Kristin Hannah publishes 'The Four Winds', a "foreboding" novel
The Great Depression, a weather crisis, and the strength of women in this period they make up 'The Four Winds', the new novel by American writer Kristin Hannah which, published in a "premonitory" way, reminds the reader that "difficult times occur, but they are overcome."
"The main message of the book resonates with today, it is a reminder that hard times occur, they arrive. It is important to remember that our ancestors went through wars, depressions, droughts ... they survived and ultimately prospered, "Kristin Hannah tells Efe in an interview about her book" The Four Winds. "
Kristin Hannah (California, 1960), author of works such as 'El Ruiseñor' and 'El baile de las luciérnagas', which now reaches the platform Netflix, has published this April in Spain 'Los cuatro vientos' (Penguin Random House), a historical novel set in Texas during the Great Depression, a period of economic crisis to which the climatic crisis is added through major droughts known as' dust bowl '(bowl of powder).
"I seek to talk about the way one overcomes difficulties. We are all connected, climatologically, sociologically ... I would love for people to realize we need to be together, help each other much more than what we are doing ", reels the American.
In this context, Hannah tells the story of Elsa Walcott, a woman with "little self-esteem and opportunities, who accepts her life as a vision established by others", and who you will have to choose between fighting for the land you love or going far in search of a better life. "She goes from being a fragile and fearful woman to a true warrior who finds her voice and wants to speak for herself."
The genesis of the book came to the mind of the author after finishing writing her work 'The Nightingale', which talks about the women of the resistance in World War II. "Many readers wrote to tell me that important female figures had been lost in fiction. So I started looking for stories about fundamental issues that women have faced throughout history," she says.
This search culminated in the Great Depression, a scenario in which he began to delve four years ago to result in a work marked by the fnature of its protagonist, which came almost by chance. "I had three-quarters of a book when Elsa arrived as a secondary character, there was something about her that stood out. So I plucked up the courage to drop everything I had done and started from scratch," Hannah adds.
"Is very important to remind ourselves of how mistreated women have been throughout history, and how strong we can be ", reels the writer, whose stories stand out for the complexity and depth of their female characters." I try to create authentic human beings, who move throughout history as characters of flesh and blood and not as prototypes, "he explains.
Characters that run through a complex scenario, in which they converge from the problems of emigration and climate change to the abrupt difference between rich and poor, subjects that marked in 1930 and that are pertinent today. "It's a way I choose to explain that history always repeats itself. I would never have thought that the book would be published in a pandemic, it makes even more sense than when I wrote it," he tells Efe.
"What I have learned by writing this book is to understand, among other things, the importance of the climate in the economy, and how the roots that people had in their land made them stay there to try to survive", explains the author , who affirms that as has happened with 'The dance of the fireflies', you would like the format to be able to fit the screen, aware that "the message is difficult to adapt."
