Santiago Isla (Madrid, 1994) has everything to generate interest. Is young. He is handsome in the style of that song from the Costa Brava that says: “I don’t know who can resist his dentist smile […] even the most cynical can appreciate the beauty of simple things. “And he has the talent to make a career without his father being the CEO of Inditex. But He is the son of Pablo Isla, yes, and a talented musician and writer and, as he says whenever he can, “he also has a real job” because He is a scriptwriter at Movistar +. Now just post The floral games (Espasa), his second novel and, after reading it, we couldn’t wait to sit down and talk to him about it all.
It is late in the afternoon and Santiago arrives on time to complete the procedure. He has chosen the place himself: a cozy and intimate café in the Chueca neighborhood. The editorial team that accompanies it tells me, however, around our table there seems to be a glass bell that repels that atmosphere. Isla is on the defensive, or maybe he’s having a bad day, or he’s just tired of giving interviews.
It is true that promoting a book can be even more strenuous than writing it and, in addition, you have just had your first lynching on the networks for some statements in an interview. In them he wondered if his generation “is not able to get to where it thinks it deserves” because “having had all the facilities not to have to deal with frustration, failure or the harshness of certain situations.”
Returning to the book you have come to speak of, The floral games It is the proof that the Madrilenian has the capacity for observation or that gift innate necessary to one day write a great work. It is about promises, disappointments and frustration through a young man (Ignacio Benavides) who tries to make a living from writing in today’s Madrid. Something that he carries with more pain than glory until he manages to put his head in the most elite cultural circle in the city. Because this novel is not a drama about the hardships of being an artist, is a satire in which the author even laughs at himself.
It seems that there are two types of writers: those who suffer writing and those who enjoy the process. Which one are you from?
I am one of those who enjoys. In my case, I do not understand writing as that exercise of emptying oneself inside and suffering. Writing is a pleasure for me. It is true that there are moments more pleasant than others and in which you are more inspired. But, for me, it is above all an enjoyment. Besides, I try to make it that way because otherwise, why do it?
Maybe that’s why The floral games it’s a fun book …
Mix dramatic or tragic moments with more humorous or ironic moments because, in general, I don’t like monochrome art. If in a story they are all deaths, dramas, catastrophes … in the end it makes me monotonous no matter how beast the action is. And the other way around too. If everything is a calving and bullshit I get tired of jokes. I’d rather have grays or have one foot on each side. As a reader or spectator, I usually like that a lot and it is what I have tried to reflect a little in the book.
You also have a rock band: Chelsea boots. What came first: music or literature?
At the same time, they are not mutually exclusive. Since I was little I have really liked music and literature. It is an interest and a pure curiosity. Something natural. And in my case the two have always been present.
Don’t you remember a specific moment when your interest in art was awakened?
Well, I don’t remember at what age I learned to read. At what age do children learn to read? five years? six years? I don’t know, because that way more or less it started to interest me. Of course, the time when you tend to be most aware that you are really passionate about things is during adolescence. At 13 or 14 years old is where the impulse to make songs or write stories is born.
And how did they take you home as an artist?
Normal. I, with my defects, I think I have always been a good son. I have not given many problems either. Also, keep in mind that it is not like saying to your parents all of a sudden: “Dad, Mom, I want to be an artist” but rather it is progressive. So not that it shocked them much, it wasn’t a surprise. They have always taken it very well. I also tell you that my dedication to this is not exclusive, that later I have an office job like everyone else.
In my house there has always been a very literary atmosphere. What has influenced me is growing up in an environment in which books and music have always been present.
Is there a message your father gave you that helped you get to where you are?
I do not know, trying to summarize these things in a sentence, advice or condensing it into a teaching is a bit absurd because it is not real. In my house there has always been a very literary atmosphere, there have always been many books, they have been talked about, they have been discussed and exchanged. And with music a bit the same. What has influenced me is growing up in an environment in which books and music have always been present.
You yourself appear in the novel as a character alien to the narrator and the protagonist. Is it a strategy to avoid being asked that annoying thing about how much Ignacio Benavides has of you?
No, it is not explicitly done. I am amused and I like that it has that result. It seems that the autobiographical, what comes from self-fiction, is worth more than the imagined and the creative, but this is a fiction book. It is a product of creativity, it is imagination, it is a game. My intention, above all, was to have a little fun. Seek the complicity of the reader and make a little joke with it and laugh at myself.
And how much does Ignacio Benavides have of you?
Honestly, very little. I look very little alike. Maybe that’s why when the character of Santiago Isla appears, Ignacio doesn’t like him.
In fact, the narrator describes you literally as “between fearful and conceited” and with a pedantic point to quote Gil de Biedma when he talks to his friends. Do you agree?
I can’t say that myself, people who know me have to say it. I hope that is not true. In fact, it is an exaggeration or a parody. I’m laughing at some clichés.
The truth is that in the book sometimes it seems that you are roast yourself. You know, that YouTube challenge where you write a song with everything your detractors say about you.
Also keep in mind that it is seen through the eyes of Benavides.
Could there be, perhaps, a little imposter syndrome involved?
Man, imposter syndrome is inevitable. Now that it has been out of the book almost a month ago I have less because I have already talked a lot about it but when you are writing it you do have the feeling that you are deceiving people, yourself … But it is not for that but for that I have told you before, because humor with oneself seems healthier and more fun.
Do you think you will be judged harsher for calling you Isla?
It is that, if I tell the truth, I do not spend time thinking about it because it is something that is beyond my control. So I don’t give it any turns either. What I have to try to do is write the best I can and get people interested in what I write.
I don’t spend time thinking about what it means to be called Isla
I’m asking you because the novel talks about a writer in search of success, so I was wondering if he has been able to close doors for you.
It is that I repeat the same thing to you. It is a somewhat absurd balance or one that is not up to me to do so I don’t think it makes much sense for you to insist. It has good things and bad things, like everything else, but it is something that is beyond my control so I don’t have to think about it any more.
Documenting myself for the interview has given me the feeling that you are a reader more of classics than of contemporary authors. Is that so?
My interest in the classics is more for training. In my adolescence I read almost exclusively classics, especially Hispanic Americans. In fact, it’s not a joke, when I got to second year of high school, I had already read practically all the works included in the syllabus. You could say that the classics are my writing school.
And what contemporary authors do you like?
There are many authors of the 21st century that I like a lot: Houellebecq, Carrère, Javier Marías … And so younger I love, for example, Karina Sainz Borgo.
Come on, not to mention Sally Rooney (laughs).
I bought the book Normal people right now, but I haven’t started it yet. Look, I’m reading a book by an Argentine author that I’m really liking. Is named Salvatierra by Pedro Maiaral (Libros del asteroide, 2021).
How has the Madrilenian cultural circle taken The floral games?
The collectives, although it seems that they do in the news, do not speak; it is the people who speak.
Yes, man, but in the novel there are characters that can be easily recognized in real life … If you are even there in person.
But they are profiles more than real people. I don’t think anyone reads the book and says “fuck, if this is me, what a bastard.” Maybe there are people who find some satirical parts a bit unfair and other people who find it very funny and laugh at themselves. That’s why I start the book by laughing at myself. That sets the rules of a game in which I am going to laugh at certain things but whoever I do it first is me. So I don’t think there are people who have been hurt by this book or portrayed in a bad way.
But have you had any feedback? It does not have to be negative, as you yourself said before.
People of all extremes have approached. From congratulating me on the book to telling me that he didn’t like it, but nobody has told me “this portrait that you make of this group of people, of this environment is unfair, it is incorrect” …
Or that it is certain …
Well, that maybe they have told me a little more but come on, in general there has been no problem in that regard.
You have just had your first controversy in networks, do you think your statements were misinterpreted in The Objective?
It is an issue that is beyond my control so no, I do not think I have to assess it in any way because, for what?
Wouldn’t you like to qualify anything now that you have the opportunity?
I repeat. It is something that is beyond my control and, for what?
The floral games (NARRATIVE SPASA)
Photos | Jay gambin