The Last Storyteller by Donna Barba Higuera
We think our readers will thoroughly enjoy this blog from author, Donna Barba Higuera about her book, The Last Storyteller. A fascinating blend of traditional tale and science fiction.
The early seeds of The Last Cuentista arrived in a writing prompt. “Take a traditional fairy tale and make it Sci-Fi.” The writing prompt of my dreams! But I hadn’t ever considered this sort of melding of ideas in my writing before. Folklore, mythology, fairy tales, science fiction…all things that are a huge part of my life, but how to combine them? Before figuring that part out, I decided to jump in and chose a lesser-known fairy tale, The Princess and the Pea. If you are unfamiliar, the story goes: A prince is searching for a bride, and has yet to find a suitable match. A princess happens upon the castle and the queen decides a test is in order. The queen places a pea under a stack of mattresses where the princess will sleep. The next morning the princess proclaims it a horrible sleep and is thus deemed worthy as a bride as she is so delicate. (Can you see my biggest eyeroll ever?)
I decided to take this version and for my short story send a girl across the universe. I put her to sleep with a P.E.A. (or pellet of extended animation (I know, hokey)). But when she awoke centuries later, she emerged to a changed society and the humanity she knew had changed. Everything she valued had been destroyed. In this version, my heroine does not approach this “delicately” as in the fairytale version. She takes control of her situation and escapes those who would use her, just as the queen was set to use the princess in the original version.
Years passed, but the premise of this short story haunted me. What if one was asleep for hundreds of years for a trip across the universe and could only take one thing? What if when they awoke, all had changed? What would they value most?
For me, that one thing is story. And the thought of all the stories I love being destroyed or erased was horrifying. So, what do writers do when haunted by an idea? I wrote a book on it.
But there were other unbelievable factors in my story to contend with. Enter stage right, Science Fiction. If you begin with a kernel of truth, the reader will follow. In my case, those kernels of truth led to a new planet called Sagan.
There were things I knew, and others I needed to research.
Many other factors including life experiences and Mexican folklore went in to the making of this book, but a merging of these two things I love, a traditional fairytale and science fiction, are how the first mental rumblings of this novel came to be.
The Last Storyteller is published by Piccadilly Press and is available now.
Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the Federation.