The writer and illustrator from Lanzarote, Lana Corujo (San Bartolomé, 1995) has debuted as a novelist with her first narrative work Han cantado bingo, inspired irremediably by the landscapes of Lanzarote and which reviews the "darkest themes" of childhood. The story takes place full of love for her native dialect, the Spanish of the Canary Islands.
To embark on the publication of the novel, Lana Corujo confesses that she has had to "break with the fear and insecurities" that run through her. Her introverted personality and her love for reading led her to find in writing a space where she was not afraid to show her voice. "I have had to tame those fears, the vertigo, stop being that girl who is ashamed to raise her hand in class and have the rest hear her voice," she emphasizes.
Lana Corujo did not realize that she wanted to dedicate herself seriously to writing until the pandemic, although as a teenager she shared her writings weekly with a "very beautiful" blogger community. These publications on the internet gave her the impetus to combat her shyness and begin to believe that what she did could reach other people. This narrative work, Han cantado bingo (2025) sees the light after the publication of her two books of poems Ropavieja (2021) and Nueve dos ocho (2022).
Her love for poetry and narrative is combined with her training as a graphic artist. To train as an illustrator, Corujo had to leave the island at the age of eighteen and go to train in Madrid and France. She tried to study Illustration at the Pancho Lasso School of Art, but at that time it was given intermittently "one year yes and one year no," so when she wanted to start, the center offered the second year and she ended up having to leave the island. "Leaving should be more of an option, not the only one," she defends. The writer is committed to having more "educational infrastructure" in Lanzarote, with more faculties that concentrate different specialties.
The author describes the writing of this first novel as "very jumpy", where the chapters pass at the same time as the ages of the protagonists. The seed of the publication, which tells the story of two sisters and a game, arose many years ago, although it was not until a conversation with her friends two years ago that she began to visualize it in more detail. "I was writing it in jumps. Writing a novel is a titanic job," says the Lanzarote native who, like many other artists, came across the dichotomy of dedicating time to her passion, while she had to maintain the work that "fed her."
In its pages it is undeniable to glimpse the influence of having grown up on the island of volcanoes. In this sense, she defends that this narration "plays a lot with our personal imagination and the experience of inhabiting the island. From feeling it sometimes suffocating to wanting to return. Everything can be reflected in the novel".
Likewise, she also plays to "deromanticize" childhood, through the experiences of the protagonist. "She continues to grow, adding ages, but childhood is a consequence in our life and not just a section."
"I cannot conceive of creating without Lanzarote running through me in one way or another. Sometimes it appears more hidden and others much more evident, as happens in the novel," she confesses. Despite being a work of fiction, Han cantado bingo drinks from the landscapes of Lanzarote, where she creates "a scene of terror" using "the idea of volcanoes as something that is also scary."
"I would like the landscape of Lanzarote to always be respected and cared for," says the novelist. Regarding her love for the island, Lana Corujo defends the importance of preserving the natural environment of the island of volcanoes and of caring for the spaces to avoid the overcrowding that is hitting areas such as the Volcán del Cuervo.
"I do not deny that Lanzarote can be visited and that we can enrich ourselves from those who come from outside to see this wonder, but I think that we also have to know how to take care of it because if not we can lose it and I would be very sorry if that happened," she concludes.
