El País

Gabriel García Márquez to Continue Writing

~ bythefirelight

I don’t know if this is a real surprize, but El Pais is reporting that Garcia Marquez is going to continue to write.

Noting is certain, but the only certianity is that I don’t do anything else except write.

“No sólo no es cierto, sino que lo único cierto es que no hago otra cosa que escribir”

And coutering those who think he hasn’t published much lately:

My job is not to publish, but to write. I will know when the cakes I am cooking are ready to eat.

“Mi oficio no es publicar, sino escribir. Yo sabré cuándo estén a punto de boca los pasteles que estoy horneando”

Bolaño forever in El País

~ bythefirelight

El País has yet another article marveling at the excitement about Roberto Bolaño in the English speaking world. The author is primarily interested in whether the excitement is misplaced.

I have read that the North American success of Bolaño is due to his premature death and in fact have constructed a cursed legend partly false of someone politically persecuted, on the literary margin, and a heroin addict. I have read the the success of Bolaño is due to the way in a certain mode Bolaño was a North American author whose literary models are North American and whose prose works better in English than in Spanish. I have read that the North American success of Bolaño is because he found a great North American editor that has known how to use all these things to make Bolaño a great success in North America. I have many answers more, but all of them has produced an embarrassing sensation that these have been engineered not only to reduce the merit of Bolaño’s success, which at the end of these stories is unimportant, but to diminish the merit of Bolaño’s works, if they have any. I confess that I don’t understand them.

He leído que el éxito norteamericano de Bolaño se debe a su muerte prematura y al hecho de que se haya construido en torno a él una leyenda maldita y en parte falsa de perseguido político, marginado literario y adicto a la heroína. He leído que el éxito norteamericano de Bolaño se debe a que en cierto modo Bolaño era un escritor norteamericano, cuyos modelos literarios son norteamericanos y cuya prosa funciona mejor en inglés que en castellano. He leído que el éxito norteamericano de Bolaño se debe a que ha encontrado un gran editor norteamericano que ha sabido usar todas esas cosas para convertir a Bolaño en un gran éxito norteamericano. He leído muchas respuestas más, pero todas ellas me producen la embarazosa sensación de que han sido ingeniadas no sólo para rebajar el mérito del éxito de Bolaño, lo que a fin de cuentas no tendría ninguna importancia, sino para rebajar el mérito de la obra de Bolaño, lo que sí la tiene. Confieso que no alcanzo a entenderlas.

In the end he says it is due to the art of Bolaño that he is a success.

The reality is that Bolaño experienced during his life an absolute success. I want to say that the ghostly question is a mistaken question and the question that at first look seems correct also es a mistaken question. Every true writer knows that success and failure (or what tends to be called success and failure) are illusions: the test is that they obtain it, the great writers, the good writers, the average writers, the bad writers, and the terrible writers; or in other words: every true writer knows that what truely is a success and a failure. Cyril Connolly wrote that “the true mission of a writer is create a master work.” There are few writers who get to create one; in my opinion, Bloaño was one of them: he experienced the incomparable intensity of writing not just one master work but more than one. No one that I have known knows better that Bolaño in order to be a writer there is no greater success than to be able in your wildest dreams compare yourself to him.

Porque la realidad es que Bolaño conoció en vida un éxito absoluto. Quiero decir que la pregunta fantasmal es una pregunta equivocada y la pregunta que a primera vista parece acertada también es una pregunta equivocada. Todo escritor de verdad sabe que el éxito y el fracaso (o eso que suele llamarse éxito y fracaso) son espejismos: la prueba es que lo obtienen escritores buenísimos, escritores buenos, escritores regulares, escritores malos y escritores malísimos; o dicho de otro modo: todo escritor de verdad sabe lo que son de verdad el éxito y el fracaso. Cyril Connolly escribió que “la verdadera misión de un escritor es crear una obra maestra”. Hay poquísimos escritores que consiguen crearla; en mi opinión, Bolaño fue uno de ellos: experimentó la intensidad incomparable de escribir no una obra maestra sino más de una. Nadie que yo haya conocido sabía mejor que Bolaño que para un escritor no hay ningún éxito que pueda ni remotamente compararse a ése.

Perhaps only an author would say this, but there is some truth for non writers too.

Javier Sáez de Ibarra Wins the First Internacional Prize for Short Stories

~ bythefirelight ~ 1 Comment

El País reports that Javier Sáez de Ibarra has won the first Premio Internacional de Narrativa Breve Ribera del Duero (International Prize for Short Stories Ribera del Duero). I don’t know what weight to put in awards, even ones that come with €50,000. However, the article and accompanying interview has some interesting items that makes me want to find an example or two of his writing.

The short story is a genre that is not well esteemed by editors, little ready by readers, and not well understood by critics: there still are those who criticize a story that doesn’t have a surprise. Inovations are not well received.

“El cuento es un género poco estimado por los editores, poco frecuentado por los lectores y mal comprendido por los críticos: todavía hay quien le reprocha a un relato que no tenga efecto sorpresa. Las innovaciones no son bien recibidas”.

He also said that the Internet is helping to save the shor story.

In a certain sense the short story has taken refuge in the Internet. There are many blogs that publish stories and those that criticize stories. An example? El síndrome de Chéjov, Vivir del cuento, Café y Garamond, La luz ténue or the critic Fernando Valls’s.

“En cierto sentido, el cuento se ha refugiado en Internet. Hay muchos blogs que publican cuentos y en los que se hace crítica de cuentos. ¿Algún ejemplo? El síndrome de Chéjov, Vivir del cuento, Café y Garamond, La luz ténue o el del crítico Fernando Valls”

I’m not sure if I believe that in the US we pay more attention to short story writers. He did list a few other autors of note: Hipólito G. Navarro who was on El publico lee and sounded interesing; from Peru Fernando Iwasaki; from Guatemala Eduardo Halfon; from Mexico Pedro Ángel Palou; and from Spain Luciano G. Egido y Juan Carlos Márquez.

Young Punks of Spanish Language Fiction

~ bythefirelight

El País had an article about three young authors recently. Naturally as with any article about young authours, there is the sense of we are here to over throw the past. They are not interested in Fuentes at all, in part because his 80th birthday with such fanfare. Fuentes is to these writers as Paz was to Bolaño.

Their writing sounds interesting to some degree. It is full of violence and possibly reflects a world that has seemed to get more violent recently. For the Mexican author it makes sense; the others I don’t know.

In the three [novels] in one way or another, you find violent characters. More perhaps in Busqued’s, thanks to the brutal Duarte who is an ex soldier, kidnapper, abuser, and obsessed with hardcore sex; but not less than the others. If no, there is el violent behavior of Isabel, the daughter of the protagonist of Morella’s work, a woman that has no doubts in mistreating and kidnapping her own father. Or Golo, protagonists of Maldonado’s work, the violent one, violent in its details, in its sex, in its relation with the world. Can one write these days without touching on the subject?

En las tres, de una u otra manera, se encuentran personajes violentos. Más quizás en la de Busqued, gracias al personaje brutal de Duarte, ex militar, secuestrador, abusador, obseso del sexo hardcore; pero no menos en las otras. Si no, ahí está el violento comportamiento de Isabel, la hija del protagonista de la obra de Morella, una mujer que no duda en maltratar y secuestrar a su propio padre. O Golo, absoluto protagonista en la de Maldonado, violento ena de Maldonado, violento en los detalles, en el sexo, en su relación con el mundo. ¿Se puede escribir hoy en día sin abordar el tema?

The Best of Spanish Language Literature to Be Digitized

~ bythefirelight

El País had an article a few weeks ago noting that some of the greats of Spanish literature will be available on the web, including Camilo José Cela, Gabriel García Márquez, Mario Vargas Llosa, Miguel Delibes, Julio Cortázar, Juan Marsé y Juan Goytisol. All of these will be available through the website  Leer-e.

I’m not sure what I think of electronic books, but it is nice to see this isn’t part of the Amazon monopoly.

Lobo Antunes to Write Only One More Novel

~ bythefirelight

EL PAÍS notes that António Lobo Antunes is going to stop writing after his next novel.

António Lobo Antunes announced yesterday that he will write a novel to “round out his works” and that after he will not publish anything more. In the declaration published yesterday by Diário de Notícias, the Portuguese writer confirmed that after Que Cavalos São Aqueles Que Fazem Sombra no Mar?, the book he is finishing now and will publish in October, he will begin another novel that he thinks he will finish after two you years of work and then after “that will be the end of novels, articles, everything; I will not publish anything more. My voice, spoken or written, will not be heard again. “

António Lobo Antunes anunció ayer que escribirá una novela para “redondear su obra” y que después no publicará más. En unas declaraciones publicadas ayer por Diário de Notícias, el escritor luso afirma que tras Que Cavalos São Aqueles Que Fazem Sombra no Mar?, el libro que está terminando y publicará en octubre, empezará una novela que calcula que le llevará dos años de trabajo y que luego “se acabaron las novelas, las crónicas, todo, no publico nada más. Mi voz, hablada o escrita, no se volverá a escuchar”.

Sad if it is true, but I wonder how can one know they only have one more novel left in them.

Tomás Eloy Martínez Interview in El País

~ bythefirelight ~ 2 Comments

There is an excellent interview with Tomás Eloy Martínez in El País Sunday. The interview covers his thoughts on journalism, especially new journalism, and how the Internet is changing journalism, mostly for the bad. It also covers how he got his start at a journalist—it paid more than an academic career and had better prospects. He also talks about his approach to writing La Novela de Peron and Santa Evita. For the former he wanted to use the tools of fiction to tell a true story, and in the later he wanted to use the tools of journalism to tell a completely fake story.

He says he thinks that literature should be disobedience:

If literature is not disobedient it is not literature. Literature, like journalism, at root are acts of transgression, ways of looking a little bit past your limits, past your nose. Everything I have written in my life are acts in a search for freedom. Nothing gave me more pleasure when I was publishing my first articles en La Gaceta de Tucumán than my mother would say to my sisters: “We have to go to mass to pray for the soul of Tomás who is completely lost.

“La literatura si no es desobediencia no es. La literatura, como el periodismo, son centralmente actos de transgresión, maneras de mirar un poco más allá de tus límites, de tus narices. Todo lo que he escrito en la vida son actos de búsqueda de libertad. Nada me daba más placer -cuando publicaba mis primeros artículos en La Gaceta de Tucumán- que mi madre le dijera a mis hermanas: “Tenemos que ir a misa a rezar por el alma de Tomás, que está totalmente perdida”.

About the Internet and journalism he isn’t the most hopefull.

Q. But there already has been yellow journalism.

A. It existed and it exists. What happened is that this potential multiplied the poser of the yellow journalists. Every day we see signs of this type of journalism that manifests itself en the form of an accusation. I wrote a column about the carnage that got hold of Ingrid Betancourt and Clara Rojas when they were liberated from the FARC. Serious journalists with a long career added fuel to the fire of gossip about the intimacy of the exhostages.

Q. How would the limits be established?

A. This is the basic work of editors. […]

P. Pero ya había periodismo amarillo.

R. Lo había y lo hay. Lo que pasa es que esto potencia, multiplica, la fuerza del periodista amarillo. Todos los días vemos señales de este tipo de periodismo que se manifiesta en forma de acusación. Escribí una columna sobre la carnicería que se hizo con Ingrid Betancourt y con Clara Rojas cuando fueron liberadas por las FARC. Periodistas muy serios, con una larga trayectoria, añadieron leña al fuego de los chismes sobre la intimidad de las ex rehenes.

P. ¿Cómo tendrían que establecerse los límites?

R. Este es un trabajo básico de los editores. […]

Tribute to El Caso – Spain’s Crime Paper

~ bythefirelight

El País has an interesting article about El Caso, a trashy crime tabloid from the Franco period. It is not the material they covered that is so unique, but how popular it was within Spain and how it carved out a space for the salacious in the Catholic Dictatorship.

The film director Pere Costa, one of the editors of El Caso, explained how at the hands of Eugenio Suárez its inclusion as a section of the daily Marid came to an end, and became a weekly “with the condition to no publish more than one Spanish assassination a week.” The 12,000 issues of its first run grew to 100’s of thousands, and its readership was even greater because it was normal for it to be read out loud to a group.

El director de cine Pere Costa, uno de los redactores de El Caso, explicó como de sección fija del diario Madrid pasó, de la mano de Eugenio Suárez, a semanario “con la condición de no publicar más de un asesinato español por semana”. Los 12.000 ejemplares semanales del primer número fueron creciendo a cientos de miles, aunque su audiencia fue mucho mayor, pues era normal que se leyera en voz alta y en grupo.

It is worth a read if you are interested in crime fiction.

Ana María Matute Interview in El País

~ bythefirelight

There is a great interview in El País with Ana María Matute. They talk about how her heath has kept her from writing recently even though she has been completely mentally able to write. When talking about literature they discuss Matute’s works for children and how she has often written from the perspective of children. It has been very important throughout her career to write for them, in part because there wasn’t anything good and she wanted to write for her son. They also talk about how her mother supported her writing, something rare during the Franco Period, and with her help would type up her drafts before submitting them to publishers.

There was fascinating questions about her style.

You seem especially predisposed to this type of literature [sparse], since you uphold plain and straightforward writing that is not easy to achieve; en fact, you say it is very difficult. Yes. It is that I want the whole world to understand me. I don’t want to torture the reader. No. There are a lot of writers that love to torturer the reader. Not me! [Said harshly] I like that the understand me. For this reason I write. In addition, I’m not such an elitist.

Usted parece especialmente predispuesta a este tipo de literatura, ya que defiende la escritura llana y sencilla, que no es tan fácil de conseguir; de hecho, usted dice que es muy difícil. Sí. Es que yo quiero que me entienda todo el mundo. Yo no quiero torturar al lector. No. Hay muchos escritores a los que les encanta torturar al lector. ¡A mí no! [Proclama con dureza]. A mí me gusta que me entiendan. Para eso escribo. Además, no soy tan elitista.

She also talked about her relationship to the Civil War and recent pushes to investigate the past in Spain.

Undoubtedly it is a traumatic experience. It was tremendous. I still can’t stand fireworks. They have the same sound as the bombs. The bombardments here in Barcelona were terrible. By sea and by air. We lived on Platón Street and back then I saw the sea from my room and I was completely frightened. You feel so powerless…My father would say: take everyone by the hand against the teacher’s wall. And we all would stay that way…[She remains quiet, in suspense, with a face of fear]. I also remember the lines. Those of us who were bourgeois children, those that didn’t go out without one’s father [she makes a face of horror], we quickly had to go stand in line to get bread, where nobody gave a damn. For us it was great! Because we had the liberty to come and go…We looked like mice wanting to go after cheese. My older brother and I discovered freedom. We enjoyed it a lot.

I have found that many people your age reject, perhaps out of fear, the plans to recover the historical memory, to remove this part of history from the past. It is that the way perhaps the fear hasn’t gone, but yes the sadness [remains], the laceration, and the waking of hatreds. I understand that those that have not lived the war have their own feelings, but for me it makes me shiver. To return to relive, to remember. I remember the attempted coup de Tejero [in 1981]. I was with my son in a taxi and we hear the shots on the radio. Look! And I became desperate. “Not again! No, God, not again!” My son asked me: “What’s happening mama?” The taxi cab driver and my son began to talk about what was happening and I would only say: “No, not again. No I will resist it.

Indudablemente es una experiencia muy traumática. Es tremenda. Yo todavía ahora no soporto los fuegos artificiales. Tienen el mismo sonido que las bombas. Los bombardeos aquí en Barcelona fueron terribles. Por mar y por aire. Nosotros vivíamos en la calle de Platón y entonces veía el mar desde mi cuarto y pasaba un miedo espantoso. Te sientes tan impotente… Mi padre decía: cojámonos todos de la mano, contra el muro maestro. Y así nos quedábamos todos… [Se queda quieta, en suspenso, con cara de susto]. También me acuerdo de las colas. Nosotros, que éramos unos niños de clase burguesa, de esos que no salían más que con las tatas [pone cara de horror], teníamos de pronto que ir a hacer colas para conseguir el pan, sin que a nadie le importara. ¡Para nosotros era fenomenal! Porque teníamos libertad de entrar y salir… Parecíamos ratones deseando salir del queso. Mi hermano mayor y yo descubrimos la libertad. La disfrutamos mucho.

He comprobado que mucha gente de su edad rechaza, quizá por miedo, los intentos de recuperar la memoria histórica, de remover esa parte del pasado. Es que de la guerra quizá ya no te queda el miedo, pero sí la tristeza, el desgarro y un despertar de odios. Entiendo que los que no han vivido la guerra tengan un sentimiento distinto, pero a mí me escalofría. Volver a repasar, a recordar. Me acuerdo del intento de golpe de Estado de Tejero [en 1981]. Yo iba con mi hijo en un taxi y oímos los tiros a través de la radio. ¡Mira!, me entró una desesperación… ¡Otra vez no! ¡No, por Dios, otra vez no! Mi hijo me preguntaba: “¿Pero qué te pasa, mamá?”. El taxista y él empezaron a hablar de lo que estaba pasando y yo sólo decía: “No, otra vez no. No lo resistiré”.

El País Reviews Bolaño and Bolanomania Again

~ bythefirelight ~ 1 Comment

El País has another article about Bolanomania in the United States. (You can see a previous post I did on the subject here). It talks about some of the reviews he has received, how most talk about his biography as much or more than the books and notes the controversy over his heroin usage. The article also notes that one’s reputation after death is based on luck. The author notes that the translation into English has created a different Bolaño, a Bolaño that Americans read from within their own cultural framework. Nothing surprising there. He goes on to compare Bolaño to Kerouac and suggests Americans are placing reading Kerouac and the Beat’s vitalism into Bolaños vitalism and from this reading they are culturally locating Bolaño.

Probably the North American reader recognizes a diction en these novels that es not dissimilar and lets the reader make the book their own, with local flavor and its riches. In English the books are not only very literary and miticulous, pasionate and brillant; they are, over all, vitalist.

The grand tradition of North American vitalist prose, in effect, has been the setting where the various styles of fiction characteristically Yankee were defined. The greatest stylist of this style is Jack Kerouac, and his On the Road, written in 1951 and rejected by 19 publishers before its publication in 1957, is a a modern classic. Even though the Beat Generation ended up being devoured by its own reputation, its works are more serious than the image of its authors, simplified to the point of being taken granted, and converted into merchandise. The brilliance of that vibrant, radiant, fluid, and unpredictable prose echoes like a spell in the pages of Bolaño.

Probablemente el lector norteamericano reconoce en estas novelas una dicción que no le es ajena, y que le permite hacer suya, con apetito local, su riqueza. En inglés no son sólo muy literarias y minuciosas, apasionadas y brillantes; son, sobre todo, vitalistas.

La gran tradición de la prosa norteamericana vitalista, en efecto, ha sido el escenario donde se definen los varios estilos de la ficción característicamente yanqui. El mayor estilista de este estilo es Jack Kerouac, y su On the road, escrita en 1951 y rechazada por 19 editoriales antes de su publicación en 1957, un clásico moderno. Aunque la generación Beat terminó devorada por su biografía popular, sus obras son más serias que la imagen de sus autores, simplificados al punto de darse por leídos, convertidos en mercancía residual. El brillo de esa prosa vivaz, irradiante, fluida, imprevisible, resuena como un conjuro en las páginas de Bolaño.

El País – Best Books of 2008

~ bythefirelight

El País has published there list of the best books of 2008. It is an interesting list and comparing it to the lists I’ve seen in major English language presses it is quickly obvious who many translations made the list. Chelsa Beach is number one on their list.