Alana S. Portero’s debut novel isn’t afraid to be dirty, violent, aggressive. Her experience in theater (she is a director and co-founder of the theater company STRIGA) gave her the skills to know how to build and write characters. We are enveloped by them in Bad habits, through the eyes of a teenager in the body of a boy and her life in the San Blas neighborhood, in Madrid. As the author tells us, it is not autofiction, but there is a lot of it in this debut, whether because of her experience (the author is a trans woman) or because of her experience, even that which she cannot experience and which she can imagine (living) in the body of the protagonist of the book that was in the top 2023 of El País and, recently, Best Spanish Novel for Vanity Fair. We spoke to the writer via Zoom.
Alana S. Portero’s debut novel isn’t afraid to be dirty, violent, aggressive. Her experience in theater (she is a director and co-founder of the theater company STRIGA) gave her the skills to know how to build and write characters. We are enveloped by them in Bad habits, through the eyes of a teenager in the body of a boy and her life in the San Blas neighborhood, in Madrid. As the author tells us, it is not autofiction, but there is a lot of it in this debut, whether because of her experience (the author is a trans woman) or because of her experience, even that which she cannot experience and which she can imagine (living) in the body of the protagonist of the book that was in the top 2023 of El País and, recently, Best Spanish Novel for Vanity Fair. We spoke to the writer via Zoom.
“Maus Hábitos” – Alana S. Portero – Alfaguara – €18.85
DR
He has been writing for a long time but this is his first novel. Because now?
My evolution in writing has been a natural process for me. Until I wrote this novel, I thought I didn’t have the literary maturity to write a novel. I had already tried, and as I tried, I realized that I needed more time to combine my life experience with that of a reader and writer. And over the last four, five years, I’ve been gathering material that could be part of a novel. When rereading this material and rewriting it again, I realized that the time was now.
Was it a revelation from the pandemic?
I believe that all humans have had a revelation during the pandemic. The pandemic gave me the chance to focus on something and write calmly.
At a time when there is so much talk about autofiction, do you consider Maus Hábitos an autofiction novel?
I don’t think so, but I understand the confusion, because the protagonist of the novel is very similar to me. I took some things from my life to build a fiction around the character. There are three pillars, my neighborhood, my experience as a transgender woman and my social class. That was the basis for building the fiction… there is a lot of fiction in the novel, I see it more as a way for me to go back to the past and explore other possibilities, as if she were a kindred spirit who had been through different things.
And that he reacted differently to situations?
Exactly, I wanted to not only explore situations in a different way, but also build a character who would react differently to these situations in her life. I was luckier than my protagonist.
Do you feel that your generation had difficulty communicating?
Yes… and I wish Maus Hábitos had that, because I know that many women have had a similar life to me and have not been able to communicate as well. I wanted to explore these silences, the management of silence as an impossible wall to overcome. And this silence creates an inner abyss…
And this happens to the protagonist. How do you overcome?
In my case, there is a vital moment in my life. At a certain point I decided to live longer and better, to ignore the violence imposed on me. It was the most revolutionary thing I could do. I had to be happy and live, not succumb to fear. In my novel, I also wanted to make this journey through fear in fiction, because I felt it and saw many women go through the same thing, the violence and aggression imposed by others. Her first love is completely different from the one I experienced, I wanted to give her that. I wanted it to be perfect, I thought it was a gift I could give him.
Inevitable question: how do you see the far right and its transphobia?
I believe they are using trans people, especially women, as a tool to create widespread hatred. We are a very easy target, especially because our rights are not guaranteed. We are easy to overthrow and, from there, there will be a domino effect that infects the rest of society and will inevitably reach everyone.
Pedro Almodóvar loved Maus Hábitos and recommended it. How does it make you feel?
He has been very generous, very kind. His films were part of my visual and sentimental education, and I think he understood this world very well and understood my novel well. His recognition is, for me, very important.
