Cristina Bendek, author of 'Salt Crystals' - Caribbean writer talks about needing the rain, writing to discover identity, and how poetry reminds her of what's important
Writer's Routine
Dan Simpson
4.9 • 599 Ratings
🗓️ 28 October 2022
⏱️ 49 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week, we chat to Cristina Bendek. Her novel 'Salt Crystals' was published in 2018, and won the Elisa Mujica National Novel Prize. It's about the island of San Andres, and Victoria trying to make sense of everything. It's just been translated and published in the UK.
We talk about how it's a slightly autobiographical novel, reflecting on Cristina's own time in an island trying to figure out its place in the world. We talk about the geopolitical situation of it, and how that influenced why she wanted to write the book. You can hear why rain is the best thing for her writing, why setting a word count doesn't work, and how much she thinks about words and language in her prosaic writing.
You can hear why chatting to yourself is key, why she needed to plan this one out more before she started, and what it was like working with a translator.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, welcome to a brand new episode of writers' routine. This week we're chatting to |
| 0:12.8 | Christina Bendek. Her novel Salt Crystals was published in 2018. It won the Elisa Mojica |
| 0:19.4 | Prize for Novels, and it's just been translated and |
| 0:22.1 | released in the UK. We talk about why speaking to yourself is key, really helps you carry on |
| 0:28.0 | when you're writing. Also, how poetry reminds her what she needs to do, and you can hear what |
| 0:33.4 | she needs to plan before she starts. What I do need to keep very clear is the sort of paradigm from which the whole narrative |
| 0:42.4 | will operate. |
| 0:43.3 | This is very important because if not, if we don't have this clear, then the voice will |
| 0:47.9 | just not work. |
| 0:50.6 | So maybe yes, for longer texts than you do need to know. |
| 0:55.9 | Otherwise, you can get lost very easily and it will be very frustrating. |
| 1:00.4 | There is loads more. |
| 1:01.2 | We really get deep in this one. |
| 1:02.6 | It's Christina Bendek and a brand new writer's routine. |
| 1:17.8 | Yes, welcome along. It's writers routine where we take a look around the working day, |
| 1:22.9 | the life, the space of some of the best authors on the planet. My name is Dan Simpson. |
| 1:27.8 | Thank you for being there for following, sharing, finding us, telling anyone, shouting it down. So I don't care, as long as thank you so much for being there. This week, we are with Christina Bendek, |
| 1:33.4 | who is a Caribbean author. She was born on the island of San Andres, and in 2018, she explored |
| 1:41.2 | her relationship with the island in salt crystals. |
| 1:46.2 | It won the Elisa Muzica National Novel Prize, which is a huge Colombian novel prize. |
| 1:53.1 | It's been translated into loads of different languages, and it's just come out here in the UK. |
| 1:57.9 | It's all about Victoria trying to make sense of everything, the state of the world, |
... |
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