María Sánchez in conversation with José Antonio Montero
Writer and veterinarian María Sánchez works with local breeds in danger of extinction. In Almáciga, her latest book, she has built a nursery of words that belong to a rural world that, as we look to the other side, we may lose. With Almáciga, as with Cuaderno de Campo and Tierra de Mujeres, an essay that vindicates the role of women in rural areas, María was on literary covers and podiums. In this conversation with José Antonio Montero, we will accompany her on this journey of words through the countryside and rural areas of the Iberian Peninsula. This talk is part of the London Spanish Book and Zine Fair in its third edition. María Sánchez is a writer and veterinarian that works with native breeds in danger of extinction. She regularly collaborates on radio and digital and printed media on literature, feminism, culture and rural areas studies. Her poems have been translated into Portuguese, English, French, Romanian, and Polish. She has won several prizes, including the Rural Pride by Fundación de Estudios Rurales; the National Youth Award by Cultura del Instituto de la Juventud de España (INJUVE), FADEMUR 2019 Award from the Federation of Rural Women's Associations (FADEMUR) for her contribution for the rights of rural women and Prize from the Princess of Girona Foundation for her work as a poet, writer and activist in defense of rural culture and especially the forgotten role of women in the countryside. She is the author of Cuaderno de campo (La Bella Varsovia, 2017), Tierra de Mujeres, her first essay, an intimate and familiar look at the rural world and specially about women and rural areas (Seix Barral, 2019) and Almáciga (Geoplaneta, 2020). José Antonio Montero is a Spanish journalist, geographer and creative director. He is currently a professor of Didactic of Geography and Social and Cultural Environment at the University of Castilla-La Mancha and creative director of the Making UCLM Laboratory, from which he has directed several documentaries, magazines, classical theatre collections and urban artistic intervention projects.
