An international renowned writer at Hotel Sauce: Interview with Anne Perry

Our new guest on this edition of Interviews is an international renowned writer. She is the author of more than fifty novels , she has sold over 25 million copies and she has written one of the most successful sagas of the last years.

She came to Zaragoza to collect the Honour Prize from the Festival Aragón Negro: a novel, film, comic, and photography series about noir gender. We are pleased to introduce you to Anne Perry.

The purpose of your visit to our city is “Aragón Negro”, a novel, film, comic, and photography festival about noir gender. What is your impression about this initiative?

I think Aragon Negro is a wonderful idea and will give encouragement and new ideas to writers and artists of all sorts.

Your work is very large and varied, but your detective cycle is maybe the most celebrated one. Do you feel comfortable when they classify you as a noir genre writer?

I accept being classified as a noir writer, but I do like to have the historical books set in World War One included as well because I care of them very much.

You have sold 24 million copies and have written more than 50 novels. How can you keep this creative rate of development without lowing the quality of your works?

I hope to improve the quality of my work. I am always learning and mean each book to be on some way better than the ones before. I think this is with most writers.

Your most popular character is a London police inspector of the middle of XIX Century. An amnesiac detective that needs to solve the crimes and at the same time the mystery of his own past. How did you come up with this brilliant starting point?

The idea for Monk, the amnesiac detective is that when we investigate others we do not know why they acted as they did, but with ourselves we do, and therefore are more merciful. The journey is to learn to be as patient and willing to judge as mercifully with others as we are with ourselves.

Today it is a bad time for the publishing industry. The new technologies, the piracy have completely changed the literary landscapes. What do you think about this, is it an opportunity or a threat?

I think the new technology is going to happen however much we like it or not, so we need to adapt to it, and concentrate on what is good, the wider opportunities, and the fact that eBooks cannot last forever and be sold and resold with not benefit to the author as paper books are. There are benefits as well as disadvantages.

Being a writer and presenting your books will enable you to travel around the world. What is the weirdest thing ever happened to you in a hotel?

Weirdest thing in a hotel? Handsome funny conversation on elevators! Weirdest? Being asked if the Presidential suite would be acceptable for me. OH YES!

What peculiar item you should not miss in your suitcase?

Decent soap. You would be surprised who does not provide it. And perhaps decent soap handkerchief tissues.

Did you have some free time to explore and discover the city? What do you think about Zaragoza?

Zaragoza is fascinating and very beautiful city. Such history! Love it. Art, buildings, streets , wind even worse than ours in Scotland. Lovely people, most important. Very impressed with how wonderfully you have treasured and preserved your superb heritage. You should be very proud of that.

Do you think that Zaragoza could be an interesting scenery for one of your novels?

Yes indeed, I have a book I need to rewrite one day. Set in Aragon in 1485. Now I know it should be Zaragoza in particular. Where else!