I have never understood the distinction of gender in the literary field, because those who really value literature, we will never analyze whether it is the author or author who has written a text, but we will value the work itself, for its literary quality and for the values that you can give us, but never, if you really love literature, and you have respect for what a literary composition implies, you will never value a work by the genre of who wrote it. A literary work will never work better or worse because it was written by a writer or a writer, that should be very clear to all.

However, I am aware that not all those who declare themselves unconditional of the literature think about that neutrality of authorship that should be given to the literary creation at the time of its assessment, and hence we are forced to continue with the need to use hashtags as #LeoAutorasOct that has resulted in the # LeoAutorastodoelaño, or in the usual #ReadWomen or #ReadMoreWomen, and, although personally as a writer, I do not like to use them because it makes this situation of imbalance even more evident in which clearly Women are always looked down on, think it is socially necessary to reinvigorate the good work of women writers, given the counterproductive undervaluation of literature written by women. The same happens with the Día de las Escritoras, celebrated today.

Without pretending, I discovered myself this year, reading more women writers than men writers, but not because I selected the genre when selecting the book, but because the book I was looking for, coincidentally written by women, gave me much more, or attracted me more at that time, than other titles in the market. So this year I discovered the author wonderful, no matter the type of book because from essay, poetry or even referring to much more commercial literature.
Many will say: “The woman writer is very fashionable, there is a normal” boom of writers “who read more writers now” and we will fall back into the error of the genre, but the truth is that I have not read-only authors who are literary novelty in the market, but I have also read consolidated authors who are part of the history of literature, such as Ursula K. Le Guin, Virginia Woolf, Shirley Jackson, Simone de Beauvoir …
I used to have literary conversations with my friends, collaborators, readers, etc … And in one of the literary conversations with Katiuscia Darici, translator of my book “Clandestina” into Italian, I recommended reading a writer who was for me unknown until now: Luna Miguel, author of “El coloquio de las perras “ ( published by Capitan Swing) .

I remember that last week I went through one of my usual bookstores in my city, the bookstore “La Temeraria” in Terrassa, and in addition to collecting my copy of “Sòrcieres” writen by Mona Chollet ( Megustaleer) and it has been a brutal success, and take the poetry book “Dins del roure dorm el tro” by the local Terrassa poet  Pep Cortés ( Tushita Edicions), ran into Luna Miguel’s book, and decided to take it to my library, following the recommendations of my Italian translator.

Well, through Luna Miguel’s book, I am discovering countless Spanish-speaking writers who have been “silenced” for the mere fact of being women, or who have simply been destined to be in the shade because they are “wives of “Or being women very different from the women of the times in which they lived, because they are women with a vision of the future, much more advanced to their time … The truth is that reading Luna Miguel, I also discover the movement #Metooescritoresmexicanos or #Metooescritores, where initially Mexican writers denounced the inequalities (let’s say so) lived in the publishing sector in their country. It cannot be said that I declare myself a fan, very a fan of Luna Miguel from these readings and cultural contributions to my literary vocation. But, it is also true, that these readings around the situation experienced by the mere fact of being a woman lead me to a reflection almost underlined in fluorescent, capital and glowing such neon light by the alarm that awakens me: Do we find the Witches about was talking Silvia Federici in her book “Caliban y la Bruja”? Or the ones that Mona Chollet also commented in her successful book “Sòrcieres”? That eternal witch hunt that we seem to be destined to live whatever the time and whatever the sector where we work.

Let us reflect on this, although we know that we still have many fires to put out, let’s move on, as we say between my translator and friend Katiuscia Darici and I, we introduce in our daily conversations, inspired by the wonderful Carmen Martín Gaite in her book “Nubosidad Variable” : “Go ahead, woman, always go ahead.”