Normally, I write the posts in English (for I must practice the language, particularly in an informal register, being a non-native speaker) and I translate them into Spanish, with the help of Word’s automatic translator, which is simply wonderful. Today, however, I’m doing this the other way round because the post is inspired by a great book published by the Spanish author Marta Sanz and it seemed strange to write originally in English.
This is not a review, but an assessment of the portrait of the contemporary writer in Spain that Sanz offers in her volume Los íntimos (Memoria del pan y las rosas) [The Close Circle: Memoirs of Bread and Roses] (Anagrama, 2024). The author, who loves repetitions, stresses again and again that this is a social novel, but we already know that authors are not always right about their own work; for me her book is, rather, a professional memoir. As such, it is fascinating. Sanz not only traces a very complete chronicle of her own career but also explains in remarkable detail how writers (barely) survive in today’s Spain.
Oddly enough, I haven’t read any novel by Sanz (1967, Madrid), an author of fiction, but also of essays and poetry, an editor of collective books and a participant in them, as well as being a columnist and a radio collaborator. Thanks to Los íntimos and Wikipedia, and because her name sounded much familiar to me, otherwise I would not have read her memoirs, I know now that Sanz is the author of sixteen novels (or seventeen if we are to believe that Los íntimos is one). Among them are El frío (her first work, 1995), Los mejores tiempos (2001, Ojo Crítico prize for narrative), Animales domésticos (2003), Susana y los viejos (2006, shortlisted for the Nadal Prize), Black, black, black (2010, her first book for Anagrama), Farándula (2015, Herralde Novel Prize), and Clavicle (2017). She refers to all her books with great affection in Los íntimos and boasts of practicing both creative literature and crime novels of fine ambitions. My intention is to read Farándula in the first place, but I’m surprised to see that, despite the author’s fame among academics, my university library does not have it (nor does it have it Clavícula). I’ll try my wonderful local library, which is where Los íntimos fell into my hands.
In my subject Contemporary Literature in English, I teach my students how the publishing world works, which is why I found it so appropriate to read Los íntimos, even if it was only by chance and the environment described is that of the Spanish language in Spain. Sanz’s very rich prose has accompanied me for many hours quite a few nights in a row. The book stretches to 502 pages, not always in a strict chronological order, in which the author writes in exquisite prose about the many other authors she has met and whom she appreciates most wholeheartedly, without the poisonous envy typical of the Spanish literary scene since the beginning of time. Between authors who are mere acquaintances and authors who are soulmates, Sanz talks a bit about her family, in which there are writers although of far less substance. Also, about her partner Chema, who, despite getting up very early in the morning to go to work, is always by her side on the many trips to promote books, or so it seems to me.
Sanz has enormous literary ambition, palpable in the veiled (or not so veiled) allusion at the end of the book to her wish to win eventually the Nobel prize. As happens, however, she is the granddaughter of working-class people and the daughter of middle-class people deeply rooted in left-wing activism. The result is an implacable class consciousness that makes her devote many comments in her memoirs to the harsh reality of the publishing market. Sanz is very clear that her goal in life is to practice her art, but she defines herself and the rest of the authors as workers who depend on a clientele: us readers. In fact, contrary to what might be expected in a literary memoir, Sanz talks very little about the process of writing (perhaps because to understand it, it’s enough to read her meticulous, precious book), but a lot about how authors and publishers socialize, and about the efforts that authors must make to endorse themselves and their books.
This angle has a lot to do with Sanz’s frustrations which, as I see them, are transparent. To understand her position, she is a well-known and appreciated author among literary reviewers and critics, and already the subject of research in BA, MA, PhD dissertations and academic publications. I have not checked in what amounts, but she comments on this aspect, and I am sure that there are specialists in Spanish literature presenting regularly papers on Sanz at various conferences. Prestige, however, does not earn writers any money, and in order to survive as a working author Sanz has to sell books (no major awards have passed through her hands to free her from any onerous obligations, such as the well-endowed but low prestige Planeta).
Thus, although Sanz never explains when she writes his books, or how long it takes her to do so, she does detail what activities she participates in, (it is not always clear whether she is paid). Like all authors with a consolidated presence, Sanz gives talks in high schools, participates in book clubs (even if they are in a small town in Albacete), attends national and international literary festivals, presents her books in public, writes columns (in El País) and many blurbs, and collaborates with radio host Àngels Barceló on SER. An anecdote defines the ironies of secondary literary fame: about to miss the last train between Valladolid and Madrid on a cold night, owing to a problem with the ticket, the conductor rescues her because he recognizes her voice, loving her segment on books in Barceló’s radio show. We don’t know whether he has read any of her book.
Sanz is relatively fine with all this hustle and bustle because, although she claims that she doesn’t, she likes to travel and, above all, she loves having interesting conversations with colleagues in exotic places (or not so exotic). She is mightily annoyed when at the end of presentations few books have been sold, or she is approached by readers who love her previous works but have not made the easy gesture of buying the new one. The author, as she makes it abundantly clear, has a prestigious name, but at 56 years old (now 59), she suffers much. Although she is already being placed in the generation of the more mature successful authors, she has not yet crossed that line that makes her an instantly recognized name among readers and non-readers, household names such as the late Almudena Grandes or, the horror!, Arturo Pérez-Reverte.
Sanz is not a candidate to the Real Academia de la Lengua although her prose puts RAL member Pérez-Reverte’s to shame, nor do I think she is on her way to the Nobel Prize (if Pérez-Reverte wins it one day I will slash open my veins…). It frustrates her, moreover, to see how hard it is for her works to be translated. Her first translation into English is the one by Katie King of Clavícula, published as My Clavicle in 2025, a year after Los íntimos. Sanz reproduces in this book a rejection letter from an American publisher in which he tells her that the English-speaking market is already saturated with female literary authors in her style, among whom he cites Rachel Cusk. Sanz complains that she is nothing like Cusk, and I’ll add that Cusk, who writes infinitely worse books, has seven volumes already translated into Spanish. Should I say more?
What Sanz describes in her social novel or in her professional memoirs, depending on how you read Los íntimos, is the act of constant juggling that all authors (Spanish or not) must play to stay active in the profession of writing and be visible in the limelight. Sanz talks about many authors, drawing a panorama that possibly only academic specialists understand (Sanz herself has a PhD in Spanish Philology on contemporary poetry). The author is pained that many of these authors disappeared from the scene after quickly exhausting their quota of talent, or the always erratic interest of publishers. She also regrets that early death preys on authors, especially in the shape of lethal diseases, proving a mysterious association between cancer and fine literature. Sanz loves, but is uneasy, that the Atocha station is now called Atocha-Almudena Grandes, when Grandes was for her a friend and a very admired colleague, a flesh and blood person, and not a huge space through which travellers circulate. What kind of homage is that, after all?
I wonder, at the end of those 502 pages, what Sanz wants. It perplexes me that she comments on the beauty of her legs or how well maturity suits her, but hardly ever defends the merits of her many books, though she defends well her own merits as a writer. The constant references to adaptations (especially theatrical) that should have made her known to a wider audience but that became failed projects or plays in second-tier theatres, indicate that she wants a breakthrough that makes her shine; a Goya-winning film or a Netflix series, anything. When the Amazon guy thinks that she is Marta Sánchez (the singer) and is disappointed to see that she’s the anonymous Marta Sanz, she laughs but bleeds inside.
In Los íntimos, Sanz flaunts her literary merits. She addresses demanding readers who know how to recognize them, supposing they’re not already fans (she publishes with Anagrama, after all). At the same time, her book is a cry (a groan) against a rather inane Spanish social environment (I say this, not her), which finds it difficult to appreciate good authors; against the lack of economic rewards for the writer’s work in comparison to much less creative jobs (again, I say this extrapolating); against the hectic life the writer is subjected to, as readers want to see them in the flesh, no matter what; against the obligation to have social networks, even if one is very clumsy using them; against the lack of visibility and recognition, even though one has been publishing for thirty years and has two dozen books under her belt. Very subtly, Sanz also describes her fear of being left behind by the young women authors, not because they do not respect or admire her, which they do, but because the voracious publishing machinery always thrives on novelty.
As for the academic world, the one that guarantees that literary authors go down in history, few doctoral students or senior researchers ever consider that the authors they write about might be desperately struggling to stay afloat. Sanz, who is a very good swimmer, explains with great candour in Los íntimos what it takes to learn the different swimming styles, but she worries, as you can see, fearing that a wave might come and sweep her away. The literary world is not a lake of placid waters, as many wrongly assume, but a turbulent river or, even worse, rough open sea.
I thank Marta Sanz for her wonderful book, and I hope she has the luck that her talent deserves. That she sells a lot, that she gets many awards (even if it’s not the Nobel), that her novels are adapted for the cinema screen by any of the fantastic women Spanish directors we have now. And that one day the Amazon delivery guy knows who she is and is not disappointed that she is not Marta Sánchez (here I laugh, thinking about the blank faces of my students hearing this name, which makes me happy indeed).