An Interview with Paula Ramón, author of MOTHERLAND: A Memoir and her editor, Alexandra Torrealba

In the span of a generation, oil-rich Venezuela spiraled into a dire state of economic collapse. Journalist Paula Ramón experienced the crisis firsthand as her middle-class family saw their quality of life deteriorate. In her deeply personal new book MOTHERLAND: A Memoir, Ramón poignantly and eloquently recounts what it was like growing up in Venezuela when Hugo Chávez won his first election through his death and beyond. Translated by the talented Julia Sanches and Jennifer Shyue, MOTHERLAND will be published in English for the first time by Amazon Crossing on October 31, 2023.

An Interview with Paula Ramón, author of MOTHERLAND: A Memoir and her editor, Alexandra Torrealba

Alexandra: One of the most heartbreaking casualties of the situation that has unfolded in Venezuela for the past few decades has been the breaking of families. It’s not unusual today to be Venezuelan and have relatives spread out throughout the world, be it in neighboring Colombia or as far away as Australia. Leaving is many times a conscious decision backed with a will to prevail, but it can also be a deeply unbearable choice that leaves you feeling untethered to everything and everyone. As the years have gone by, having finished your memoir, do you ever reflect on your mother’s choice to stay in Venezuela, even as every one of your family members were fleeing? Is there anything you would have loved to tell her today, if you had the chance?

Paula: My mom, as well as many older Venezuelans, didn’t have a realistic choice to leave Venezuela. Leaving the country is not easy even when you are young, but when you are older and have chronic health problems – like my mom – it becomes almost impossible without the proper resources to take care of details like insurance, medical care or adequate housing. But there is also the issue of building a new life in your 60s or 70s, far away from everything and everyone you know. Since I couldn’t afford the proper conditions for her to leave, I came up with the idea of taking her to her hometown even though she was uneasy about leaving her house, leaving what was familiar to her. If I had the chance, I would tell her that I am sorry for feeling overwhelmed most of the time, for losing sight of what was really important.

Alexandra: The concept of identity is something that we all grapple with as immigrants. But, drawing even from my own personal experience as a Venezuelan immigrant like you, I think coming to terms with who you are in a new country can be so incredibly conflicting: on one hand, you may be grateful for your new home, your newfound safety and stability, but on the other hand, there is something absolutely gut-wrenching about looking back at your home country and knowing it’s in shambles, and that in many ways, there’s no going back. How would you say your personal journey has shaped the many facets of your identity? Has writing this book changed your perception of yourself in any way?

Paula: It is exactly that, I felt guilty every time that something good happened in my life, or when I bought something extra for myself knowing that it was a luxury. In general, though, my personal journey made me think a lot about my dad. Things that he told me when I was a kid suddenly gained meaning. I could understand now how he felt in between countries, when he left Spain and arrived in Venezuela: why the identity issue was so important to him and why he never managed to be from here or there. Writing the book sank that feeling of rootlessness into me. And ironically it pushed me in his direction. After I wrote my memoir, I suddenly wanted to know more about him. I wanted to find his roots in the hope that they could become a new soil for me to embrace, because that feeling of not belonging can be excruciating.

Alexandra: Let’s talk about your writing process. Writing a memoir is already an innately intimate experience: it requires facing fears, recognizing regrets, and sometimes even finding forgiveness. In the case of writing MOTHERLAND, it also meant visiting painful parts of both your own and your country’s journey. Was this story already written out in your mind? What was the research process like for you?

Paula: Not at all. The book was originally going to be about how my mom and I navigated the challenges of living in Venezuela from afar. She died during that initial process and at the beginning I didn’t see the point of writing. When we discussed the idea of narrating the Venezuelan contemporary story through my family’s experience, I had an idea of what I wanted to do, a skeleton of content, but adding the flesh to it was painful. I tried to open the emails and messages my mom and I exchanged, and I couldn’t bring myself to read them. It was difficult even to see our photos together. But it was more than that: it meant I had to remember, and remembering was sad. Something that helped me was music, I made a list with my parent’s favorite songs and played it in a loop. The words, and the tears, quickly followed.

Alexandra: In retrospect, now that you’ve finished writing the book, have you learned anything new about yourself or your family that you’d like to share?

Paula: I think I understand my parents and their difficult decisions better. I saw them in a new light, and it made me even more grateful for having them, but it also gave me permission to be more compassionate with myself. It made me see that what we went through was overwhelming and tremendous, and we did what we could with the tools we had at hand.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR AND TRANSLATORS: 

Paula Ramón is a Venezuelan journalist who has lived and worked in China, the United  States, Brazil, and Uruguay. She is currently a correspondent for Agence France-Presse, based in Los Angeles. She has written and reported for the New York Times, National  Geographic, Columbia Journalism Review, and Piauí magazine, among other outlets. 

Julia Sanches is a literary translator working from Portuguese, Spanish, and Catalan into English. Born in São Paulo, Brazil,  she lives in New England. She is a founding member of Cedilla & Co., a collective of translators committed to making international voices heard in English, and chair of the Translators Group of the Authors Guild. 

Jennifer Shyue is an accomplished translator from Brooklyn, NY focusing on contemporary Cuban and Asian-Peruvian writers, translating both poetry and prose. Her work has been published in Poetry Magazine, McSweeney’s, and Guernica,  among other literary journals. 

MOTHERLAND: A MEMOIR

From Venezuelan reporter Paula Ramón comes a powerful memoir about one woman’s complicated relationship with her family as her beloved homeland collapses into ruin.

In the span of a generation, oil-rich Venezuela spiraled into a dire state of economic collapse. Reporter Paula Ramón experienced the crisis firsthand as her middle-class family saw their quality of life deteriorate.

Public services no longer functioned. Money lost its value. Her mother couldn’t afford to buy food, which was increasingly scarce. The once-prosperous country fell into ruin. Like many others, Ramón’s family struggled to survive each day in their beloved city, Maracaibo―until, one by one, they each made the unbearable choice to leave the home they love.

In the end, it was Ramón’s mother, a widow, who stayed behind, loyal to the only home she’d ever known. In this heartbreaking mix of lived experience, family chronicle, and journalistic essay, Paula Ramón explores the anguish of her own relationships set against the staggering collapse of a country.

Motherland is a uniquely human account about the ties that bind―and the fragile concept of home.

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Category: Interviews, On Writing