As a child, she wanted to be a mathematician and an architect. And she also wanted to be Oriana Fallaci, because the taste for telling stories, for explaining observed, questioned, and lived matters, was already there, somewhere in her restless and prolific Quixotic mind. About this passion, she has wandered and stumbled through life without (almost) ever losing a certain playful and self-sufficient dimension. "I am above all a person who loves deep fun and freedom of movement," expresses Victoria Bermejo, leaning on the bar with an evening glass of Albariño. In the background, Ian Dury's Inbetweenies plays, and the writer, filmmaker, and journalist with the soul of a storyteller smiles, satisfied. Amused.
Her first job was at 19 in the Arxiu Històric de Barcelona. "Everything passed through my hands ---she explains---, even an unpublished novel by Raimon Casellas!" Those were six years she remembers with tremendous affection and that ended in style, with a trip to New York in those early 80s, "when everyone was going to Paris or London," a true initiatory feast from which she returned full of ideas and eagerness to do things.
She got into comics and underground press, and that's how she landed in Cairo, subtitled Neotebeo, the magazine that championed the clear line and a new conception of adult comics. There she had the interview section To Know Him Is to Love Him, which these days EfeEme publishing house is recovering in a beautiful volume that collects Victoria's conversations with some champions of that new comic, such as Montesol, Roger, Ramón de España, Tha, or the exponents of the New Valencian School, Daniel Torres, Sento, or Micharmut.
An essential document to understand the transition moment from the counterculture of the previous decade to the 80s which, in those incipient stages, some of its protagonists faced with very interesting creative appetites. "Besides, they really were like that. Really, to know these people was to love them," laughs the regular who ---it shows in every line of these interviews--- had a blast leading this section.
Unexpected Storyteller
Since then, Victoria Bermejo has done a lot, almost everything. Cinema, with the documentaries Barcelona, antes de que el tiempo lo borre and Volver a casa con 50 años ("which we made with Sergi Garriga with very few resources"). She has worked in advertising, she has done television in programs like the mythical Continuará. She lived for a few years in Berlin, where "I found the freedom and creativity that had been lost in Barcelona" and she has written short stories and novels like the acclaimed Sí, lo hice. And in none of these fronts does it seem that she has stopped having deep fun.
"As Ramón Colomina says, my happiness meter is very high. I still wake up every morning wanting to conquer the world and let myself be surprised." And one of those surprises is the fact of discovering herself, at a given moment, a prolific creator of children's and young adult stories.
"It all started when I was commissioned to write short stories for the program Los cuentistas, on Vía Digital. These stories were narrated by a celebrity and ended with an illustration by Miguel Gallardo." One day, she accompanied the cartoonist to Edicions 62 and from that meeting with the publisher came the idea of making storybooks that she would write and he would illustrate. "In total, with him we made about fifteen books, plus others I've been doing, young adult, in addition to scripting Una mà de contes for TV3," explains Victoria, who discovered an unsuspected aspect of herself. "As a child, I read Dickens or Agatha Christie, and then my other great passions were music, with Kevin Ayers, and cinema. But in my childhood and youth, stories didn't have much presence."
City on foot
Apart from her periods living in New York, Berlin and, for a moment in her childhood, Valladolid, the local has lived all her life in Barcelona, alternating different neighborhoods. "What I like most is that it's a totally walkable city. You can walk to the sea and Montjuïc and to Les Glòries square, which has become very beautiful, strolling, seeing the layers of its history, its trees, its chamfers and its cemeteries. I also like its rooftops and the discreet temperament of the Barcelonans."
As a free spirit, she does not agree with what she considers "absurd guidelines like having removed the overhangs from bars, which gave a lot of character to the streets," or with the useless expense "of promoting civic attitudes through advertisements, when civility is something that should depend on education and not on institutional advertising," she laments, finishing her glass of wine.
---- What does not depend on any institutional advertising is our gastronomic offer, because it doesn't need it. Would you like to have dinner and confirm how delicious it is?
Victoria Bermejo smiles broadly, amused by this proposal. Anochece y Rendido a tus pies, by Carlos Berlanga, fills the bar's atmosphere.
--- As a staunch defender of eateries, I am a devotee of cod. I like it in all ways! A la llauna, in fritter, with its garlic mousseline…
And she revels in the imminent feast, while thanking for a new glass of Albariño.