Isabel del Rio: Writing A Woman Alone
I worked on my recently published memoir ‘A Woman Alone’ for about a decade, recounting not only my own experiences but the historical context in which I grew up. It all began with a poem discussing several dramatic events that I had lived through, and it built up from there.
As the 2020 pandemic so radically changed our lives and brought about such far-reaching consequences, the subjects of Covid-19 and lockdown are ever present throughout the pages of the memoir. Likewise, I also talk about the strokes that I suffered during lockdown, and from which I have been recovering.
Through recollections, notes and reflections, the memoir tells the story of a child of a fascist regime who was brought up in London, and how England became the country she called her own and how English turned out to be her language of choice: a disjointed childhood and adolescence; growing up without a sense of identity; exposure to the death and destruction of those closest; incidents of assault, abuse and gaslighting; a lifelong commitment to both the written word and the spoken word; a compilation of dreams and disappointments; living in a society enforcing archaic and prejudiced beliefs; seeking refuge in the world of make-believe; surviving a repressive political system; and hovering above everything, the memories of a civil war that had torn a country apart, but more so its people.
I wanted to tell a story rather than share a chronicle, and so for readability purposes I dramatised the text, naturally without changing the events themselves. In terms of presentation, I recreated all passages with free-standing segments as in a sequential narrative, and there is certainly a storyline in the book. As to the chronology of events, we could well say that it is somewhat irregular.
The memoir includes an assortment of material, told in fragments: diary entries, snippets of memories, scenes both tragic and comedic, anecdotes and sketches, factual information in order to provide context, joyful events and sad experiences, the symbolic and the hyperbolic, quotes from family and friends and famous figures, sections from my own published fiction and poetry, ideas that I followed up and those that I never set in motion, inventories of what I managed to find and of what I lost along the way. All of it in this and that order, much like a scrapbook.
The book was written in English, except for a number of quotes and excerpts in the original language, most of these in Spanish. These quotes and excerpts appear in italics. I did not translate any quotes, as I wanted to provide the exact original wording. Finally, I decided that the narrator would sometimes speak as ‘I’ and sometimes as ‘she’, a universal ‘she’.
The book also includes several photographs pertaining to the narrative, most of them taken by me.
As a taster, here are a few of the shorter sections from the memoir:
“I wanted everything to happen quickly: children to grow up, responsibilities to end, holidays to arrive, a season to change into the next season. And after this manic race, here I am, so much out of breath.
A new day has just started, and I am not yet ready for it.
In trying to pigeonhole me, he left most of who I was out of the picture.
This is not just lipstick –it is war paint.
So that she does not feel trapped in only one role, she plays many roles, as best she can, and some she enjoys and some she does not. A few of the roles she plays she likes, and they are still going strong. Regarding the roles she has never played but would love to, she is sure that she would be very good at playing them but she has not yet been given the chance. Finally, there are roles that she neither likes nor dislikes, and performs them routinely without eagerness or passion, aware that she could easily live without them, and yet she does nothing to change the course of things because this may weirdly be the only way to fulfil her true destiny.
Más resultó en menos, mucho se convirtió en poco, crecer fue perecer, tanto se quedó en nada.
To my disadvantage, I was led to believe by my family that I was precocious, a real smarty pants. I was soon cut down to size by the real superheroines that I met in my life.
Time can be fast, but at this stage in my life it is mostly reckless.
La ciudad que me vio nacer no me verá morir; las calles que recorrí mil veces no volveré a pisar; los amigos que juran que me conocen, de mí sólo saben mi nombre; los amantes que morirán con una idea desafortunada de lo que fui; yo misma, convencida de que al final todo me será revelado.
“You must rest!” the doctors demand of me. But what can I do, since I am always at the coalface?
She endured, even when wasting away at the edges.
If I stop, it will be the end of me.
I hold all these memories to be nothing but true and real, but then I cannot seek conclusive confirmation of what happened, for there are no survivors from most of the episodes told, places have disappeared, ideas have been superseded.”
—
Bio
Isabel del Rio is a British-Spanish writer and linguist. Born in Madrid, she has lived in London most of her life. She has published fiction and poetry in both English and Spanish. Her books include the short story collection ‘La duda’ (Tusquets Editores), shortlisted for two literary awards in Spain; and ‘Zero Negative-Cero negativo’ (Araña Editorial), a bilingual book on the subject of bloodshed.
Other fiction includes: ‘Paradise & Hell’, ‘Dissent’ and ‘Una muerte incidental’; her poetry includes: ‘Ataraxy’, ‘Madrid, Madrid, Madrid’ and ‘Punto de fuga’. Her most recent books are ‘Dolorem Ipsum: poetry in a time of pain’, a poetry collection dedicated to the victims of the 2020 pandemic, and ‘A Woman Alone: fragments of a memoir’. Isabel is the co-founder of the imprint Friends of Alice Publishing. She regularly takes part in performance poetry, spoken word and literary events, mostly in London. Isabel is also a professional chartered linguist and specialises in literary translation, and her most recent translation (into Spanish) is “The Secret Garden” by FH Burnett, published by Ediciones Siruela in 2020. Isabel’s website is: www.isabeldelrio.com
Social Media Links
Facebook: www.facebook.com/isabel.del.rio.salvador
Instagram: @isabeldrs
Twitter: @isabeldelrio
Website: www.isabeldelrio.com
‘A Woman Alone: fragments of a memoir’ is written in English with quotes and excerpts in Spanish. The book tells the fragmented story of a life lived between two countries, two languages, two cultures. With the spectre of the Spanish Civil War hovering over many of the recollections in the book, the memoir describes the journey from a chequered past in a fascist dictatorship to a hopeful if challenging future where the protagonist affirms her identity both as a woman and as a writer. The book is published by Friends of Alice Publishing (FoA).
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Category: On Writing
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