Character Interview: Emiliana Erriquez & Alina from “Leave Me Alone”
Please welcome Alina, from Leave Me Alone by Emiliana Erriquez. Thank you both for being here!
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Mia: What is the name of the book where we’ll find you? Can you tell us a little about it?
Alina: The book where I live in is Leave me alone and it was written by Emiliana Erriquez. It tells two stories that somehow cross one with the other. The first is about a young girl who suffered from anorexia in the past and tries to give a sense to her life again, the second is about me – Alina – who live away from her. We are both main characters but we aren’t in completion for it, on the contrary, somehow we feel empathy with one another.
Mia: Tell us a little about yourself. Where do you fit into the story? What should we know about you?
Alina: I’m a child who lives with her family in a little town in Beslan. I have a special relationship with my mother, the most important person in my life. I’m going to school when you meet me in the book but, after some hours, I experienced one of the most horrible event a child can do. I appear in the second chapter, very soon, and till the end you can read about me. Just one thing about me: please don’t think I’m not real. I am.
Mia: What do you think of the author? Be honest. We won’t tell.
Alina: Well, she’s not a bad person and I’m not angry with her, she is a writer and I understand it. But you know what writers do with their characters: they don’t treat them the way they would like. Anyway, I think she tried her best to tell about my story and my feelings. She haven’t ever forgotten I’m a child, just a child, even if she decided to make me live the things she wrote. I’ve learnt, thanks to her, life isn’t always the way we hope it to be.
Mia: How do you feel about the story you’re in?
Alina: The story I live in is sad, you know. And if I have the power to rewrite it I wouldn’t have made it end that way. But I’m telling this because I’m a child and children always think there is an happy ending in every story, they need to know it to grow up better I suppose.
Mia: Do you like being a character in the book?
Alina: Yes, after all, I like to be in Leave me alone. It gave me the possibility to think about so many things, to understand what’s really important in my life and even to grow.
Mia: How do you see your future? Without giving anything away about the story, naturally.
Alina: I’m not sure about giving this answer but what I can say is that, even if I lived what I lived, I will find the way to feel safe and maybe, just maybe, have some kind of rest, to recover from it. Somehow.
Mia: What do you know about your author’s plans? Can we expect to see you in any future stories?
Alina: I don’t think so. But who really knows? About my author’s plans, I’m sure she is writing another book now, directly in English, and it’s quite different from the one I live in. It’s a story about love, loss, regrets. She was inspired after a recent trip to New York City. You can’t talk to her these days, or even spend some time with her, she’s always writing in her room and doesn’t like to be interrupted when she does it. When she writes, she behave this way. You know how writers are.
Mia: Let’s say they make a movie about this book. Who do you want to play you, and why?
Alina: I would like to have a nice little girl playing my role, you know I’m vain and I know I’m really beautiful but you’ll find it written in Leave me alone if you read it. I like to wear beautiful dresses, I want to be the most beautiful girl in the school and for a brief moment, maybe, I am.
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Author Bio: Emiliana Erriquez was born in Foggia, Italy in 1977. She is married and has a little child. She has a Master of Arts and a Master in Translation (English-Italian). She is a free-lance translator since 2004 and a journalist since 2007, she worked for some newspapers in Italy and directed for some time the economic website ‘Helloimpresa’.
She won the prestigous Giuseppe Sciacca Award in 2006 with an essay called ‘Oriana Fallaci: una vita vissuta in pienezza’ about the well-known Italian author and journalist.
She published her first novel ‘Lasciami stare’ in 2007 with Giovane Holden Edizioni. Now the novel is available on Amazon, in kindle edition (KDP) in English with the title of ‘Leave me alone’. She is now writing her second novel. Readers can find her on: Twitter (@emyerriquez) and on Facebook, Goodreads and Pinterest (Emiliana Erriquez)
Author Blog: http://mywritingisindie.blogspot.it/
Buy Link: Amazon
