Never too late for this award-winning writer
Spanish writer Rosa Regas, 87, poses for a picture in front of her house in the suburbs of Barcelona, Spain.
For Spanish writer Rosa Regas, it is never too late to start. The 87-year-old was recently in Shanghai for two nights to speak to the local readers about her experience in writing, family and liberty.
“If your grandma tells you one day that she would like to take up painting, you should help her,” Regas says. “Because she has spent the most of life serving the others, and it is time she started living for herself. Old age shall never be the obstacle for a creative mind.”
Regas published her first novel, “Memoria de Almator” (Memoir of Almagro), in 1991 at the age of 57. It tells the story of a woman who is overprotected by her father, her husband and her lover, but ends up taking control of her own life.
“There was a bit of me in the story and much more,” Regas says. “I got married at the age of 18 and quickly had five children in the following years. Despite the fact that I had always been a voracious reader, I’d never thought I would one day create a novel of myself.”
The process of creation didn’t come easy for her at the beginning. It took her three years to find the voice of the narrator from a first-person perspective, Regas says. She relays the events from her point of view and speaks the thoughts and feelings of all the other characters.
Spanish writer Rosa Regas at a lecture in Shanghai
Of course, many things had also paved the way for her to put pen to paper in her late fifties. With the support of her husband and family, she never stopped working after being a mother of five. She first worked as an editor at publishing house Seix Barral between 1964 and 1970, now part of Grupo Planeta.
In 1970, she founded the publishing company La Gaya Ciencia and began publishing works by authors who were little known at the time.
“As a publisher, the two criteria I was looking for were: if it is interesting enough to keep me reading; second, if the writer has his or her own style of saying things,” Regas says.
Working outside the home not only gave her financial independence and a sense of self-fulfillment, but it also helped her evolve as a person who was knowledgeable, confident, happy and who saw life with a wider lens.
During the 1960s, Spain embraced tourism, with the annual number of visitors reaching over 40 million by 1975. The newcomers, though temporary, brought in new ideas and behaviors. The tourists didn’t always fit in with the Spanish moral issues in the early days — women could be arrested for wearing a bikini on the beach. Spanish industry also grew at high rate and large numbers of the rural population moved to the cities to work in the factories, including women.
“There were gatherings after work and reading salons over the weekends. Women started to fight for their rights of equal pay and freedom of choice in situations, such as rape, divorce and violence at home,” says Regas, who also said her latest book will research that era.
She said 1960s Spain was a time “when you could get jailed for speaking the wrong word, but something was taking place and you could see the future.”
Regas sold her publishing house in 1983 and began working as a part-time translator and editor for different organizations in the United Nations in several different cities around the world, leaving her more free time to dedicate to literature.
In 1994 she won the Premio Nadal award for her novel “Azul” (Blue), a story about love and the ocean which opened the door to the general public. Following “Azul,” there was “Viaje a la luz del Cham” (1995), a travelogue about her time in Syria, and “Luna Lunera” (1999), an autobiographical novel set in Barcelona during the post-war period, for which she won the Barcelona Narrative Award.
In 2001, at the age of 67, Regas won the 50th edition of the Premio Planeta award with her novel of intrigue “La Cancion de Dorotea” (The Song of Dorothea) which narrates the discoveries of a molecular biology professor at a country house she inherited from her father.
Created in 1952, the award is the second most valuable literary award in the world after the Nobel Prize for Literature with the winner receiving 601,000 euros (US$680,000). In terms of a single book prize, it is the most valuable in the world.
“The story of Dorothea was incidentally inspired by the fact that I couldn’t find my wedding ring anywhere in my house,” says Regas, “Having received the award, all my friend joked that I lost the ring for the prize.”
Since then, she has published several plays, including “Diario de una abuela de verano” (Diary of a summer grandmother), which was made into a television series of the same title.
“Those are the stories of my grandchildren. During the summer holidays, all of them would come to my house. We read, play and talk. I enjoyed my time with them. Once my granddaughter said to me ‘Grandma, I didn’t see male chauvinism these days in society.’
“I said ‘Right, so much has changed these days. But you must never forget that our cultural heritage is based on male chauvinism. And how hard it was for us to break with the rigid and powerful social structures that supported male chauvinism just 30 years ago.”
“Azul,” or Blue, won the Premio Nadal award in 1994.
“La Cancion de Dorotea,” or The Song of Dorothea, has been translated into many languages, including Chinese.
So far, Regas has published 21 works of different genres, never once repeating herself.
“But I do work slowly these days, not because of I am declining mentally with age,” she told her Shanghai audience, “It just takes me longer to recall the facts because I have more information in the brain. Besides, I need time to do research and I want to travel more.”
This was Regas’s third time in China. She grabbed her chance to see Beijing in 1970 before the two countries had established diplomatic relations. In 2005 she came again to give a lecture on her book “La Cancion de Dorotea,” which was later translated into Chinese by the People’s Literature Press.
“So much, so much has been changed,” Regas says of her latest trip in Shanghai. “They took me to the Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Hall at People’s Square and showed me the current and future development on an enormous scale model of the city that takes up an entire upper floor, and it’s mind-boggling.
“Following the exhibition route you see how different influences have shaped the city, including the Europeans. I’d say for a city of more than 20 million people, it’s an attractive place to live and to visit. I love Shanghai.”
