Menu


"The literature is as important as the family, but no more”
Not everything was easy in the life of Olaizola






The release of Jose Luis Olaizola (San Sebastian, 1927) is located in its own house, a space that he says with humor, her family "has never respected much". In that space so intimate, you can appreciate his great passions: Marisa, home and germ of all; the literature, which runs through the shelves of the room; and the guitar, with a special corner. And the photos, many of Marisa, their children, the friends that are no longer, but also of the Thai girls that with your help, have been freed from child prostitution through the NGO We Are One, of which he is president and founder.

To Jose Luis Olaizola was not conceived without Marisa, his wife from 68 years ago. That is why it is not surprising that the writer count how his life changed the day that he knew her. "I was a student disastrous until my wife crossed my path. I am the small of nine brothers and sisters and my mother died when I was only two years old. The sport I liked and played in the Spanish League of Rugby - I was champion of Spain of 800 meters - but in the studies was a disaster, until I met Marisa, when he was 22 years. I argued and asked him to leave, but she told me: 'I want us to be boyfriends; you have to get to study'. And there I began, by it, and it changed my life".
By love to Marisa graduated in Laws, but, as explained, had "a hobby inordinate by reading: read everything that fell on my hands; that is why I have always had a natural ease to write, but obviously by then not thought about professionalize me".
By love was married and rode a firm of lawyers: "His life was resolved, I was going great." However, despite being part of the executive direction of large companies such as Movie Records or the Amusement Park, Olaizola was adamant in one thing: "at six in the afternoon I went to my house, because the family is the family, and looked bad to those who stayed working".
Next to his love toward Marisa was founding his passion for literature, but it was not until that won the Ateneo de Sevilla with his novel Planicio (Planet, 1976), when he began to consider the possibility of a radical change of direction. "When I won this award I began to be aware that my books had acceptance and Editorial Planet i the edited". Even so, fully devote himself to the literature it was a risky bet because Olaizola had nine children. But, once more, Marisa changed the direction of her life: "She supported me to change my status of elite lawyer by the writer. For me, the literature is as important as the family, but no more". In fact, recalls with humor how, in some of its articles, refers to the "Stupidity" to change counsel to writer.

Family, faith and fight
"Marisa is the first to read my books; she makes corrections and I accept them. She is my literary Adviser and my maximum support", summarizes with clarity Olaizola. And, although not dares give a recipe for success in marriage, encourages not to discuss by things without importance and to bear very much in mind the "sense of indissolubility of marriage". "When you have faith and you have married for life, if it appears a pothole and you try to overcome it," stresses.
It is, therefore, understood that Olaizola ensure that the inspiration and the passion for literature is due to Marisa and his family. "I collaborate each month with the Telva Magazine, in that they ask me to speak of my family. There is always some anecdote: story that I have a large family and very particular, some children in unemployment; that one of my grandchildren is circus trapeze artist or that my daughter Lourdes picked us up from the train station with a taper of cooked".
But not everything has been easy in the life of Olaizola; in fact, he himself says that when you have a large family and the joys and sorrows are also more numerous than usual. "My daughter Lourdes suffered leukemia with five years. When the detected, instead of sinking, I realized the importance that had my faith because I felt very supported by the Virgin Mary and Jesus. At the end came forward, married and a mother of two children. But my faith has been the most important thing in my life; without it, is not what would have been me," points.
And in the light of the difficulties, also remember when one of her daughters, just over a year, died of dehydration. With a deep pain, he and his wife were able to speak with the Blessed Alvaro del Portillo, successor of Saint Josemaria Escriva, founder of Opus Dei Prelature to which they belong. "My wife explained to Don Alvaro the pain felt by the death of our daughter. He made us see that now we had in the sky at the best 'rehip'. This reflection gave us a tremendous peace and tranquility".
And summarizes: "In large families the pain is inherent; there are always problems. The family is a great joy, but you have to fight a lot". And that is that, its greater support, the basis of his life, his faith, has been, as he says, "your biggest mistake professional". "God has never been absent from the story in my books, I was natural to say things like 'i God wants' and others, and it is also what is the most proud I am: I come to my age without having to renounce my principles… The only time that I have left in the Hello! Has been kissing my wife when I won the prize Planet," explains.

The Plaza Mayor to Bangkok
his family life has been his main source of inspiration, therefore says that the idea for Cucho (Editions SM, 2005), one of its major successes editorials, came walking with their daughters. "We walked by the Plaza Mayor in Madrid, and I saw a boy of about twelve years selling trinkets. My daughters were fascinated and there it occurred to me the history".
With Cucho won the steam boat, but never imagined how far you could get this young salesman. "Fourteen years ago, Rasami Krisanamis, professor of Spanish at the University of Bangkok, to which I was not aware of anything, I wrote to ask the rights of author to translate Cucho to Thai. He explained to me that I could not pay because they are engaged in activities non-profit along with a Jesuit priest who provided access to education for girls who are victims of child prostitution. I sincerely the gave More by laziness that by generosity. At the little time, I received the book translated into Thai along with a photo of the school that they had built with the rights of author," explains.
Rasami, teacher of Spanish, invited to Olaizola to Thailand to give a conference because, being her Buddhist, felt that their books raised "universal values". "Although I refused, he ended up going - recalls-. There I met the father Alfonso de Juan, Jesuit missionary who was forty years working against the tragedy of child prostitution. At the time I met him, more than 50,000 girls under 15 years of age engaged in prostitution in Bangkok. And it made me return to Spain tremendously impressed, although I thought I had already made quite giving the rights of my book. But this, in fact, was the beginning of an adventure," recalls the writer.
"I invited Rasami to give a conference in Bilbao, we made a collection and gather 3,000 euros with which we gave education (school) to many girls. I also wrote an article by counting the drama of these small that are sold by their families to the sex industry; at the end of the article, simply put: 'I want to collaborate…' and had a tremendous success, I do not, therefore had no choice but to form We Are One, an NGO totally familiar and zero cost: I am the President; my wife, Vice President; and our children, the councilors. Since then, we have sent more than 2 million euros," account proud.
There are currently more than 2,000 girls in school thanks to We Are One and more than 200 already are enrolled in higher education at the University of Bangkok, in safe environments, to protect them from falling into the trafficking for purposes of sexual exploitation. "In the last trip to Thailand, we visited one of the girls who had just finished high school and who had lived a very difficult situation. I asked him what he wanted to be and I replied that Professor 'to give to others what they had received'". Animated by Don Alfonso de Juan, Olaizola wrote the book The Girl of the rice field (Planet, 2011) that tells the story of one of the girls.

Not only literature
Olaizola ensures that the door of hope (Planet, 1996) has been the book "more difficult to write", because it deals with the last months of her life of his great friend, the psychiatrist Juan Antonio Vallejo-Nágera. "He attended as a commentator to a program of Jesus Hermida, and in one of them said that despite the fact that he was very bad, to him death 'was the opening to a life more hopeful'. Since then, began to receive letters from people who were also in a similar situation and did not know how to answer them all. I therefore proposed to write a book", account.
From that moment on and during the last two months of life of Vallejo-Nágera, Olaizola visited him for that you had everything that he would like. "I would go to his home and he went slowly dying. When he died his daughter Sandra I am appreciated the support it had been for his father, and he told me that there was no need to write the book, but I thought that Juan Antonio would be happy if you published. And I did so. It was complicated choose the information from all the documentation that had to be able to do is entertaining, but for me it was a great satisfaction and, above all, an honor. In addition, we have sold more than 600,000 copies of this book and have helped a lot of people".
With the book on the war of general Escobar (Planet, 1983) won one of the most important prizes in Spanish literature, the Planet Prize. "Now, 33 years after it was published in Spain, you are editing in the United States". But its production has not been limited to the literature, but that has also been extended to the cinema and music. Together with the famous television producer Antonio Mercero worked on a screenplay adapting that book, although not arrived to the cinema. "It is not that the cinema I do not like, but I have not been so required as in the books," he says.
And, although its almost 90 years, few things remain to be, Olaizola ensures that still wants to made one thing: "I would like to publish the 'Mass of the Third Millennium', a musical composition that I recorded together with a friend and that has not yet seen the light”.



 


Translated by catholic.net








Share on Google+




Inappropriate ads? |

Another one window

Hello!