Ángela Banzas, Planeta Prize finalist: "Literature is a tool against horror and sadness."

At seven years old, little Ángela was admitted to the hospital. Beside her was another girl, like her, with a dire prognosis. She wasn't going to survive. And little Ángela went to the hospital library to borrow stories to read to the other girl: there she could be a princess in a distant kingdom, a warrior defeating a villain, or remember the little girl she once was, running and playing in freedom, far from that prison bed. From that childhood memory came the intuition for the novel that has made the adult Ángela a finalist for the Planeta Prize, a category with a prize of 200,000 euros. In just four years, Ángeles Banzas has written four books, abandoning her career in the business world and taking a very different path from the Political Sciences she studied at the University of Santiago de Compostela, her hometown.

" Libraries and bookstores are temples to me," Banzas admits. And, like last night when she received the award at the Planeta gala, she becomes emotional again when she recounts that episode, more than 30 years later: "There was a small library in the hospital's school: a refuge that broke the loneliness, offered emotional warmth, and allowed one to continue living beyond physical illness. Literature can heal, break isolation , stimulate the imagination, and provide an alternative way of life. In a prolonged illness, fiction teaches us to imagine, even without seeing. It becomes a tool against horror and sadness, especially in childhoods marked by suffering."

As in her previous novels, all published by Suma de Letras, an imprint of Penguin Random House (Planeta's competitor), in When the Wind Speaks Banza weaves a mystery story, with gothic overtones and hints of a thriller, always set against the backdrop of rural Galicia, with old legends passed down from generation to generation. The novel begins with a powerful prologue that introduces the protagonist: Sofía is 20 years old and, on All Souls' Eve ("this is important," the author emphasizes), she discovers a tombstone in the cemetery engraved with her first and last name, along with the dates of birth and death. Is she standing before her own grave? Who is the other Ángela buried there?

From there, a complex plot unfolds , combining family secrets, a luminous love story, clandestine experiments on human beings, and the horrors of the Civil War and the postwar period (Sofía was born in 1939). "I approach history with caution, without judgment, offering a human and different perspective centered on hope. History is like a double mirror that speaks to us of the present. But I approach it with caution, without judgment, offering a human and different perspective centered on hope. I explore the silences, shadows, and absences of the postwar period to emphasize the importance of seeing others as similar, not as different," the writer clarifies. With a profoundly humanistic message, as her story progresses, Banza seeks in similarities what unites us, not what differentiates us: "Exalting differences and pointing out others leads us to conflicts and wars. We turn those who are different into enemies. It's something that isolates and dehumanizes us. Viewed from a distance, in a different historical context, the reflection doesn't immediately provoke rejection; on the contrary, it's a way of questioning ourselves and dismantling prejudices.

Without revealing any further details about the plot, Banzas's new novel contains a proud "Galician perspective" that has marked all of his writing. "It's true that in recent years there's been a widespread cultural awakening in Galicia, with fiction that breaks stereotypes and pays attention to its rich heritage. Mine is a profoundly Atlantic perspective, toward the end of the world," he asserts. A geographically literal end of the world (Cape Finisterre), but also metaphorical.