that's what Don Quixote is so part of this book is also a journey but for me I know not just in this book but previous book it's really the character who starts developing the plot and it's her his decision that starts making its way you know from the beginning to the end and it's really more I feel character driven than plot driven I love that it's a story 50 years in the making I mean that that's just fabulous what did you know about Spain the Spanish Inquisition this era and how did you did you do research because it is very very well done well thank you I'm cuban-american but I come my mother was born in Spain in um in sieges Catalonia and my dad is Cuban of Catalan parents so I often travel to Barcelona to visit family I was just there in in January so I knew that I wanted it to take place in in Barcelona but of course modern day Barcelona is totally different than 1616 Barcelona so I ended up having to do a lot of research did you know the language I know my mother and my grandparents spoke Catalan so I can pick out and I can read it pretty well and of course I'm bilingual and I read Don Quixote in Spanish so that was an uh a problem in some of the research especially the primary sources like I found a Diary of a Tanner from the Barcelona area that provided incredible details of course I was in Catalan there was a weather log that was also great because it was totally different weather than Barcelona now it was very cold at that time so that that was also in in Catalan when Google translate didn't work and sometimes it didn't because it doesn't translate PDFs I'd send it to cousins in Spain there are some very difficult scenes in this book what was the most challenging one that you wrote for me was the book originally was a lot longer which is usually how I write I write a lot more than I start pairing and pairing and Distilling I think the hardest part because it's in a way a dual timeline although it's the same person it was combining the chapters that occur as she's traveling to Spain to meet after a long absence Miguel Cervantes in his deathbed and then me you know kind of combining those two timelines to fit so that to me was the most challenging you are also a columnist and you speak two women Four Women honestly the way you write is like having a personal conversation with a reader so I I I Adore that I recently read a column that you wrote about writing through grief and it was so honest and thank you I know that had to be difficult but I was surprised for my own feelings reading it that it felt quite empowering yeah and and in that particular um uh piece it it was something I normally wouldn't have written my agent has suggested this and I I really talk about how for me writing yes it's my job it's how I make a living but it's also kind of almost transporting because once if I'm disciplined enough for the first hour where I'm thinking of all the things I want to do if I stick with it the first hour then I'm so immersed in whatever I'm writing that I don't deal with all the encroaching things in the world that are sometimes good and you know in my case while you know working through this novel we're we're pretty horrible so um you know and it wasn't my first go around my first rodeo but as some readers know I had you know my father and my daughter died all within seven weeks in the summer of 2020 and I was in the process of redoing some of the drafts but it's it it's almost like um it it doesn't it's not consolation because I've learned that grief there's really no consolation you it it's something you carry with you but for the time you're working those five or six hours that's all you're doing you're writing and you're in this world and you're creating foreign what's something that you learned about yourself after finishing this book that you can write even through fear where haven't you been that you'd love to go I would love love to spend an entire year in Spain you know maybe in my mom's Village or my grandparents more than anything take me with you anniversiana Suarez is the author of the novel dulcinea she's also a widely read syndicated columnist I am so honored to have had this time to talk with you today thank you I'm Anne bocock please join me on the next between the covers foreign [Music]