400,000 copies sold, a Planeta Prize and a mystery: who is hiding behind the pseudonym “Carmen Mola”? The official response had always pointed to a college professor of great literary talent but averse to celebrity. This weekend we have discovered the truth. It was not about any woman, despite what has transpired in multiple interviews, but about three men. Three gentlemen who have created one of the greatest booksellers phenomena in the country … Pretending to be a lady.
And it was known. Or at least there were people who sensed it. The success of Carmen Mola caused numerous fans and literary critics to analyze her work and turn their theories on its true identity. One of them was Mikey Fernandez, youtuber literary with more than 19,000 followers. In December of last year it said the following:
Carmen Mola is a pseudonym, a pseudonym that I believe that at least one man hides behind her. I am sure that this has been written by a gentleman. It’s my own opinion, but since I started reading the first book I wrote to my friend Iñaki and told him: “This was not written by a woman, this was written by a man.” I think it has to do with how the main character is written.
THIS HAS BEEN WRITTEN BY AT LEAST ONE LORD. #carmenmola #Planeta2021 Prize pic.twitter.com/ZBMyiVXGig
– 🎃 Spooky Mikey 🦇 (@mikeyfdez) October 15, 2021
More cases. Most of the suggestions / intuitions / theories about the masculine character of Carmen Mola were emitted within broader analyzes of her work. This is also the case of Félix Linares, another literary fan whose YouTube channel has 6,000 subscribers. In September 2020, three months before the Mikey Fernández video, he said the following on behalf of the mystery of your identity:
Right from the beginning we were told that Carmen Mola was a pseudonym, and that the author did not want to know who she really was. A case similar to that of Elena Ferrante in Italy, of whom we have been chasing identity for many years and we still do not know if it is that translator who was awarded the ownership of the name some time ago or not, because she has not said anything. Perhaps the case of Carmen Mola will continue and we will never know who the author is … Although there are discussions about whether the creator of Carmen Mola could be a woman or a man.
By then the figure of Carmen Mola, or rather, the absence of a public figure to support the pseudonym, had generated a small debate in literary circles. Not everyone took it seriously. In July 2020 Ana Ballabriga, writer, wrote this message in a clear humorous tone on his Facebook profile:
I have heard many theories about Carmen Mola’s hidden identity. I also want to propose mine (…) I imagine a bar with three guys having a few beers: “I’m fed up with this shitty literary world, my books don’t sell.” Man, it is that without good promotion I don’t know sells nothing “(…)” Come on, nobody buys a book written by three guys. “” Well, we are looking for a pseudonym. “” If the book is very beast, it has to be written by a woman, it will impact more “(. ..) “I had a girlfriend named Carmen.” “Carmen is cool to me.” “Yes, Carmen Mola.”
And more cases. Without knowing it, Ballabriga faithfully reflected the birth of “Carmen Mola”. This was told by its three creators on account of their surname: “The name came out in two minutes. It was like a kind of joke. At one point Carmen’s name came out, someone said” cool “and that’s how it stayed: Carmen Mola”. If we dive through Twitter we will run into multiple similar suggestions, outlined long before the identity of the pseudonym came to light. Also in the written press. This is what Rosa Martí wrote in Esquire in 2018, three years ago:
We believe that Carmen Mola is actually a man for several reasons. First, because to the question of what car he would like to drive he answers: “A Lada, of course.” A Lada! There are hardly any women who know what a Lada is (neither I nor any of my twenty closest friends know it) (…) We believe that Carmen Mola is actually a writer of national fame, male, between forty and fifty years old , from Madrid. We may be mistaken in his identity, but not in recommending this well-written and well-spun mystery novel.
Inés Martín said something similar on ABC that same year:
And the gender? Many tend to take for granted that she is a woman, accepting what is established by the pseudonym, but there are those who, like the one who writes, maintain that she is a man. Assumptions, after all, that only serve as tricks of the literary world, which likes a timely gossip so much.
Reasons for doubt. The issue has gained unusual relevance due to the amount of the prize (€ 1,000,000) and the popular projection of his books. Also because, for a long time, authors have stoked deception in interviews of all kinds. “I would have to be a man to answer that question. And I’m telling you, the only thing I am is the author of three novels,” they explained to El Mundo in May 2020. The article opened with a significant headline: “More than a mask , my pseudonym is a shield. “
In front of the media, Mola’s fable reached extremes today that can only be interpreted from comedy:
I did not want my colleagues, my friends, my sisters-in-law or my mother to know that it occurred to me to write about someone who kills a young woman by drilling holes in her skull to put worm larvae and sit and watch how they are eating the brain … They would not understand, for all of them I am so conventional …
Established practice. The Mola scandal explodes for the Planeta Prize and for the creativity of its authors in front of journalists. He was a very elaborate character, not very discreet. But if from the first moment their alternative identities were theorized, it was because the literary industry, as it is remembered here, is riddled with pseudonyms that are actually the result of many thinking minds.
There is another reason for disgrace. For centuries, women have had to use male pseudonyms to access the narrow corridors of mass narrative. A recent and famous case is that of Catherine Nichols, who tired of receiving doors slammed to publish her novel decided to change her name to George Leyer. It worked. It is a constant in the history of literature, women posing as men to succeed. Now, when female firms are trading higher, the phenomenon is reversed: men posing as women.
The essence of the practice is the same.
Image: Adrià Salido Zarco / GTRES