“Human beings need a rebirth in their self-esteem so as not to feel inferior to machines”

“Some of the most tragic moments were written with tears in my eyes,” he says. Cristina Perez about his latest book, written in part during a difficult personal time he had to go through.

“It is an incomplete biography; Simonetta -Vespucci, the key muse of Sandro Botticelli- It’s almost history, myth and legend. This year, in addition, I discovered that his figure is the influencer of Italy for tourism: Simonetta in the Colosseum, Simonetta in Venice, like a cartoon that represents the country,” he adds about one of the central characters of his new novel Time to be reborn (Plaza & Janes).

“I remember it was a Monday, I had gone to sleep and my husband had gone to Mendoza, so I was alone,” says the author, renowned journalist and TV and radio host. “I had a dream that to this day seems strange to me, because it does not refer to themes that had precedent for me,” she reveals. And she details that during “a fleeting moment” of the dream she saw a girl on her back, standing in front of the painting. The birth of Venusof Sandro Botticelli. The girl made gestures and the woman in the painting imitated themand also vice versa.

“In the dream one can be the director of the film, he knows what is happening. I perceived that sensation of this woman who She saw herself and wondered if it was her, if she had been that woman portrayed. in the painting,” he adds.

“Simonetta is history, myth and legend. This year, in addition, I discovered that her figure is the influencer of Italy for tourism”

This is how the idea to write his book arose, “the lives of two women intertwined by Botticelli’s most famous painting”, as it reads on the cover.

Helena, the girl who, as in a dream, observes the painting, begins regression therapy that leads her to learn first-hand about the life of Simonetta Vespucci and to investigate her connection with her. Through a past life therapythe young Italian model, who walks the streets and corners of Florence for work reasons, goes from the present to the time of the Renaissance.

“To write a novel, to make that sustained effort, I need an idea that is powerful enough, that can be self-sufficient and that allows me to create a small universe, the fervent desire to write,” Pérez reflects. And he adds that there is “an interesting part” which is never knowing how the initial engine, fundamental for the development of the story, will present itself.

“A while ago I took a trip to Italy with the plan of taking notes, because I was sure I would find an idea,” says Pérez. “We came back from the trip and I hadn’t found it.” But she did bring “a lot of disjointed notes, places that caught my attention, details that I had allowed myself to be stimulated by.”

From Florence I knew the light schedules, tours of the city and its different textures. But without that visit – which he made in 2015 especially to study art history-, he considers, writing the book would have been impossible.

Later, still under the effects of “the dislocation caused by travel, that effect by which, as they say, the body returns before the soul,” he had the inspiring dream. “It had two moments: one that referred to the Past Lives and another was in which I appeared with the computer half tilted, like when writing in a hurry. That part of the dream led me to jump out of bed and sit down to write what I remembered.”

The biggest surprise came when he began to search for who had been the inspiring muse of Botticelli’s painting, something he had never asked himself before. “There directly appeared that force that could no longer be contained, because I stayed locked in my house for 5 days searching for historical facts, in a state of greed, of desperation,” says Pérez. And when she already had a “case” she met with the editors who, delighted, encouraged her to advance in writing the psychic thriller, with regressions to past lives and exhaustive historical research.

“This book comes wrapped in a mystery,” says the author of The dark ladyhis previous book, about Shakespeare’s muse.

“I think there is an important element there, because it maintains that dream characteristic throughout history,” he considers. And he adds that one of his sources was Aby Warburg, a German historian who devoted much of his time to studying the reinterpretation of art during the Renaissance. “He says that the notion of a timeless organization of meanings, forms and emotions crosses peoples and civilizations,” he says. “I believe that what he does is dedicate himself to the emotional life of paintingsthat which cannot be recovered in a laboratory and that is impossible to understand with the technical analysis of the work, but that is produced in this coordinate in which the viewer encounters it, and there is an emotional transfer that cannot be drive”.

“I think that in part my book is about the feeling of beauty,” says the author. “And about the transformative power of art. Those elements are there. Dedicated to an era colored by Lorenzo the magnificenta time of appetite for beauty, a very important creative source.”

According to him, the book is discussing beauty. But “not to reach a conclusion, but rather shows it as a diamond with prisms, sides, different facets. Because beauty can also find particular formulas.”

-And how is beauty understood today?

-Today we have a discussion about what it has to be, as if there had to be a single definition. I think it may be Helena’s ancient beauty; androgynous beauty, for the girl who has the best results in castings; Simonetta’s, which is a more voluptuous beauty, more real, because her body is. But it is beauty as an object and as integration with the good, the beauty of antiquity and the beauty reconciled after the Middle Ages with Neoplatonic thinking; beauty as an integration between the beautiful and the good. In the book there is like a game in which, far from proposing a war to impose this beauty, it seems to me that it leads the reader to search for their own definition of it.

“In the book there is like a game that leads the reader to search for their own definition of beauty”

-What is there for you about the search for beauty in writing a book?

-I am trained in classical literature. So far from the disruptive search that more contemporary authors have, since the emergence of modern authors, there are detractors of poetry because it is more complicated, less massive, they seek sobriety, the economy of words, something that I I love reading it Hemingwaybut I respond to say a more classical school, where I still like to look for the musicality of the paragraphs, paint while I write, use adjectives in a playful way for the reader, where there are small games of meaning, images that generate beauty.

“I respond to a more classical school, I still like to look for the musicality of the paragraphs, paint while I write, use adjectives in a playful way”

Another way I look for beauty is in the organization of my books: with classic parameters. First, in the action, the ideal of classical drama. But also introspection, that’s why I say it’s a thriller psychic. To find this I first need to do an electrocardiogram from the book. I work on the synopsis of each chapter; First I have the research, from there I separate elements, I set a timeline. This way of working allows me to make the chapters pieces that fit together perfectly. Because a book like this, full of small data connected to each other, cannot be done any other way. For me this method is a way to seek harmony.

-Is this writing system similar to your way of handling yourself in life?

-I am very disciplined. I always went out to look for what my heart asked for, my vocation. Some divorce discipline from passion, I believe they are allies. But in that background of discipline, preparation and passion, I am not a person who clings to the ways of others, in life. I always wanted to have my own formula, even if that contradicted others. I may be classic in deployment but I am a disruptive person. I have been working in the news for a long time, that gives a more conservative image, but I am a woman who from a very young age said ‘I am not going to get married and I am not going to have children.’ I dedicated myself to my profession, only now at 50 years old did I get engaged and I am in a stable couple with certain more formal canons of organization, but all my life I was a very free woman. Since I was a child. And I think that also unfolds when I write. That’s where you feel your true wings.

“All my life I was a very free woman. Since I was a child. And I think that also unfolds when I write. That’s where you feel your true wings”

-Do you let yourself become passionate about the topics during the writing process?

-The writing of this particular book was a revelation. To this day I tell it and it makes me deeply happy. I think that the time he talks about was beautiful, because it is when the human being once again placed himself at the center of the universe. He no longer punishes himself for desire, for bodies, for beauty. He reconciles and does not impose limits on himself. It changes the medieval meaning – in which man has to be submissive – for that of man who, on the contrary, to exalt the divine must try to achieve it through art and set goals to achieve.

“Human beings need a rebirth in their self-esteem so as not to feel inferior to machines, nor in their experiences and possibilities”

It is a time that heralds great discoveries. These Italian States with great competition, in which meritocracy emerges, I believe should serve as an inspiration in the present. The human being needs a rebirth in his self-esteem so as not to feel inferior to machines, nor in his experiences and possibilities. This is what the Renaissance offers. Ultimately, what will remain will be what the human spirit is capable of forging.