The journalist and writer Natalia Sanmartín Fenollera, author of the book El despertar de la señorita Prim, gave a talk at lecture on the framework of the Day of patron saint of the School of Education and Psychology, in which she spoke about the love of reading, the importance of transmitting this passion in families and schools, and the need to approach the classics.

How does the story in The Awakening of Miss Prim come about?

Actually, the book is an excuse to talk about some issues I was interested in talking about. It's a story about rebellion against the modern world, among other things. It's a kind of rebellious cry against the demons of modernity. I wanted to talk about two worldviews: the traditional and the modern. These two worlds are embodied in the different characters that appear in the book.

Rebellion, sometimes, implies disagreement with what is happening. In this sense, what values do you think we should transmit from the School of Education and Psychology to our students who are going to be the educators and psychologists of the future?

I am very rebellious and dissatisfied with the modern system educational , of the last 50 years, and even further back. If you ask me about values, from my point of view, we should transmit Christian values, evangelical values, I am Catholic, and that is my vision of the world before anything else; and then we should try to get out of the educational schemes, and try to get out of what everybody does, and look at how previous European generations were educated, in which, obviously, the access to the higher Education was more limited, but they had a much higher level than what we have now. In any case, we must bear in mind that culture, the Education, is not only taught in the classrooms, in the universities, not even in the schools, but the first educators are the families themselves. Logically, many times they must delegate, but they must not lose the baton in this matter.

In this subject of modern life that we lead, in which time has become a scarce commodity, and we go with our foot on the accelerator, what things are we leaving by the way?

We live in a world that is absolutely excessive in everything: in speed, in dimensions... this has made us lose a little the perspective of what human life is, which is a life on a small scale; and I believe that this excess has created a world that is very hostile to the human: we run, we are in a hurry, there is almost no difference between work and private life, since the new technologies have brought work into our home... I think we should remember an old idea, which is that human life must have an order, a balance; we need time to work, but also to rest, to dedicate to the family, to relationships with the people around us, we need time to cultivate the intellect, the soul, time for silence. All this is complicated with the lifestyles we lead, but the simple fact of being aware of it, I think it is already a step.

Going back to the success of your first book, how did you experience it?

It has been a cascade of publications in different countries, to date there are up to 76 in which it has been published, the book is translated into several languages. The truth is that it has been a vertiginous experience, but very nice. The contact with the readers, for example, is something very special. The truth is that I would like to be able to find time again to get back to writing, but, that balance we were talking about before, is complicated, and I am the first to be aware of this difficulty. In fact, I already have some ideas, but they have to go from the mind to the paper to crystallize and be ordered. But all this takes time.