Literature by all and for all :Interview with Karla Zárate

The power of the pen is undeniably one of the most important manifestations of our voices as individuals. For years, women could not write freely and even had to hide their identities with pseudonyms to have the slightest chance of getting published. With the awakening of a new era, the literary industry has diversified its horizons, and now, in most parts of the world, anyone who writes a book of quality has an equal shot of sharing their creation. Karla Zárate, an outstanding published Mexican writer with an impressive amount of studies, has a unique lens through which she observes the impact of social movements in literature; particularly, in women. The insight she provides on a writer’s mind is key to understanding the importance of texts in modern societies and specifically in our empowerment as humans.

“Hi, Karla! Firstly, we want to know about you. Who are you? And what do you dedicate to?”

“Hi, Sofía! Thank you for having me. 'Who am I?', the million-dollar question. Sometimes I feel that the answer is too complex, so the side I’m sticking to with my answer is the academic one. My name is Karla Zárate; I’m a writer and psychoanalyst. I studied for my bachelor's degree in literature at the UNAM (Universidad Autónoma de México) and then I got a master’s degree and a doctorate in literature. Additionally, I’m currently forming as a psychoanalyst. I have diverse books published: two novels, a book of stories, a book of children’s stories, and a couple of other texts in newspapers.”

“What is the biggest challenge you have faced in your writing career?”

“To be honest, the strongest challenge for me as a writer is the act of writing itself. I’ve always said that there’s no literary muse inside us, writers that we can evoke for ideas to come whenever we want. Actually, this job requires a lot of discipline and sometimes we just have to sit down and write; there’s no choice. If I would’ve waited for inspiration to arrive all of a sudden, I wouldn't have been able to write anything! So I think the greatest challenge of writing is writing itself. Sitting down every day at whatever time, which is very hard for me as I do other things that are not writing. There’s no magic in this other than the habit, discipline, and rigor.”

“Have you ever felt there’s a gap of opportunities between a female and a male writer in the book publishing industry?”

“Interestingly, the thesis I wrote for my bachelor’s degree was about Mexican female writers, especially from Michoacán, from the XIX century. As you may know, that period was very different from the one we’re living in right now; we’re talking about when Porfirio Díaz had a dictatorship in Mexico and movements like Positivism were present. Women had difficulties writing freely, as it wasn’t very well seen by society. For example, the writer on which I focus my thesis has two sides to her literature. On one hand, she had domestic literature, in which she wrote poems and diaries from her daily life and trips. But there was also the more literary side of her work, which she wrote with a pseudonym. However, this pseudonym was the one of a woman, which represented an important challenge: there are diverse female writers that, with a male’s pseudonym, had a much easier writing career.

A few years later, my doctoral thesis went along the same lines. I wrote about a novel by Virginia Woolf called 'Orlando', which covers a lot of gender theory. The character Orlando is a man that out of a sudden, wakes up and converts to a woman. Interestingly, not only is that change physical, but also throughout four centuries, Orlando travels through time discovering what being a woman means. This change is not just about clothing or customs but also answers the big question: what is being a woman truly like? Orlando tries to answer this question through a very detailed observation of society from these four centuries. So, aside from this, Virginia Woolf expresses what it is like to be a female writer. Besides, she belonged to The Bloomsbury Group, which was against the Victorian tradition and fought against these cultural statuses, which created a hugely unfair division between male and female writers.

Previous to this novel, she wrote an essay that I recommend to all of you extensively, called 'A Room of One's Own': it’s a very brief and fun text to read. In general, she says that a woman needs to have a space of her own where she can write and win her own money. In a very anecdotic manner, she explains a lot of the challenges she faced as a woman during the '20s; for example, how she wasn’t able to step on the grass in university just because she was a woman.

Going back to the main question, in contrast to what has been said, as a woman I have been able to get the opportunities to write and get published. While they say that in texts such as literary anthologies that more men are published than women, currently, around 60% of books published were written by women. Beyond the writer’s gender, what publishers truly focus on is the quality of the book itself. I don’t think there’s feminine or masculine literature. I just think there’s good or bad.”

“How do you think literature has empowered and still empowers women?”

“The power of writing is a very important one, as it represents the strength for us women to have a voice. Through different literary texts such as essays, stories, novels, and poetry, both men and women can speak their emotions and experiences. Recently, we’ve seen feminist movements fighting precisely for us to have a voice in all societies around the world, despite that we live in a context in which gender violence and femicides are still very present.

“Regarding your stories and in general, your experience as a writer, when you’re designing your characters, do you feel any type of pressure to follow certain gender norms?”

“My first novel is titled 'Rímel' and a thriller, which is a genre I greatly enjoy writing. The novel is divided into two main sections from the different points of view of two characters: a woman and a man. The first and the second part are similar regarding the story itself, but they differ on how each sibling perceives it. It was a very interesting exercise for me to narrate the same story from different points of view, not only regarding the different characters’ genders but also all the events that happen: what they see, listen and eat as individuals.

The main challenge regarding the second novel I wrote was that the protagonist is a Chicano man. It was captivating that I, as a woman, had to write from the perspective of a man. Furthermore, I also had to think from a Chicano viewpoint, who often describes the feeling as they 'don’t belong here nor there.' Specifically, writing from his experience as a son of Mexican immigrants in Texas was one of my biggest challenges regarding this novel. Beyond a character being male or female, the real challenge is writing properly, configuring the character deeply, thinking like the character, and touching the reader. Characters should always have something to say to the reader and move them in some way, whether it’s love or hate. For example, I ended up disliking the main female character from my first novel, as she’s obsessing and controlling. Yet, the brother has a much lighter personality, which was easier to bear with. In my second novel, 'Llegada la hora,' I like the Chicano a lot; he’s very sympathetic even though he’s dealing with death as a very close reality to him. This character is the chef in charge of preparing the last dinner for prisoners who are sentenced to death in the prison of Polunsky, which is a real jail located in Texas.”

“How do you think literature changed when women had the power of the pen freely?”

“Since the earliest times, women have always written. Despite this, an example of a problem was that men got more published than women in literary anthologies, which is an issue that is still present in the modern world. The change that writing created for women was that we finally had a voice, and we dared to speak up, which was limited till just a few decades ago. In my thesis, I cover a little on some of the first feminist waves which have achieved gender studies and have fought for rights like our suffrage. Thanks to those movements, in almost all parts of the world, there should be no problem for us to get a chance to write and be published. I believe that if a woman turns in an excellent text to a publisher, they will print it because, in the end, they look for good literature. ”

“Something I’ve perceived a couple of times in our society is that we make a very strict division between politics and literature, assuming they never match; however, what role do you think literature has in such a political world like the one we live in?”

“I think literature needs to have a posture in politics, although this does not mean that you politicize the novel directly. The second novel I talked to you about covers the topic of the death penalty. I do take a posture inside the novel, but I care much more about incentivizing the reader to question and reflect on their ideas about the situation. There’s criticism on how immigrants are treated, as my characters experienced this in the novel. I also suggest that when the family crosses the border, the mother suffers from sexual assault, which is something that we read about every day as a reality. John Guadalupe is the name of the main character, representing a fusion between two cultures: the Latin and the American one. Additionally, I narrate how the protagonist is discriminated against in certain ways of being a Chicano. Through fiction, I talk about certain political issues, such as how human rights are criticized within this jail, how inmates are treated, the terrible food they get, and how the main antagonist is the jail chief abuses the prisoners. Here, I invite the reader to reflect and question their opinion on the subject. The great question that I get asked all the time in interviews regarding this novel is “What meal would you have if you knew tomorrow you were going to die?” and beyond thinking about the food menu, it’s about questioning ourselves about what happens with the death penalty.”

“How do you picture a more inclusive and diverse literary industry?”

“I picture an industry in which the publisher's main focus is finding good literature. For example, Dharma Books, the publisher of my second novel, organized a contest with only female contestants where I won and got published, showing that they’re very inclusive towards women. I believe that yes, in these moments we can’t ignore all of the issues regarding gender discrimination. I think that it shouldn't matter if books were written by women or men, as we’re both equally capable of writing a good or bad novel. In conclusion, I think we’re on the right track, at least in Mexico, where the newest editorials are now opting for a new idea that literature is by all and for all.”

Just like Karla mentioned, publishers nowadays are continuing the efforts to have a more diverse, inclusive, and open literary industry by all and for all. Nevertheless, those efforts won’t be worth it if we as readers don’t remove the stigma, closeness, and stereotypes from our minds. Just like we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, we shouldn’t limit ourselves to not reading an author just because of their gender, background, etc. Every book has a story to tell, and every story is worth listening to. The power of speaking up, demanding a change, and informing ourselves through reading and writing books is in our hands, so let’s use it wisely.