Montse Bizarro: Writing as a nakedness of the soul

"I started writing when I was very young. For me, it was a way to analyze reality and express myself, because socially I was very clumsy. Telling stories had something cathartic that helped me overcome anxiety and it was one of the few things I was really good at". Leaning on the bar, wiping the foam of the freshly poured Estrella Galicia beer from the corner of her lips, writer Montse Bizarro enjoys a moment of absolute silence in the Bar. No music, no hustle and bustle, no stimuli that could fall like blows to the head and spirit.

"And I started winning awards with my stories," she continues. Jocs Florals in childhood, and Òmnium Cultural in adolescence. But what radically changed her relationship with letters was taking the Master's in Literary Creation at Pompeu Fabra and a writing workshop with Mexican Juan Pablo Villalobos. "That not only helped me bring discipline to writing, but, above all, it made me realize that I could stop living writing as an absolutely solitary act, as a kind of curse."

The writer remembers with great affection that "luminous stage," after a childhood and adolescence riddled with school bullying: the moral manure that fertilizes the most repugnant essences of tomorrow's adults. "I wrote and talked with other people who wrote, and we spent the day talking about books and taking things from within to turn them into stories."

In addition to this immersion in the literary ethos, in those days Montse became involved in activism for mental health issues through the Obertament association and the Aprenem Foundation, with which she proudly continues to work. Finally, three years ago she was diagnosed with a form of autism. "That, whether you like it or not, I experienced as a giant relief, because it helped me put many things about myself into perspective". At that time, she was already immersed in writing what has been her recently published debut novel, Mañana ya no hablaremos de nada (Almadía), "which took me five years to write, between one thing and another."

The matured voice

When a writer is read and the words they have put together, the ideas they have built and developed, are within reach of thousands of eyes with other contexts, lives, and interpretations, in a way, they are being stripped bare. Which is what, on the one hand, the writer wanted and, on the other, what gave them apprehension. "I am an experiential author, with all the emotional difficulty that entails when it comes to explaining what has been lived to fictionalize it, and also due to the fact that, no matter how much you change and camouflage them, you expose facts that, in addition to being very personal, also involve other people," reflects Montse, who bases her story on a toxic relationship that, despite its relative brevity, marked her very deeply.

"In the years it took me to write the book, my voice matured, it tempered." Possibly, it's not that the initial rage and pain disappeared, but rather that, with the taking of distance, that emotional storm calmed down and the focus broadened to contain all the ingredients that allow a living narrative to take multidimensional form. But there's more. "The book breaks a taboo about the idea of safe spaces in relationships between women. That's a myth. Relationships between us can be just as toxic and violent as any other."

The writer is happy. Her debut work shows her that she has managed to discipline her chaotic temperament and discipline herself to write. Separately, she works at Specialisterne, a foundation that for 20 years has been dedicated to the labor inclusion of people with autism and other diagnoses within neurodiversity. "I feel comfortable, because I realize that I no longer have to break myself trying to fit in. That I can live and work being myself, without the feeling of being broken."

LGTBI Oasis

In Mañana ya no hablaremos de nada, Barcelona is very present, as it could not be otherwise for the parishioner who fell in love with the literary city reading Carlos Ruiz Zafón. "But this city is also my roots, my people, my family, my corners: a comfort zone where I feel at ease and from which I go to other places, although lately I believe that the tourist pressure we endure is excessive."

A traveling spirit, the writer values Barcelona's LGTBI world, "where we all know each other and you can be yourself, something you realize when you travel abroad. How many places do my partner and I have to be careful in!" she reflects on the many dangerous places for same-sex couples. And she takes the last sip of her beer.

---In this Bar all couples are welcome, especially to sink their teeth into our amazing gastronomic offer. In case you want another beer and something to eat with it.

Montse Bizarro sketches a smile and thinks about it for a moment, before opting for some tapas. "I like to try a little bit of everything," she specifies with appetite.