María Alejandra Barrios Vélez is the author of the new novel The Waves Take You Home. She was born in Barranquilla, Colombia, and she lives in Brooklyn.
Q: What inspired you to write The Waves Take You Home, and how did you create your character Violeta?
A: In 2020, my Abuela’s health declined, as she started to lose her battle with cancer. Due to the pandemic, I couldn’t visit Colombia and say goodbye. My worst fear had happened, and I was left with immense grief.
My Abuela, and her stories, were central to my life and shaped my vision of the world. For me, she represented home and although I had left Colombia, it remained in my heart.
The idea for a novel started to take shape during that year as I reflected on how my relationship to my Abuela and her memory would live on.
After she died, I was left with the idea of her as a ghost. Not in the classic sense, but she remained someone with whom I constantly spoke. I would wonder what she would do or how she would react to a situation, and sometimes I could sense her by my side.
I wanted this book to embody that idea, that you always carry your ancestors with you, and even if you can’t see them, they’re still rooting for you.
I also knew in my bones I wanted this book to be inspired by the stories of the women in my family, and I wanted it to be centered around my interests and what I knew. Like Toni Morrison said, I wanted to write the book I wanted to read.
So, I started writing about a family of women, food, cooking, Barranquilla and New York. This is what I knew.
I also wanted to write about what scared me, and the feeling that my two lives were growing farther away from each other and the repercussions of this pull. There’s an immense amount of sacrifice with the decision of choosing one life instead of the other.
Violeta came to me because I wanted to create a sensitive character grappling with the realities of leading an artistic life. Additionally, it was vital to me that this character was a Latina, brown Colombian woman because that was something that I didn’t grow up seeing in books.
Q: The author Katie Gutierrez called the book a “warm and wise meditation on the ghosts of lives unlived that challenges familiar immigrant narratives and resounds with the voices of three unforgettable women.” What do you think of that description?
A: It was such an honor to receive that blurb from a writer I admire so much. I think it’s spot on since those were the aspects of the book I focused on the most: Immigration, ghosts, and the past that sometimes haunts us and the mistakes that feel so enormous they can jump generations.
At the center of the novel, there are three women: Grandma, mother, granddaughter/daughter (my protagonist). These bonds usually can be so beautiful and complicated. There’s so much that gets passed on to us—so much love, wisdom, and fear.
I wanted The Waves Take You Home to show it all and for readers to really see what it means to be part of these family dynamics and the weight of emotional inheritance.
Q: Did you know how the novel would end before you started writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?
A: Yes, that's the first thing that came to me! I didn't outline The Waves Take You Home, but I used the ending I had in my head to guide me.
A lot changed while writing the novel, but I always knew that I wanted that ending. It was essential for me that Violeta would have a reckoning with herself and her heritage and start to find her path.
Q: How was the book's title chosen, and what does it signify for you?
A: The title was a collaboration with my editor, Melissa Valentine. I learned that it is common in publishing for a manuscript to have many titles before it lands on the definitive one. There were many iterations before arriving at The Waves Take You Home.
I love this title so much! It's evocative and full of longing, two elements that are a big part of the novel. I also love how it talks about the setting of this novel: the beach and the Caribbean, and it also refers to the journey of self-discovery that this character experiences, and the importance of home.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I have several projects that I’m working on! I have a horror novel that I’m drafting set in Colombia and a completed manuscript about two estranged sisters and what happens when the youngest sister RSVPs no to the oldest sister's wedding.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: The Waves Take You Home is my homage to magical realism novels such as Like Water For Chocolate by Laura Esquivel and The House of The Spirits by Isabel Allende—a story about three generations of women and the unbreakable bonds between them, even in the afterlife. Perfect for readers who enjoy narratives centered around cooking, ghosts, love triangles, and self-discovery.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
No comments:
Post a Comment