She is one of the most beloved faces on television for her character as Manolita in ‘Amar es para siempre’, but in addition to her role as an actress, Itziar Miranda combines her time with her love for writing. In 2015, Itziar, together with his brother Jorge Miranda, launched the ‘Miranda Collection’, edited by Edelvives, a series of 15 stories dedicated to women who have made history: Jane Goodall, Frida Kahlo, Hedy Lamarr or Amelia Earhart, among others. Now, together with the same publisher, it has just released the first two volumes of ‘Miranda and Tato’, a collection of 6 books also co-written with her brother Jorge Miranda and her husband Nacho Rubio, with illustrations by Ángeles Ruiz. The next two will be out at Christmas and the last two books in spring 2022.
‘Miranda y Tato’ is sponsored by Federico Buyolo or the Institute of the primatologist Jane Goodall and seeks to awaken the awareness of the little ones, – and of those of us who are not so much -, about the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the Agenda 2030 of the UN. We speak with Itziar Miranda, who tells us about the creation process and what it means to tackle sensitive issues such as child poverty, energy, climate change or gender inequality
Mujerhoy: How and why did the idea of creating the ‘Miranda y Tato’ collection come about?
Itziar Miranda: There are various circumstances. The first is that when we were writing, and thanks to the ‘Miranda Collection’, we met Jane Goodall, who was one of the women we wrote about in that first collection. Then we were able to attend a conference of his and we began to have a very direct contact with the Jane Goodall Institute with which we collaborate and also with its director, Federico Vodanovich, and the truth is that it was impressive. She gave us clues for the creation of the collection of ‘Miranda y Tato’ because she has always dealt with kids and believes that they can change the world.
Repeat with the publisher Edelvives for this second collection Why?
That meeting with Federico Vodanovich and Jane Goodall changed our way of thinking and, when Edelvives proposed us another collection of stories, we were already walking with that idea in mind of doing something to build a better world or, at least, more conscious. We saw that we are living in very turbulent times and we thought, what better way than to create a collection that addresses sustainability and the environment?
Edelvives is very good at these issues and we always look for a very specific path, so we said to ourselves, why don’t we make a collection in which they, without realizing it, fulfill the 17 SDGs of the 2030 Agenda? An agenda that I do not know how sleepy it will be or not, but it is an agenda that in the end was written so that countries and societies embark on a path so that we all have a better world, no matter where you were born.
Miranda and Tato are the protagonists of these adventure stories. Who are the characters inspired by?
Tato actually already appeared in the ‘Miranda Collection’ but he was a very minor character. He is Miranda’s brother who sometimes gets into trouble and she talks about it, but in a very distant way, as she talks about other characters in her family. In this collection it arises because Miranda is ultimately our alter ego, that of my brother and mine, and suddenly Tato arises because Miranda has grown a little with us and also her involvement in the world and everything that surrounds her. We wanted to write some adventure books with a group of friends and we decided to include his brother Tato, who is also a well-known character from the other collection and they also have a precious bond, like the one my brother and I have.
And Nacho, your husband, has his alter ego, his voice within the collection?
Nacho also appears. He was Uncle Nacho de Miranda and he writes a cookbook and recipes, and in this collection we really wanted to have him because of the involvement he already has with the environment and everything that surrounds us. This is how the character of Álex arises, who is born a girl, called Alejandra, but he feels like a boy and is Tato’s best friend. This character was very useful for us to talk about equality, not only about women, but also about gender. The three of us wrote the three voices, but perhaps Miranda could have things more of mine, Tato more of my brother and Álex, a bit of Nacho.
How has this 6-handed writing job with Nacho and Jorge been?
We work “a la lemon” as Lorca said or we apply the method of an “exquisite corpse”. We brainstorm everything we study and research as if it were for a master’s degree, advised by Daniel Pons and María José Manjón, who are our technical advisers in matters that are complex. When we already have more or less clear the story we want to tell, we escalate as if it were a script and then we take turns writing the chapters while one of the three reads the two chapters written by the others and corrects them. It’s a very nice job and very familiar also, that’s why we put a lot of cane.
To illustrate the collection you have turned to Ángeles Ruiz, why her?
The ‘Miranda Collection’ of women in History is illustrated by Lola Castejón, whose pseudonym Thilopia. She is a friend of ours and has a very beautiful way of illustrating, very postcard. For ‘Miranda y Tato’ we wanted to differentiate ourselves because these are adventure books and we wanted them to have a more hooligan tone, with more action and a lot of color and Ángeles Ruiz is a color genius, we proposed it to her, she said yes and it was a present.
‘Miranda y Tato’ is the first collection of books that addresses the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals. What kinds of topics are addressed in the books in the collection and specifically in these first two?
There are several books that address the subject of recycling, environmentalism, education, immigration and of course equality. At the end we launched the first collection on feminism, on women to whom we should give the relevance that they have in history. But it is true that this is the first collection that addresses the 17 SDGs in 6 volumes. We try to touch them all, for example we deal with issues such as infrastructure for the development of a country, the difference between living in emptied Spain or in the center of Madrid…. We talk about what poverty is like in our environment, energy poverty, hunger queues or unaccompanied minors who, in reality, should be called “children alone”. We address very complex issues that we believe children will understand very well because they will experience them from the adventure.
Several personalities have joined the project, such as Father Ángel, Federico Buyolo, Javier Martos or Natalia Fabra, in what way have they been involved?
Federico Buyolo, in addition to sponsoring the collection and writing the foreword, is former director of the Office of the High Commissioner for the 2030 Agenda and is now the deputy director of the Ministry of Education. For me, he is the person who knows the most about the 2030 agenda in Spain and everything he knows is amazing. His look at the collection and how the stories have been read has made us feel that we are doing something of quality. The rest of the collaborators intervene in the books with an interview: Javier Martos, executive director of Unicef Spain, the Father Angel, founder and president of the NGO Messengers of Peace, Nataliza Fabra, expert in energy poverty or Cecilia Foronda, director of Energy and People at ECODES, among others, are our expert voice for each book.
In addition to an important task of raising awareness through reading in 10-year-old boys and girls, your work goes beyond writing and for two years you have offered talks and workshops on feminism and coeducation in schools, bookstores and museums. what do they consist of and what seed have they left behind?
So far all the workshops I have done, both in schools and in museums, the Reina Sofía, the Museum of Romanticism or the Museum of Costume have been with the ‘Miranda Collection’. We wanted to talk about women in spaces that contextualized them, for example, in the Reina Sofía we talked about Frida Khalo and other forgotten women painters. We were talking about how in the Prado Museum, until recently, of the 1,200 paintings that are exhibited there were only four of women and in reality they were by three artists. We talked about this artistic historical neglect and we wondered how many paintings are there that are really of women but are signed by men. In these meetings we have talked about Emily Brönte in the field of literature, about Coco Chanel at the Museo del Traje.
In short, when we released this collection, no one spoke of feminism or dared to say they were a feminist because the term was misinterpreted. We find it incredible that in the 5 years that we have written the collection we have gone from being able to say that it was a feminist collection without erroneous connotations. We want the same to happen with this one. Perhaps they do not know what the SDGs are and they buy it because they are adventure books and when they finish the children they know perfectly what those objectives consist of and that they can really do something to achieve them.
In addition to being an actress and writer, you are also an ambassador for a music festival that also seeks to give visibility to authors and composers …
Yes, I am an ambassador for the International Festival of Classical Music in Panticosa and there is always a part dedicated to female composers. There we talk a lot about Clara Schumann from Fanny Meldenssohn who have fascinating stories. So, not only is their music played, but I have told stories about their lives and how many of their works were signed by brothers, husbands, etc. Now this year we are going to try to play some pieces by Hildegarda de Bingen who is the female protagonist of number 15 of ‘Miranda’, which for me is one of the great forgotten ones. A woman from the Middle Ages who was born in 1098 and was a composer, an abbess nun, a scientist, a doctor …
How do you combine writing the books, filming and taking care of your daughters, Daniela and Julia?
Sleeping very little. I get up at 4 in the morning every day so I can get there. They pick me up at 6.30 and I get up to review the texts, study, write … It is true that on set we have a lot of time between sequences and in those waits I also write a lot. But if I arrive it is because I take hours of sleep. When the girls arrive from school I am fully with them because I want to, because I feel like it and because that is why I have decided to be a mother. The same thing happens to Nacho and my brother, who also has two children.
After the great reception of the ‘Miranda Collection’ on Women who have made history, what do you expect from ‘Miranda y Tato’?
We have fulfilled a dream that we had not dared to imagine because the reception was brutal. When we sent it to Edelvives he loved it and it started working in Spain super well and has ended up being sold all over the world. It has had a very transversal reception because, in addition, although we wrote it for 8-year-old girls and boys, in the queues we saw women, who did not even have children or nieces and boys of all ages. That’s why our expectations with ‘Miranda y Tato’ are very high. In fact, the collection has gone on sale internationally in Latin America, the United States and Spain. What I hope is that it goes as well or better than Miranda because in the end they are adventure books that have a very juicy thing about living them with them, about reliving our childhood.
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