“In some moments I feel like saying: listen, quiet, I am to help”
- Uxue Razquin (Pamplona, 1992), the new editor of the editorial Erein, speaks as what is discovering a new world. “He always has a book in his hand” on his Twitter profile, and that’s it from a young age. But now he's getting to know all the way that the book follows before he gets to anyone's hands. In short, for this interview, it only takes one month as an editor.
How is the adaptation going?
I'm happy, but nervous, about the workload. The planting team has helped me a lot, I'm not alone, I'm an editor, but I have at my personal side from other departments. I do not know the whole book sector very well. I know the product, but I didn't know the whole process until I got to the bookstore. My job is to read the manuscripts and decide whether they serve or not and relate to the writers, but I also have to know what the other steps are, and I'm learning a lot.
Did you find what you expected?
I had a very romantic trade. When I was growing up, I told my mother that I wanted to be an editor, not knowing what it was. I imagined a couch, I would get the books and I would read a lot. But many manuscripts come in a very short time, and that's very difficult to manage. By the time I start reading, I have three more in the email. I want to read well, see what a book fails, or how I can help a writer. And that requires knowing everyone: you seem to be in a room and you don't talk to anyone, but you do know when he goes to the printing press, how they've made the skin... There are many doors open, and I have to learn how to manage it.
Is there room for everything that comes to you?
No. I have lived outside, and I have been a little disconnected from Basque literature, how it is, what is consumed. I see that a lot of books are published and that readers don't have time to follow that pace. There's a lot there, and we can't get it all in. And the refusal is very difficult.
For a literature enthusiast, is the editor's best job?
Now I say yes, but in a year's time ... [laughing]. I think it suffers a lot. Not with the writers, eh! That's very nice, you make relationships, you know people... But I, for example, suffer from saying no; in the end, a writer has given him something that is very intimate to him, and you read, and according to his criteria he says: “Well, no.” It costs me that, but it's even more acid to get the answer. Sometimes they don't understand it, and it seems that the editor is the writer's antagonist. And the opposite is true: the editor must help the writer throughout his career to make the work as best as possible. In some moments I want to answer it: hear, calm, I am to help myself.
What is the writer for the editor?
It's everything. He's a colleague who's working with him making a product. Writing is a very individual thing, but the editor has to help, sometimes it's also a kind of coach. Suppose the writer is stuck, he doesn't know how to make a paragraph or how to finish the book. It's up to the editor to be there, helping.
But do you have to be willing to get angry with the writers you love?
It hasn't given me time [laughing] yet, but yes. Everyone has their reasons, because in the end what they want is that this book is OK, whether they like it or not. And sometimes, to get to it, they're getting angry. But this happens in any relationship.
Does the editor have to be a writer?
It doesn't have to, but I would say most editors write. I have always written, since I was young, but I have not published anything, the papers are in the drawer. I think you have to write something, because you know a writer's processes better. It is not essential, but it helps. You need to read it, it gives you lots of clues.
Has the way you read changed?
Yes and no. Before, he also made very analytical readings. Sometimes I also look for the errats in the placental readings, etc., if I have a bit of obsession. But I've enjoyed the simple reading of one story, the oblivion of the other. Now, at first reading, I'm very analytical and I'm looking for mistakes or gaps. But I like to read in a second reading, that I have those things underlined, as if I were a reader.
He talks about literature on social media often. What is the place of literature in this field?
I think it has room. I live naturally, I like something, and I rise to social media. As we do with the landscapes: we are here, we have climbed this mountain, there you have the photo. I see it, I'm reading this book, I like it and recommend it to you.
Lately there are many young Basque editors.
They're cycles and it was a necessity. It's happened in Erein, in Igela, in Txalaparta... There have been changes and the young people have taken the baton. It was necessary, but it has come in a very natural way, the publishers have seen that the world is changing in all areas and that in the literature there is a need for young people. I have seen a very open and natural attitude.
And there are a lot of Navarros. Is this a coincidence?
I have the feeling that Navarre has always been the centre of a movement, especially in culture, and not only in literature. I've always seen young people willing to do things.
an editor “My mother has given me books and I knew I wanted to do something with books. I was telling my mother that I wanted to be an editor. I wanted to read, discover the authors, make a way with them. But for that you don't learn, there's no career, and it's hard to get into that world. No offer from Infojobs: 'We need an editor.' I was in Barcelona selling books at the FNAC and I was in touch with the books. I had that in my head, but it was a dream. She wrote for Berria and Deia, and reports of women scientists for the Chair of Scientific Culture of the UPV. When I came back to Pamplona, they called me Erein and told me that I had seen my name on social media. They offered me work and I said yes, without thinking twice."
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