French author Anne Serre revealed that she begins all her fiction books with "a sentence that imposed itself at the end of a dream", while Portuguese writer Ana Margarida de Carvalho indicated that her ideas arise more from images. The two authors discussed the topic on Friday evening, October 9th, at the FÓLIO – International Literary Festival of Óbidos, moderated by Ana Sousa Dias.
"I started all my books with a sentence that imposed itself on me, upon waking, at the end of a dream I had just had. I felt that sentence contained a book," explained Anne Serre. She admitted, however, that sometimes she was mistaken, thinking the sentence contained a "manufactured" story that she only had to write, but after 10 pages, "it wasn't worth insisting".
Ana Margarida de Carvalho, a former journalist and film critic, explained that her ideas arise more from an image, justifying that "we are from a generation full of visual memories". However, she noted that words also have an impact, and she likes "to complicate, to embrace chaos, disorientation, and misunderstanding".
Influenced by painting and cinema, Anne Serre expressed a "great passion" for the work of Federico Fellini, to whom she continues to refer in her books. She admitted that, over time, she has become less interested in the sublime and more in "faces, bodies", and that "all the paintings and films I have seen enter my imagination and dance together".
Ana Margarida de Carvalho assured that her characters "almost have no face". When asked about choosing a quote from Fernando Pessoa to start her short story collection, Anne Serre explained that the work groups together stories told by different narrators, as "our perspective depends on who we are" and "we create worlds that do not exist" because "this world does not fully satisfy us".
Ana Margarida de Carvalho revealed that novels are "very embarrassing" and she would prefer to write under a pseudonym, as her books "are very much me", with "our past, what torments us". "Childhood never leaves us", she added, stating that "we drag things from the past throughout our lives".
Both writers prefer to detach themselves from world events when they write. Anne Serre stated that "the world can fall apart and I continue to write the same story". Ana Margarida de Carvalho questioned the social regression and the leniency with which negative events are allowed to happen, comparing the attitude of Portuguese people to "a people of mild protests".
