Castilian writer JJ Benítez at the Compendium Fair in Bogotá CamiloRozo
Not enough credit is given to the ufology writers who created a horde of teenage readers in the 1970s. They entered a subgenre of delusion without a net. Spotty puberty then makes the leap into conventional humanities and forgets its old idols. Now they like to claim they started with Proust, but naively they started with JJ Benítez, author of the bestselling Heroine of Troy. Benítez was at the Compendium Fair in Bogotá, where he presented his profile and said in passing that at 75, he was dynamic to cross the threshold of this life. Of course, you have to write three or four more titles first; In 65 years, he has been so far in the confidence, he has not had time to say everything.
Questions. His life has been pure intrigue from the start. He even doubts his origin.
Object. I call it my supposed origin. I’ve been abused by him since he was brash. It struck me very sturdy. I never felt loved by her. Maybe they changed me when sprouting. It’s just a hint, but it’s very intense.
Q. Your father was a civil protection driver.
A. We lived in barracks in Pamplona. My father was more stop than Almighty, which is not obvious. When my supposed origin wanted me to become a turner, he rejected it. He said he had to study.
Q. You studied journalism and worked for newspapers. how did you sign
A. First as Juan José Benítez, but then I shortened it and stayed with JJ. I was at La Verdad de Murcia, at Heraldo de Aragón and then at La Semanario del Ideal, in Bilbao. There, the editor gave me a telex and told me to watch it. He said residents of a town in Burgos, Peral de Arlanza, saw a UFO. I had never been interested in the question. I went there thinking of the chops the photographer and I wanted to take along the way. When I arrived at the village, I was very impressed.
Student: You have incompatible the theme around which your life would revolve.
A. You saw a cigar-shaped object with a white light on it. I collected testimonials and everyone agreed. It didn’t make any noise, so it wasn’t a helicopter or an airplane. It was not the lack of this world. From that moment I took care of all the investigations on the UFO aberration, first in Spain, then in each country. After more than 20 investigations, I realized that we were not alone in the universe.
Q. Why did you leave journalism?
A. Opus Dei took over the newspaper and forbade me to write about the paranormal. What did he do? He was 33 years old and had four children. I hesitated, I started writing books without financial security. I went to a publisher and signed a brave deal: I was to write six books in one year.
P. In his life, he wrote more than 60, but he does not consider himself a writer!
A. I am a journalist. To be a writer is to have the gift of speech, and I don’t have it. I have trouble writing. But yes, I have the discipline of journalism.
Q. How many books have you sold?
Q. Trojan Heroine sold eight million copies in 1992. Today there will be at least 12 or 14. They didn’t tell me, I know off the record.
Q. He is a friend of Queen Sofia. How did this relationship come about?
A. He is a very sociable person and much more intelligent than the King Emeritus. In 1974 I went to Peru to report on UFOs and when I came back they called the editor and me from La Zarzuela. She was still a princess. We went with her and spent three hours telling her things. From then on, she asks him to accompany her on her business trips. I have been with her for about 15 years. Once he wanted an engraved stone from Ica and I went to Peru to look for it. I told the museum director what I wanted from these stones and he gave me one weighing 800 kilos. I didn’t know how to take them!
Disciple: What did King Juan Carlos think of all this?
A. I was very skeptical. They told me that one day he was walking in the zarzuela forest and looked at the stone that I had brought and that he had broken a host against a windowpane because he was distracted. The branch broke. Who did he accuse? I.
Father Doña Sofía was determined to see UFOs.
A. I have an amazing story about it. In another hallucination in Peru, he asked me to speak to a man who claimed to be linked to UFOs. We find them in a small room and two hours later Sofia suddenly says: Can I see saucers? Dead silence. The authentic leader of the community, Sabino Fernández Campo, and I looked at each other and thought: the earth is swallowing me. Sofía thought it would be a good idea to see her on Christmas Eve when the whole community was gathered for zarzuela. One of them grabbed an archaic unlucky phone and called. When he came back, he said to me: of course, whenever you want.
Q. And what happened?
A. On December 25 of this year, I called Sabino and asked him if the authentic community had spent little. He said no, it was a disaster. They all waited, frozen to death, on the terrace until three in the morning. I started to investigate and discovered that there had been UFOs in this confusion, but in El Pardo. I said to the king and queen, and Juan Carlos answered me: What happens if your friends do not know that democracy has arrived in Spain?
Q. What argument do you have with Iker Jiménez, the other great ufologist in Spain?
A. Twenty years ago, we had a small difference. I said that in the portrait there were ruins of an ancient civilization that had been destroyed. He accused me of making it up.
Q. How have literary critics treated you?
R. Falsified At the beginning of my career I prayed that EL PAÍS would criticize me, now I pray that he wouldn’t criticize me.
Q. The murder of your wife Blanca marked a turning point in your life.
A. I did not recover. I’m not a zombie, but almost. He was diagnosed with cancer and it lasted 285 days. From the confusion in the morning I found myself without hands or legs. We were together 39 springs. I am no longer interested in life. You must pull yourself together or kill yourself. And since suicide is out of my reach, I have no choice but to move on. I think she’s still alive.
Q. Excuse me?
A. That she is alive. I imagine this in another dimension, in another extension that we cannot understand or see. Anyone who enters the other gang is physically alive.
Q. Is that why you say you wouldn’t mind winning now?
A. Yes, the only problem I have is that I still have a few things to write, three or four more books. These are revelations that need to come out, but if it wasn’t for that, I wouldn’t hesitate to leave. where to sign