Carmen Rico-Godoy, the Spanish Nora Ephron, claims

It is no coincidence that the companies that have endeavored to reclaim the figure of Ephron in the media are women. Throughout her career, the American treated women’s issues with such irony, intelligence, and style that she didn’t was a feminist lighthouse guide for many women. The adjectives that define her can also be applied to another almost-forgotten female writer who deserves the same interest as her: Carmen Rico-Godoy. During the same period she developed her career, albeit in the Spanish media, publishing and film sets, and during her active career she was one of the country’s most admired authors. It’s the Spanish Nora Ephron (or vice versa).

“I remember feeling great affection for Carmen and one day we will probably hear from her again. Life happens, we all disappear and then some come back. I think he’s a character that needs upgrading for his irony, humor and bad mood. I loved him,” says writer and journalist Maruja Torres, who was a collaborator and friend of his for many years. “She was a woman of strong character, lots of tenderness and companionship, with lots of personality. “She was very intelligent, the daughter of Josefina Carabias,” says Torres.

Pursuing the same profession as his mother after trying other careers is just one of the many similarities that Rico-Godoy’s biography shares with Nora Ephron’s. They both studied political science, had sisters who also excelled in their respective professions, were married several times, were journalists, columnists and screenwriters, moved in the circles of power, used their lives as inspiration (each in their own way) and were they themselves walked about the same way. AND both made humor their flag. “Aside from the similarities in circumstances, I think of Rico-Godoy as the Nora Ephron of here because it’s grace, speed and the fact that you use yourself and the little daily misfortunes as a matter of work that, when if you tell it yourself, it’s turned into a comedy,” claims the writer Aloma Rodríguez.

“Both share the passion to turn around the cliché with humor, the cliché is the peculiarity of the woman of the society in which they live,” says Andrea Toribio, co-responsible for the literature podcast The friend is you along with Rodriguez. “It’s very difficult to make humor or get the best out of something that’s already funny to one segment of the population, the male, while on the part of the female, it could be a source of shame or ridicule.” ”

parallel lives

Carmen Rico Godoy was born in Paris in 1939. Her mother had fled Spain because of the civil war and her father, José Rico Godoy, was in prison. When it came out in 1944 the family reunited in Madrid and a decade later Carabias became the first Spanish correspondent in the United States and they relocated. During this time and until her return to Paris in 1967, also moved by his mother’s work, Rico-Godoy graduated from Georgetown University (Washington) with a degree in Political Science. In France, she continued her studies specializing in International Relations, began practicing journalism and met her first husband, José Luis Garsino, an Argentinian, with whom she had their only son and to whom she was married for only a few years. During this short period they lived in Argentina, but in 1970 she settled permanently in Spain, now without her husband.

Nora Ephron was born in New York in 1941, the daughter of successful Hollywood screenwriters. Determined to become the Dorothy Parker of her generation, she began writing at a young age, graduating in 1962 with a degree in political science from Wesley College in Massachusetts. In 1967 she married Dan Greenburg, her first husband, from whom she separated nine years later. Ephron’s sentimental life was vox populi, while the name of the Spaniard’s first husband, for example, rarely appears in her biographical profiles. Both allowed their works to be shaped by their reality, but Rico-Godoy was more discreet.

“She was known more for her work than personally. I would like to say that it was not media in the modern sense,” comments Nativel Preciado, journalist, author and close friend of Carmen Rico-Godoy. “It was in the print press, on the radio, but not on TV. You had to know her to appreciate her personality. From the start it seemed more distant,” he claims. She, who treated her very carefully, explains that she had “a special sense of humor”. She was very self-critical, perfectionist, funny, quick-witted and loving.”

Although in one interview awarded to the daily newspaper in 2001 ABCCarmen Rico-Gody expressed, “I never had a vocation for journalism or anything else, just curiosity,” she was passionate about her profession. In 1971 he was part of the founding team of change 16the flagship magazine of the transition, in which he cultivated his excellence as a political chronicler (years later they met in the anthology). Under the Moncloa ficus), who was also active in other media. “During the season I was in change 16She helped me a lot because, as always, the boys were afraid of her and told me: “Be careful with Carmen!”. Boys don’t know that women like women, especially intelligent ones,” recalls Maruja Torres. They already knew each other before, since Rico-Godoy was related to the world of cinema and the Barcelona journalist had worked there Frame. “I met her in Mallorca in the summer when I was writing chronicles there and she was always very elegant,” he comments.

Nora Ephron was a reporter at the for five years New York Post, where he wrote about politics and all subjects that touched him. He later had a column in Esquire where he spoke on subjects feminine. One of his deliveries entitled Some observations about breasts (collected in crazy salad) finally gave her her breakthrough as a journalist, even if it would take a few more years her marriage to Carl Bernstein, one of the reporters in the Watergate case. This connection was crucial to her career, as her husband’s infidelity while pregnant with their second child prompted her to write the novel the cake is over (1983), which gave her career a huge boost and made her famous.

The book was adapted for the screen with Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson as protagonists and its own screenplay. The same thing happened with the first novel by Carmen Rico-Godoy. Be a woman and don’t die trying in 1990. It was a real smash and its mythical paperback edition was added to the collection the parrot de Temas de hoy, with the cover illustrated by José Manuel García López, is still on the shelves of many Spanish houses and has become a bit run down after so many readings. Nativel Preciado comments on the author: “She was surprised by her first literary success, she was overwhelmed by the popularity of her work.”

His book was also made into a film, directed by Ana Belén and based on his screenplay, with Carmen Maura and Antonio Resines as protagonists. Her second husband’s name, Andrés Vicente Gómez Montero, a member of LolaFilms, appears in the production. It was the author’s first work to be filmed, and adaptations of it followed How to be unhappy and enjoy it (1994) vol Paradise isn’t what it used to be (2000). In addition, he also worked with Fernando Colomo and on the adaptation of The Pazos of Ulloa for RTVE. For his part, Ephron followed his parents’ careers and wrote, sometimes with his sister Delia, screenplays for many films, some of which he also directed You have an email (1998) o haunted (2000). He also signed plays for Broadway and Off-Broadway.

In 2006, Ephron was diagnosed with leukemia, which she kept secret until her death six years later, although she did release a farewell list titled in 2010 things i will missbeginning with “my children” and ending with “las tartas” (it is collected in I can’t remember anything). He passed away in 2012 at the age of 71.

Maruja Torres says of Carmen Rico-Godoy: “She also walked with elegance. She called me at lunch for the last time because she had horrible cancer. I was very thin and actually it was just me eating. We both made it clear that this wasn’t goodbye, but we knew it was. Besides saying goodbye to loved ones, said goodbye to his readers with the novel end of the party. She was only 62 and had recently separated from her husband, as if following the famous advice of her American colleague: “Never marry a man you do not wish to divorce.” In a hypothetical afterlife could they be friends