Sílvia Soler: "If you are born to a couple who truly love each other, you already have a victory in your hand."

BarcelonaSilvia Soler (Figueres, 1961) cannot hide how much fun she had writing her new book. We were so young It is part of the collection The jewel of living Published by Univers, it features texts conceived and created from a beautiful perspective, focusing above all on the joy of existence. Soler was previously part of the collection in 2022 with The joy of living And now she returns with a title based on a peculiar premise. The writer—who has a long and prolific career with books such as The summer that begins (Planeta, 2013, Ramon Llull Prize) and We, afterwards (Univers, 2021) – has created "a photo album without photos." Soler has rummaged through family photo albums and selected some forty images, which he then pairs with short texts explaining them and giving wings to the reflections they inspire. Inevitably, the book is filled with happy moments that lead him to discuss the foundations of his memory: family, friends, travel, childhood and youth, and nostalgia.

There is no fiction in this book. It is a direct gateway to your inner world. How did you approach it?

— There is no fiction beyond the fiction that our entire memory accumulates over the years. The memories we have resemble what happened, but they can be altered. I have written exactly as I remember things; in this sense, it is a sincere book. When I first ventured into this collection with The joy of livingI did it very calmly because I intuitively have clear boundaries. And then I saw that people weren't receiving it with the intention of prying into my private life, but rather to find common ground.

The first photo in the book is from your youth, and you immediately write that "until relatively recently it was pleasant to look at," but "not anymore." Why?

— This book is full of contradictions, and I love that. While writing it, my spirit was to seek the joy of life, but inevitably, there's a lot of nostalgia. I've worked on the theme of nostalgia very personally. I'm proud to have managed to allow myself to feel nostalgia without it paralyzing me and preventing me from enjoying what I have. This photograph is a glimpse into a moment of fulfillment tinged with regret. When someone my age looks back on that time, I'm sure things have happened that have tarnished the memory a bit or made it somewhat painful.

There are many photos that capture moments of happiness: young people laughing heartily, teenage hugs, beautiful moments around a table... Do they reflect the reality of your life or are they just a choice?

— We don't usually have photos of bad times. The choice was dictated by this, but that doesn't mean there haven't been bad times in my life. Writing this book has made me realize that, especially when it comes to childhood, there are many good ones. In fact, I think having a peaceful and happy childhood already gives you an advantage when you enter adulthood. Now I've seen that reflected in my life.

Based on a text by Joan Fontcuberta and Xavier Antich, you say that our memories of the past often don't match the photographs we have. Is this another of the book's contradictions?

— I read the book Revelations. Two essays on photography (Arcadia, 2019) by Joan Fontcuberta and Xavier Antich, in which they say that photography not only doesn't help memory but is actually an impediment. That idea really struck me. So I did the exercise and realized that if I think about a memory using only my memory, it's very broad. In contrast, a photo captures a moment and it seems like you're stuck there. I've made an effort to stretch and exercise my memory using photos. For example, there's a picture of my mother reading in an armchair, which made me think: "How often was there that atmosphere at home?" My parents were avid readers, so this kind of thing happened quite often.

This image also connects with the idea of ​​a happy, seamless family, which emerges from much of the text.

— Obviously, there were moments of conflict and sadness, but my childhood was happy. I'm afraid of sounding corny, but I think that if you're born to a couple who truly love each other, you've already won half the battle. My parents loved each other very much and showed it to us. Then came a tragedy [her father died when she was 20], but until then she was very happy, and there's nothing wrong with acknowledging that.

When you were raising your young children, did you think about that?

— A great deal. But there was something that really frustrated me: realizing that everyone's memories don't go back very far. Almost no one has memories of their early childhood. It was very hard for me to accept that my children had no memories at all of their first years, into which I poured so much time, effort, money, and anxiety. It felt like throwing treasures into a well. Later, I saw that all of this leaves a residue, just like the one I have.

A significant portion of the book features photographs of relatives you never met, such as your great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents. What was it like to recover family memories through these images?

— For many years, there's been a wall in the entryway of our house covered in photographs. Many are of my great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents. I've always loved old photos and they've stayed with me. There's the picture of the eggshell from Figueres, which is beautiful and which I look at many times a day. However, when I looked at it again this time, I noticed some little details. The same thing happened with a photo of my father's family in a boat. I suddenly saw that my father, who was two or three years old there and is sitting in the boat, reaches out slightly to hold onto my grandmother. I only noticed this gesture at the very last moment.

You dedicate the book to the unknown photographer who once took a picture of your great-great-grandparents. Why is that image special?

— It's because we didn't have it. A second cousin from Figueres brought it to us one day when we had arranged to meet for lunch. It's a very old photo that makes you think about many things. Who were these two people? What was their relationship? How did they influence our family? And then we finished lunch by making a selfie And I immediately thought that our grandchildren wouldn't see that photograph. I'm not against new technologies, but we must reflect on them, otherwise we'll be headed down a rocky road.

Stylistically, the texts stand out above all for their brevity. In two or three pages you say a lot, but always searching for the right point and the precise word. Has restraint been a challenge?

— On the contrary. I have a strong tendency towards brevity, to get straight to the point. This is detrimental to my novels; in fact, I have to fight against it. However, writing books like this one is a pleasure. The length suits me very well, perhaps because I've spent twenty years writing newspaper articles. I've made a point of placing the entire emphasis on description as a purely literary exercise, and then I've developed the thread of reflection as needed.

You close the book with a series of impossible photos in which you imagine scenes that never happened. Why did you decide to include them?

— The idea came from a conversation with the editors when I already had the book half-finished. I started thinking about impossible photos, and the image of Anne Frank, who is an obsession of mine, giving a speech at the UN, immediately came to mind. I also thought of Natalia Ginzburg, Mercè Rodoreda, and Virginia Woolf having tea together; I would have found it amusing to see. And jokingly, I also thought of a Catalan writer accepting the Nobel Prize for Literature. It's as impossible for a Catalan to accept the Nobel as it is for Ginzburg and Rodoreda to have tea together. At least, not while we have a state that not only doesn't support it, but actively opposes it.

The last text is the most painful: you imagine your parents as old people, surrounded by children and grandchildren.

— For many years I've been afraid to pass on to my children the pain of losing my parents when we were very young. Every time I think about it, it's like a punch to the gut, and I've spent my whole life balancing this, but I'm not fighting it anymore. If my children were here, they could tell you very well who their grandparents were, but I don't think they've grown up feeling any burden from not having known them. I knew I would end the book like this. I felt a bit somber, but I wanted to finish it with a different kind of text.