Blog del Instituto Cervantes de Dublín

Desde la Biblioteca Dámaso Alonso del Instituto Cervantes de Dublín, queremos desearos unas felices fiestas e invitaros a que visitéis nuestro árbol de Navidad.

La biblioteca realizará una pausa por vacaciones y permanecerá cerrada desde el día 21 de diciembre de 2015 hasta el 9 de enero de 2016.  Durante este tiempo, el plazo de préstamo será mayor para que podáis disfrutar de vuestros libros, música y películas favoritas.

¡Esperamos vuestra visita durante el nuevo año!

The library team at the Instituto Cervantes Dublin wishes you a merry Christmas and would like to invite you to see our special Christmas tree.

The library will close for the Christmas break from December 21st until January 9th. During this time the items do not have to be returned, so you can enjoy your favourite books, music and films.

We look forward to see you during the new year!

Rafael Gumucio: Living with guilt is horrible and living without guilt is worse.

Interview with Rafael Gumucio held on the 3rd of November 2012, in the Dámaso Alonso Library, Cervantes Institute Dublin on the occasion of his participation in the  ISLA Literature Festival round table discussion “Unscrupulous Writers: Intimacy, Violence and Humour in literature”, together with Ita Daly, Christopher Domínguez Michael and Catherine Dunne.

Rafael Gumucio (Santiago, Chile, 1970) has worked as a journalist for many national newspapers in Chile and Spain, as well as for in the New York Times. In 1995 he published the book of short stories Invierno en la Torre (Winter in the Tower) and the novel Memorias Prematuras (Premature Memories). Subsequently, Comedia Nupcial (Bridal Comedy), Los Platos Rotos (The Broken Plates), and Páginas Coloniales (Colonial Pages) appeared. His latest work is La Deuda (The Debt) (2009). He is currently Director of the Institute of Comedic Studies of the Diego Portales University and co-host of the radio program Desde Zero.

Carmen Sanjulián: Rafael, you are a writer and humorist, but you also write on very serious subjects – there are novels such La Deuda, for example, in which you denounce a contemporary Chile where many strange things happen.

 Rafael Gumucio: I usually write serious things, I don’t set out to be funny. In my daily life it seems that I am quite a bit funny because I’m clumsy and things end up different to how I would like them to be. I do believe that what I write has some humour, in the sense that it has a slightly broader view of reality. There is no idolization; characters are displayed in all their pettiness, their absurdity and their beauty too. It is all things together. For me the word humour means exactly that. It means to be able to see reality in all its myriad nuances. I do not believe that the comedian is someone who necessarily makes jokes or is someone simply funny.

Carmen Sanjulián: Also, in La Deuda you speak of guilt^[1]. Recently Javier Marías spoke of the fact that the notion of guilt has been lost. Before, everything made us feel guilty and now anything goes. Why do you think that we have gone from one extreme to the other?

 Rafael Gumucio: I think it is a shift in society. It is a change that has to do with a certain economy. Chile is emblematic of this situation because it lived through a neo-liberal revolution of great importance. We established neoliberal reforms earlier and deeper than any other country. This, in a catholic country, guilt-ridden, with a Christian, Socialist and Communist past full of blame, which obviously creates in people a kind of trauma that is impossible to absorb between what they learned when they were children, from their families, and what society is asking of them.

The novel is called La Deuda (The Debt) because one of the basic principles of neoliberal economy is that one has to owe. Debt is not a problem, it is a quality. Money is not what you have but what you borrow. And that debt is never paid…until we realize that in the end, yes it is paid, as has happened in Spain and all over the world. But the idea we are sold during twenty or thirty years is “Look, you can not live with the money that you have under the mattress, you can’t live with your savings, you have to borrow, and then debt will make you part of society”. Debt is transformed into a sort of citizenship, identity. The Bank requests that you become indebted to them, until you could no longer afford to pay. But in the beginning banks told people “Get into debt. Repay this over twenty to thirty years”. And of course, in the old system, the system of saving, of only paying what I have when I have it, this is the old culture of guilt, which also has to do with what sense of responsibility I should have for what happens to others. That culture was fought and produced a crash.

The Chilean transition, what happened in the country is striking because I think that it spread into my private life and that of my friends, and I wanted to transcribe this. I’m not a sociologist, nor did I intend to write a sociological novel, but I was just interested in that new balance between a culture that upholds guilt and repentance, scruples, and another culture that thinks that repentance and scruples are a blockage, a form of not progressing, of remaining stalled – how those two cultures collide in private life, in the intimate lives of people, and how it created new monsters in them.

I’ve had to break with the guilt in which I was brought up, I myself have had to be part of this liberal society, and I’ve done so with joy. The novel made me discover the value of guilt, which is a paradoxical value because what I say is that guilt is very belittling, very sad, very prohibiting, but is better than no guilt whatsoever. In other words, the alternative promise, life without guilt, is a desert without remission. The truth is that I do not promise any paradise. Living with guilt is horrible and living without guilt is worse.

Carmen Sanjulián: When the coup took place in Chile, you were only three years old and you went with your family into exile. However, your grandfather founded the Christian-Democrat party in Chile, and your father was also involved in helping many others. This, even though you were a child, clearly marked you, and from this perhaps Platos Rotos (Broken Plates) arose.

Rafael Gumucio: Yes, the truth is that the political history of Chile was something completely intimate in my case, something everyday, absolutely quotidian. I spent the first years of my life in Paris, exiled, and it was like living doubly in Chile. Mentally, we lived in Chile, and in the history of Chile. My grandfather, my great-grandfather and almost all my family were involved in the history of a country that is very small and very homely, and it happened a little like the way it happened with Dublin: sometimes, very small and very provincial societies, without the greatest importance, become involved in history. In the case of Dublin, there is a literary history totally disproportionate to its size. Chile the symbol, what Chile means to the world, what it meant to history, has nothing to do with its size, the amount of inhabitants or the productivity of the country. We are a small Latin American country; however, we have produced a number of important global symbols.

As I had access to this source, it was interesting to me to tell our story. Paradoxically, this book was born when I was living in Madrid. When one lives as a foreigner, one begins to become obsessed with one’s own country. In fact, I decided to return to Chile because I didn’t want to be so Chilean. I was becoming a folkloric figure.

Carmen Sanjulián: How was your return to Chile? Did you feel exiled upon arrival?

 Rafael Gumucio: It was an experience that still I can not calibrate. I lived in Paris until I was fourteen and came to Chile in the middle of a dictatorship and an economic crisis, at a time of misery and repression. As soon as we arrived, a list appeared of people who were not permitted to be in Chile, so I lived there in secret for six months, although at the age of fourteen I had of course done nothing. Everybody told me to up and leave. However, the fact that I felt “important”, important enough to be clandestine, was an alleviation for a boy with self-esteem problems, who had suffered from dyslexia and from repression in France. So, strangely, I came to a place which was purgatory, if not hell, and I felt as if I were in paradise. I felt comfortable immediately.

On the other hand, being a writer in Chile at that time was absolutely impossible, with no prospects, and at the age of fourteen or fifteen, impossible things are a great help because they protect you from reality. Everything that went wrong in my life drifted into the background because I had embarked on a solitary project , one requiring all of my time, space and mind.

Carmen Sanjulián: Have you been given a cat for a hare many times? [To get a cat for a hare – un gato por liebre – is a Spanish idiom similar to a “pig in a poke”. It is also the name of one of Gumucio’s radio programs]

 Rafael Gumucio: Yes, but I’ve also given them from time to time.

Carmen Sanjulián: A Cat for a Hare is one of the comedy programs that you had, together with Plan Z. How do you embark upon this this story?

 Rafael Gumucio: By chance really, because just as being a writer in Chile was impossible because there were no publishers or readers, I had to embark on a career in journalism by myself and do a bit of everything. I watched a lot of TV, and wrote television criticism for a magazine. Some people read it and gave me the idea that I could do television.

Carmen Sanjulián:-Contra la Belleza (Against Beauty), an essay in which you criticise the society in which we live, which rewards beauty – what truth is there in this work for you?

 Rafael Gumucio: It is contradictory, because aesthetic parameters are very important to me. I judge people by their beauty or ugliness, and I am quite superficial. It really was a self-criticism. It was born from a collection of writings for Tumbona, a Mexican publishing house, which stood against many different things; they asked me what subject I wished to argue against, and I said “well, against beauty”. I had no idea, but while investigating, I realized that the idea of visible beauty, perceivable beauty, has been one of the problems of art.

Art has fought against beauty, because beauty has an essential political implication which is what I was interested in rebuking. I think it is a little like La Deuda (The Debt). Beauty is the most attractive symbol of injustice. Genetic or social injustice finds a living example in beauty. We may live in a totally egalitarian society, we may all have the potential to earn the same, but there will always be some more beautiful than others and, fatally, the beautiful marry each other and still have the most beautiful children, ultimately creating a society in which the beautiful govern to the ugly.

When societies are unequal, beauty is cultivated, and when societies are more egalitarian, beauty is persecuted. Of course, it is a zero-sum game, because neither can win the battle completely. God knows, if I lived in an egalitarian society in which beauty was pursued, I could not deal with it. I am more capitalist than socialist, but I fully understand that there is a problem there and that beauty is not innocent. We are told: “If you like beauty and hate ugliness, you must accept social injustices because they are of the same order: there are people more beautiful than others, there are people stronger than others, and there are those that are richer than others. Things are so, and are not going to change”. This is the discourse that is behind the propaganda of beauty, which I find unpalatable.

Carmen Sanjulián: You wrote Memorias Prematuras (Premature Memories) when you were twenty-nine years old. Where did it come from?

Rafael Gumucio: In fact it was almost a prison sentence, because after it I no longer have anything more to say… No, it was also a suicidal challenge, because a friend of mine read an interview in which I had a spoken a little about my childhood and adolescence and told me: “You have to write about that”.

I was, around this time, held in low literary regard. I had written a book which had been destroyed by the critics, and this seemed like a way out, I don’t know why. It seemed to me that I had a double opportunity. If the book was received badly, my death would be permanent. And if the book was good, it would be a gesture of boldness. And I did it when all my friends mocked me, thinking that it was a gesture of arrogance. Because in addition, I wrote the book at the age of 29, but the plot of the book ends when I was 26 – I didn’t even write about the three subsequent years. And of course, I thought about it as a novel. All the events are real, all the characters are real, but the structure I was thinking of  is like a kind of novel in which I try to show the progression and the trauma of a young man with the notion that he has become, and that his father or that society has helped him become, a genius. And how this young man has to discover that he is just normal, which is always a very big disappointment.

Luis Alegre y David Trueba: Irlanda nos demuestra que el gran legado de un país es su cultura

Entrevista con Luis Alegre y David Trueba realizada el 29 de mayo de 2012 en la Biblioteca Dámaso Alonso del Instituto Cervantes de Dublín con motivo de su participación en el “Homenaje a Félix Romeo”, junto a Miguel Aguilar, Malcolm Otero Barral e Ignacio Martínez de Pisón, y la proyección de la película La silla de Fernando.

Luis Alegre (Lechago, Teruel, 1962) es profesor de la Universidad de Zaragoza, escritor, cineasta y periodista. Desde los años 80 colabora en numerosos medios de comunicación. Como ensayista, ha publicado Besos robados. Pasiones de cine (1994), El apartamento; Belle Époque (1997), Vicente Aranda: la vida con encuadre (2002), Maribel Verdú: la novia soñada (2003), y como editor, entre otros, Diálogos de Salamina: un paseo por el cine y la literatura (2003). En 2006, dirigió junto a David Trueba la película La silla de Fernando, película-conversación con Fernando Fernán Gómez, candidata en 2007 a la mejor película documental en los Premios Goya.

David Trueba (Madrid, 1969) es escritor, periodista, guionista y director de cine. Tras sus comienzos como guionista con Amo tu cama rica (1991) y Los peores años de nuestra vida (1994), dirigió en 1996 su primera película, La buena vida, a la que siguieron Obra maestra (2000), Soldados de Salamina(2002), adaptación cinematográfica de la novela homónima de Javier Cercas, Bienvenido a casa (2005), La silla de Fernando (2006) junto a Luis Alegre, Madrid 1987 (2011) y Vivir es fácil con los ojos cerrados (2013). Como novelista, ha publicado Abierto toda la noche (1995), Cuatro amigos (1999) ySaber perder (2008), Premio Nacional de la Crítica de ese año. Sus novelas han sido traducidas a más de quince idiomas.

Carmen Sanjulián: —Empecemos con el homenaje a Félix Romeo. Cuando un amigo se va, deja huecos imposibles de llenar. ¿Qué huecos ha dejado Félix en vuestras vidas?

Luis Alegre: —Félix ha dejado un hueco enorme, inmenso. Además, como ha sido una pérdida traumática, absolutamente inesperada, yo creo que no nos acabamos de hacer a la idea de que se haya ido. Cuando se va alguien que tiene ochenta y tantos años, al que quieres mucho, y percibes que eso forma parte de la normalidad de la vida, lo recibes de una manera. Pero en el caso de Félix Romeo ha sido una especie de pesadilla para todos los que le quisimos. Y luego, me parece que es una pérdida importantísima para la cultura española, porque era una de las personalidades más originales, más libres, más abrumadoras que existían.

Carmen Sanjulián: —Ayer comentabais que una de las reivindicaciones de Félix era el amor y que tenía un grito de «¡viva el amor!». ¿Vosotros continuáis con esa reivindicación del amor?

David Trueba: —Sobre todo Luis.

Luis Alegre: —Es muy fácil compartir esa reivindicación, pero lo que pasa es que Félix lo hacía con una vehemencia, una pasión, una constancia y una alegría que eran verdaderamente impresionantes. Él amaba muchísimo el amor, amaba la alegría, amaba la vida, amaba la libertad, amaba la belleza, la cultura, amaba las mejores cosas de este mundo, las mejores cosas de las personas, como todos las amamos, pero él lo hacía con su propia personalidad y con su estilo, que era muy peculiar, muy atractivo y muy divertido, por otro lado.

David Trueba: —Sí, es que yo creo que existe un malentendido en una cierta parte de la sociedad sobre la cultura, el arte, en el sentido de que tiene que ser algo aburrido, pesado, que provoque una cierta seriedad, una cierta gravedad en las personas, tanto en las que se acercan desde fuera como en las que lo hacen. Pero nosotros siempre compartíamos con Félix una misma visión de eso, que es que nosotros nos dedicábamos a estas cosas porque nos daba un enorme placer, nos daba una enorme alegría. Nos parecía que lo mejor que podíamos hacer y dedicar a la sociedad era ofrecer nuestras obras, nuestros inventos, nuestras películas, nuestros libros, nuestra pasión por algo que leíamos o escuchábamos o descubríamos en una exposición. Nunca entendíamos esa especie de relación de la cultura con lo pesado, lo plasta, con la queja.

Él representaba exactamente eso, una vocación de alegría, de placer, de transmitir ese placer a los demás y no tener ningún complejo frente a cualquier otra profesión o cualquier otra dedicación, que a lo mejor tiene una mayor estabilidad emocional, una mayor estabilidad laboral, pero que sin embargo, seguramente, no puede aportar estas dosis de felicidad que nos daba a nosotros. La verdad que en eso él era un militante absoluto y un apóstol de la alegría, de la felicidad, de que había que quererse, tocarse, y que a la vez teníamos que ejecutar nuestro trabajo como una forma de esa alegría. Yo sí creo que seguimos siendo fieles a eso, no va a ser fácil que nos lo quiten.

Carmen Sanjulián: —Y vamos a otro amigo, a Fernando Fernán Gómez. Dirigisteis los dos La silla de Fernando, una película que, contabais, se rodó durante varios meses.

Luis Alegre: —Los que conocen un poco la cultura española, saben que Fernando Fernán Gómez es una de las personalidades clave de la historia de la cultura española del siglo XX desde muy diferentes puntos de vista. Como actor, que es su faceta más popular, pero también como director de cine, como escritor, como director de teatro, como actor de teatro, como memorialista, como realizador y guionista y actor de televisión. En fin, es una de las personalidades más polifacéticas que han investigado y que han cultivado todas las artes, o buena parte de las artes del siglo XX. Es una especie de síntesis de todo eso.

En cada una de esas facetas tiene obras clave: en cine, en teatro, en televisión y en literatura. Nosotros éramos dos más de los muchos admiradores que tiene y dos de los muchos que reconocen esa importancia de Fernando Fernán Gómez en la cultura española. Pero había algo que a David y a mí nos seducía especialmente, como a otros muchos que eran amigos suyos, y es su maravillosa manera de ver la vida y su increíble manera de contarla. Creíamos que había un arte en la manera de contar, la manera que él tenía de entender la vida y las cosas que le pasaban. Creíamos que ese arte solo lo disfrutábamos quienes lo conocíamos y quienes disfrutábamos de su amistad. Y se nos ocurrió hacer una película, para tratar de transmitir esa fascinación que nosotros teníamos a todos los que vieran esa película. O sea, retratar ese arte tan peculiar que es el hablar, el contar las cosas de la vida y revelar una manera, para nosotros casi revolucionaria, de entender el mundo y la vida.

David Trueba: —Sí, es una película que nos ha dado enormes satisfacciones. Seguramente, un gran éxito de taquilla no nos habría dado tanta felicidad como nos ha dado esta película Por varias razones. Una, porque vemos el placer que provoca en la gente que la ve, que es lo que al final nosotros buscábamos, que se reprodujeran las sensaciones de charlar con Fernando, de tener una larga sobremesa con él acerca de lo divino y de lo humano. Y luego también porque para nosotros, durante muchos años, fue un proyecto, una idea con la que fantaseábamos, pero que siempre decíamos: «bueno, una película de un señor hablando, esto no lo vamos a hacer», y al mismo tiempo: «tenemos que hacerlo, porque nos vamos a arrepentir toda la vida cuando Fernando desaparezca, de no haberlo hecho». Y la satisfacción de poder ahora, el día de hoy, decir «lo hicimos». No se quedó en un proyecto, no se quedó en una idea, no se quedó en algo que comentábamos pero no se hizo, sino que se hizo y que además llegó él mismo a verlo y significó, yo creo, para él una enorme alegría verlo, y para nosotros que él lo viera Por eso, te digo que uno junta todas las satisfacciones y seguramente encontrará pocas cosas de las que ha podido hacer en su vida que le haya reportado tantas alegrías.

Carmen Sanjulián: —Y además gustó mucho. Un crítico os daba un nueve sobre diez y decía «nueve porque es corta» ¿Tuvisteis que cortar mucho material?

Luis Alegre: —Grabamos veinte horas, más o menos, de conversaciones con él. Y claro, para una película convencional, y teniendo en cuenta las características de esta película, que al fin y al cabo, por muy deslumbrante que fuera, era un ser humano hablando, pues… Nos limitamos a una duración de ochenta y cinco minutos, que es una duración de una película convencional. Claro, dejamos mucho material fuera. Parte de ese material, lo recuperamos en los extras que aparecen en el DVD. Pero sí, estuvimos obligados a dejar mucho material fuera.

David Trueba: —Fue una película muy laboriosa de montaje, porque fuimos también muy exigentes. Es una película que exigía no caer en que fuera aburrida o pesada para el espectador. Nosotros queríamos que fuera una película que la gente se quedara, como decía el crítico, con ganas de más. Queríamos que salieran diciendo «bueno, habría estado una hora más».

La persona que nos regala una hora y media de su tiempo para ver algo que hacemos merece el mejor trato posible. Entonces, el montaje fue muy laborioso. Estuvimos bastante tiempo preguntándonos: «¿Este trozo debe ir, o no?», «vamos a pensarlo porque aquí esto esta bien, pero esto se hace largo», etc. Depuramos mucho y dejamos sobre todo muchas cosas fuera de la profesión de Fernando, que no queríamos que capitalizara la película, y gracias a que se hizo una edición muy cuidada del DVD, pudimos añadir dos horas más de material para esas personas, que las hay por suerte, y muchas, que después de ver la hora y media de La silla de Fernando dicen «me gustaría oír más cosas de Fernando sobre esto o aquello», y tienen esa posibilidad de verlo ahí.

Pero para nosotros, la película es así y tiene que ser así. Decíamos siempre al presentarla que era una película muy espectacular para nosotros, porque Fernando era en espectáculo muy difícil de reproducir. Fernando era un malabarista de la palabra, de la conversación, y también una persona que en esa película recorre el siglo XX español de una manera absolutamente oblicua, pero seguramente tan esclarecedora o más que muchos libros de historia.

Carmen Sanjulián: —¿Tenéis algún personaje más para ponerlo en una silla?

David Trueba: —Bueno, es muy difícil, porque esa silla es única. Lo que sí tenemos, y como nos lo pasamos tan bien trabajando, es algún proyecto, Luis y yo, de volver a colaborar juntos y volver a colaborar en un formato en el que se puede explotar muy bien las características de Luis como colaborador y su capacidad de ser un gran entrevistador, una persona con una enorme curiosidad, con una enorme capacidad de transmitir confianza.

De vez en cuando, nos planteamos la idea de volver a reunirnos y hacerlo con alguno de esos raros personajes que en España pueden no solo contar algo de sí mismos interesante, sino que también aporten una luz sobre nuestro espacio, nuestro país, nuestra cultura, nuestra forma de ser o nuestra evolución en los últimos años. Lo que pasa es que los proyectos, al final, hasta que no los haces, lo mejor es no tontear con ellos. Lo de Fernando Fernán Gómez, por ejemplo, era algo que nunca comentábamos. Era algo que teníamos nosotros dentro, pero hasta que no lo haces, lo mejor es no comentarlo.

Carmen Sanjulián: —Ya que estamos en Irlanda, un país en el que se han rodado muchísimas películas, como sabéis, a lo mejor hasta venís aquí a rodar.

David Trueba: —Claro, Irlanda es para nosotros un territorio mítico, aunque sólo sea por la gran literatura, la gran música y el gran cine que ha dado en primera persona, o que ha transmitido a algunos directores norteamericanos. Pero no solo eso, sino que demuestra una cosa que nosotros venimos mucho tiempo insistiendo en España, que es que el gran legado de un país es su cultura, no es otra cosa. No es su economía que, como se demuestra, sube y baja. No es, por supuesto, su capacidad militar. No es tampoco su capacidad industrial, sino que el gran legado de un país, o su gran personalidad, su gran bandera, es lo que va dejando atrás de cultura.

Finalmente, uno visita Irlanda, que ha sido para nosotros un placer, y visita Dublín, y descubre que, probablemente, la cosa de la que más orgullosos se puedan sentir los irlandeses es de sus poetas, de sus escritores y de la sensación de identidad que ellos le aportan como país. Mucho más que muchísimas otras cosas que el mundo de la política o de los medios tratan de vendernos como relevante.

Carmen Sanjulián: —Hablando de Irlanda: Hace unos días, escuchando la radio, la pregunta era si alguien se había quedado encerrado en un baño. Y curiosamente, no podéis imaginar la gente que llamaba diciendo que sí. Había anécdotas de todo tipo.

Luis Alegre: —Yo me quedé encerrado en un baño de pequeño, ahora que lo dices. Sí, sí, yo creo que todos tenemos en nuestra biografía un momento en que nos hemos quedado encerrados en un baño.

Carmen Sanjulián: —A mí, evidentemente, me recordaba a tu película Madrid 1987. La película, que está teniendo un éxito tremendo, ¿está basada en un hecho real, alguien te ha contado algo?

David Trueba: —Está basada en una anécdota real de dos personas similares a las que cuenta la película, que se quedaron encerradas en un baño. A partir de ahí, todo está recreado, inventado, y los personajes son completamente ficticios. Pero sí, es curioso, porque también en España, mucha gente, a raíz de la película, me ha contado sus experiencias, no solo en lo de quedarse encerrado, sino en las relaciones entre personas de muy distinta edad. Y es muy curioso, porque las películas generan que la gente te cuente sus experiencias personales, y una de las cosas que más me ha gustado es sentir que la película acompaña a muchas experiencias de la gente, y que hay veces que la gente te dice «eso es imposible», «eso no puede pasar», «eso no puede ocurrir», y tú mismo dices «si yo te contara la cantidad de historias que me han contado solo en estos meses».

Carmen Sanjulián: —Y ya para acabar, a mí me encanta el comienzo del libro de Cuatro amigos, esas cosas que sobrevaloramos. ¿Añadimos algo más a esa lista fantástica? ¿Quitamos? ¿Qué pensáis?

David Trueba: —Bueno, creo que por desgracia hay muchas cosas sobrevaloradas en la vida. A mí, las que más me preocupan son las que amargan la vida de la gente. Porque al final, que alguien sobrevalore algo forma parte de su forma de vivir. Es decir, uno le da importancia a unas cosas y así debe ser. Pero lo que me preocupa es cuando sobrevalorar algo nos hace infelices, nos amarga la vida. En ese sentido, creo que los últimos años nos han enseñado que el dinero, por más que nos insistían, desde los cuentos y sobre todos los padres, etcétera. Obviamente, se ha demostrado que el dinero no es lo más importante en una sociedad ni en una vida, sino que, seguramente, lo más importante es llenarla de cosas que te hagan sentir pleno.

Es verdad que encuentro cada día más cosas sobrevaloradas y también minusvaloradas al mismo tiempo. La gente no se da cuenta de lo importante que es la amistad, de lo importante que es transmitir placer a los demás, de lo importante que es tener una cultura, una vida interior que le permita a uno sobrellevar la soledad, sobrellevar la trayectoria vital, normalmente tendente a la decadencia, etc. A todas esas cosas se les presta muy poca atención o muy poco valor en la vida de las personas y acaban por ser definitivas.

Enlaces recomendados

• [Vídeo] Entrevista realizada a Luis Alegre y David Trueba en el Instituto Cervantes de Dublín por Carmen Sanjulián.
• Blog de Luis Alegre en El Huffington Post.
• Artículos de David Trueba en El País.

Sobre Félix Romeo

• Félix Romeo en Letras Libres.
• [Audio] Adiós a Félix Romeo. Especial en Radio 3

    Sobre Fernando Fernán Gómez

• Vida y obra de Fernando Fernán Gómez en las bibliotecas del Instituto Cervantes.
• Fernando Fernán Gómez. Especial en El Mundo.

< Listado de entrevistas

Cristina Fernández Cubas: Life is full of thresholds. It’s very easy to cross them. What’s difficult is turning back

Interview with Cristina Fernández Cubas held on 18th October 2011 at the Dámaso Alonso Library of the Instituto Cervantes in Dublin on the occasion of her participation in the round table discussion “The story that will occur” with David Roas.

Cristina Fernández Cubas (Arenys de Mar, 1945) studied Law and Journalism in Barcelona. She is the author of five collections of short stories: Mi hermana Elba, Los altillos de Brumal, El ángulo del horror, Con Ágata en Estambul and Parientes pobres del diablo, winner of the Setenil Award for Short Stories in 2006. She is also the author of two novels, El año de Gracia and El columpio, a play, Hermanas de sangre, and a narrated memoir, Cosas que ya no existen,republished recently by Tusquets. Her work is translated into ten languages. In 2009, her collected short stories, Todos los cuentos, received the City of Barcelona, Salambó and Qwerty awards, among others.

Patricia García: —Cristina, in your stories we often find Fantastic elements. What does the Fantastic mean to you?

Cristina Fernández Cubas: —When I started writing I never planned to write anything in the Fantastic genre. The Fantastic element appears before I summon it and it suddenly disrupts a very calm situation. Now, I can admit, that there are parts of my writing that can be considered Fantastic literature. But I was very reluctant to admit that in the beginning because I thought it was like a label. I have finally accepted it and I’m OK with it now. Yes, there is an element of the Fantastic in some of my creative work.

Patricia García: —Given the topics, the claustrophobic and even macabre atmosphere, it’s been said on some occasions that you are the Edgar Allan Poe of contemporary Spain.

Cristina Fernández Cubas: —That’s a big compliment, thank you.

Patricia García: —Do you really feel you’re walking in his shoes?

Cristina Fernández Cubas: —In his shoes would be going a bit too far. What I can say is that one of the first stories I remember which had an impact on me was “The fall of the house of Usher” which my brother told me. He told the story and I loved it and I used to always say that he was improvising and, when I finally read the story, I found the house seemed very small. You see, he was adding rooms and information of his own, answering the questions that his little sisters would ask him. So it’s not so much that I’m in Poe’s shoes, but he definitely had something to do with the start of it all.

Patricia García: —Which short story created by someone who you consider to be a master would you like to have written yourself?

Cristina Fernández Cubas: —Many by Edgar Allan Poe… although actually I don’t think “I wish I had written this”. No, it’s written and I read it and enjoy it. I even think: “Look, it’s already been written, I don’t have to write it myself”. Many short stories by Poe and some by Guy de Maupassant, for example. And a short story named “La resucitada” by Emilia Pardo Bazán.

Patricia García: —We know that you have travelled a lot in your life. Has Cristina the traveller influenced Cristina the writer?

Cristina Fernández Cubas: —Yes, but not in a clear way. My short stories generally happen in places with no name, even if they might have one. But I don’t say it. Somehow, my travel and life experiences are reflected in Cosas que ya no existen,which is a book of memories. Although they look like short stories, they’re not. The material I used in that book is my own memory, life is the scriptwriter. Many countries appear in that book.

Patricia García: —Is there a short story of yours that you are especially fond of?

Cristina Fernández Cubas: —Well, yes. I’m very fond of “Mi hermana Elba”. From Parientes pobres del diablo, there’s also “La fiebre azul” or “El moscardón”. And this book of memories that I mentioned, Cosas que ya no existen, because I had always said I would never tell things about myself, but you end up telling them, don’t you? Because somehow, writing is always autobiographical. But when I finished Cosas que ya no existen, I lifted a huge weight off my shoulders, I laughed like crazy, I cried as well with some chapters. And I think I was reborn. I think I became a better person. I was already good, but then I was much better, honestly. It was a very interesting experience because working with reality is very difficult, and even more so with memories.

Memory is no more than a pulse, it’s not easy to call back memories. I decided not to allow myself any license, apart from some name change, so as not to offend anybody or, sometimes, to do just that. Nothing else. There is not a single license throughout this book. In other words, life is the scriptwriter and life is very capricious sometimes.

Patricia García: —Your short stories are full of thresholds that sometimes seem disturbing to cross: architectural thresholds, like the convent gate in your short story “Mundo”, and sometimes they’re symbolic like the passage into adolescence in “Mi hermana Elba”. What thresholds disturb Cristina Fernández Cubas?

Cristina Fernández Cubas: —Life is full of thresholds. It is very easy to cross them. What’s difficult is turning back.

The vision of life as something full of unknown thresholds always haunts me and interests me. Moreover, what we consider Fantastic today may not be the same in a hundred years, because what was considered Fantastic 100 years ago, now, due to discoveries and scientific progress, may no longer appear so. I believe that some things that come to us as intuitions or strange sensations, for which we don’t have an explanation, perhaps these strange thresholds that I see everywhere, allowing entry into something different, something unknown, well, perhaps in some years they’ll be the most natural thing in the world.

Patricia García: —We know that your first book, Mi hermana Elba (1980), faced some problems before being published. What advice would you give to someone who is trying to publish his/her first book?

Cristina Fernández Cubas: —Those times were very tough. When I finished Mi hermana Elba, publication generally was difficult, but for short stories, you can’t even imagine: it was as if I’d committed a crime.

There weren’t many short story writers at that time, but I persisted. I was being given ridiculous feedback: “It’s very good, change the endings”, for instance. I would advise someone who has worked earnestly, and believes in their work, to keep going until the end. I did that, I persisted, I ignored what was being said out there. Advice is helpful as long as it’s advice, but not when it’s nonsense. And even though you feel insecure writing your first book, you have to learn to defend what you really believe in.

Patricia García: —And to finish, let’s imagine, 100 years from now. How would you like to be remembered?

Cristina Fernández Cubas: —First of all, I would like to be around in a hundred years… But that hasn’t been invented yet. In a hundred years… It would be nice to be remembered… my writing, in any case, maybe my first book, Mi hermana Elba and maybe the courage I showed when I had to defend short stories as a genre. Yes, I would like to be remembered by short story writers. Because it seems very obvious now that a story is a genre in its own right. But I’ve had to continuously explain that a short story is neither an earlier stage of the novel, nor training in short films before getting to do a feature film. So, I would like to be remembered for my short stories but also for my stubbornness.

Recomended Links

• [Video] Interview with Cristina Fernández Cubas at the Instituto Cervantes in Dublin by Patricia García.
• Cristina Fernández Cubas in Tusquets.
• [Video] Cristina Fernández Cubas in Avión de Papel TV.
• Bad times for short stories. Cristina Fernández Cubas in El Cultural.

<List of interviews

Diego Valverde Villena: Curiosity keeps you always alive, and somehow, ageless

Interview with Diego Valverde Villena held on 31st May 2011 at the Dámaso Alonso Library of the Instituto Cervantes in Dublin on the occasion of his participation in the round table discussion “More than poetry”, with Anamaría Crowe Serrano.

Diego Valverde Villena (San Isidro, Lima, Peru, 1967) has a degree in Hispanic, English and German Studies from the University of Valladolid. From 2002 to 2004 he worked at the Ministry of Culture for the Spanish Government. He was also director of the Valladolid Book Fair from 2006 to 2009. Since 2010, he is visiting professor at the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés in La Paz. His poetry includes the collections El difícil ejercicio del olvido (1997), No olvides mi rostro (2001), Infierno del enamorado (2002), and El espejo que lleva mi nombre escrito (2006). In 2007 Iconos appeared, a work for soprano and piano, with music by Juan Manuel Ruiz, published in 2008. His latest collection, Un segundo de vacilación, was published in 2011.

Carmen Sanjulián: —Who is Diego Valverde Villena?

Diego Valverde Villena: —Well, since you ask that way, I’ll give you a deep, sincere answer. I’m Fermin’s and Chati’s son. That’s how I used to call my parents when I was 2, in Lima. Chati was an affectionate way of calling my mother, while my father’s name was Fermín. I didn’t call them mum and dad, I called them Fermín and Chati, as everybody else did, my parents’ friends.

Deep down, honestly, that’s who I am. Precisely Fermín’s and Chati’s son and everything I am, I have been and may be in the future comes from them, from everything I received from them. That’s who I was in the beginning. The rest is just an expansion of what my parents gave me.

Carmen Sanjulián: —Why don’t you explain a little bit the idea of “Orfeo criollo”, which you mentioned in an interview, a biography.

Diego Valverde Villena: —Yes, and I know you have this text here in your magnificent collection. By the way, thank you very much for the documentation work you carry out here and at the Instituto Cervantes in general.

Well I gave it the title “I am a Creole Orpheus” because I really like the figure of Orpheus. It’s an interesting allegory for the artist, not only the poet but also the person who is always looking for something that is a step out of reach and about to vanish. And apart from art and the work of art, he’s also looking for the person he loves, the woman he loves. The legend usually ends sadly, but fortunately there are some versions, particularly an opera, with a happy ending. I’m hoping that my particular version of Orpheus will have a happy ending. And I’m Creole because that’s where I come from. I’m the son of a Spaniard and an American (my mum is Bolivian, from Potosi), and I was born in America, in Lima. I have always felt I am a Spaniard from America which is a beautiful way of being Spanish and being American. I have these two sides.

Carmen Sanjulián: —Is losing one’s curiosity a form of dying?

Diego Valverde Villena: —I wouldn’t say it in such a dramatic way, but definitely curiosity is essential for me. Curiosity as a vice is something rather ugly but as a virtue it’s wonderful. It’s something that keeps you alive.

Curiosity makes you somehow ageless. It gives you the urge to look for new things and enjoy life. I think it’s very important to enjoy life. There are so many things out there to enjoy that we don’t see and they’re right in front of us. For example in this library, wherever you look you find wonderful works, and just a line can change your life, can open your eyes to so much. I think curiosity is important.

Carmen Sanjulián: —A passion.

Diego Valverde Villena: —That’s like asking me about my favourite poem, or poet, or song, or music… I have many passions, plenty of personal passions and things that fascinate me. I don’t even know if literature is my main passion. It’s what I do for a living. I’ve always enjoyed other areas in which I wasn’t involved myself, maybe that’s why I find them even more magical, like music, or films. Just to mention an example, I’ve never cried with a text, well, except for letters, but never with a literary text. However, I’ve cried with movies and music. Sometimes when I listen to music I have to stop doing what I am doing.

Carmen Sanjulián: —Is there any place where you regularly go?

Diego Valverde Villena: —A physical place you mean? Well, not really… But I definitely like big cities. I was born in Lima, which at that time had a population of 3 million people. Now it’s about 10 million. I live in Madrid, with 4 million, almost 5, which is very nice too. In general, I feel quite happy in big cities: Berlin, Paris, or Rome. It doesn’t really matter. Basically it’s like the old Spanish romance says: “Allá se me ponga el sol do tengo el amor” [The sun can set wherever my love is].

Carmen Sanjulián: —Is forgetting difficult for you?

Diego Valverde Villena: —“Forgetting”. I see you’re referring to one of my titles. Forgetting is impossible for me. I realise that the titles of 2 of my books contain this word, maybe because it’s something I don’t have. Fortunately I have a good memory and memory is one’s personal background. If you lose your memory you become nobody. In my case, though, as Borges says in his poem “Everness”: “Only one thing does not exist: oblivion”. For me, in general, memories are a constant reminder of who you are.

Carmen Sanjulián: —A dream.

Diego Valverde Villena: —To do what I’m supposed to do, to be worthy of what I have inherited from my ancestors, of what I’ve received so as to somehow make good use of it. To try and be worthy of that.

Carmen Sanjulián: —Diego, while you are here, it would be a shame not to ask you to read some of your poems. You’re going to read two poems. How did you come up with them?

Diego Valverde Villena: —Yes, I’m going to read two poems that go hand in hand, they came to me at the same time. I have a special fondness for these poems because they made me feel fully satisfied with my work as a writer for the first time.

I was studying in Chicago when I wrote these two poems where my main themes converge. Recurrent themes are: travel, books, art, women, love and destiny. All these themes are here and come up again throughout my work.

Carmen Sanjulián: —Let’s start with “Metro de Chicago” [Chicago Underground].

Diego Valverde Villena:

METRO DE CHICAGO

A lo largo del viaje

la mujer de tu vida se te escapa repetidas veces,

siempre en el lado opuesto de la vía,

en el otro andén,

en la otra cola,

saliendo del museo o del restaurante cuando tú entras:

un segundo de vacilación es suficiente.

[CHICAGO UNDERGROUND

Along the route

the woman of your life keeps slipping away,

always on the other side of the track,

on the other platform,

in the other queue,

leaving the museum or restaurant as you go in:

all it takes is a moment’s hesitation.]

Carmen Sanjulián: —And to finish this interview let’s read “Like a book”

Diego Valverde Villena: —Here, as in all libraries, there are signs asking people not to return books to the shelves but to leave them on the tables, as that’s the librarians’ job. Librarians are the life and soul of the Instituto Cervantes, together with the teachers. At that time I was in Chicago in a library which had seven million books. You can imagine, when a book is not put back properly it’s lost forever. Based on this idea of the poor lost book and how it would be found and recovered, I wrote this poem.

COMO UN LIBRO

Perdido,

abandonado entre filas extrañas,

rehén de congéneres fortuitos que entienden otro idioma,

víctima del azar de un bibliotecario burlón

o una mano inexperta,

solo y soslayado,

hasta que alguien me encuentre.

[LIKE A BOOK

Lost,

abandoned among strange rows,

hostage to random companions who speak a different language,

victim of the whim of a teasing librarian

or an inexpert hand,

alone and left aside,

until someone finds me.]

(Translated by Anamaría Crowe Serrano)

Recommended links

• [Video] Interview with Diego Valverde Villena at the Instituto Cervantes in Dublin by Carmen Sanjulián.
• Poems by Diego Valverde Villena in Aurora Boreal.
• “Diego Valverde Villena: Palabras cultas, palabras vivas”. Essay by Julio Martínez Mesanza about Diego Valverde Villena’s work.

< List of interviews

*Wishing all our Friends a very happy and prosperous

New Year! *

* Athbhliain faoi shéan agus faoi mhaise *

Instituto Cervantes Dublín

The Institute will be closed from 20 December until 3 January. We will open to the public on 4 January 2011.

El Instituto permanecerá cerrado del 20 de diciembre al 3 de enero. Abriremos al público el 4 de enero de 2011.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: CLASSES WILL GO AHEAD ON SATURDAY, 4TH DECEMBER, AS USUAL. WE HOPE TO HAVE CLASSESS AND CULTURAL ACTIVITIES NEXT WEEK, UNLESS WEATHER CONDITIONS WORSENS.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: CLASSES AND CULTURAL ACTIVITIES ARE CANCELLED FROM TODAY 1ST DECEMBER TO FRIDAY 3RD DECEMBER (BOTH INCLUSIVE) DUE TO BAD WEATHER CONDITIONS AND DISRUPTION OF PUBLIC TRANSPORT SERVICES

Desde abril de 2009, ahora hace un año, se puede acceder en Internet de forma gratuita y en varias lenguas a la “Biblioteca digital mundial”. El proyecto cuenta con el apoyo de la UNESCO y pone a disposición de todos importantes materiales fundamentales de culturas de todo el mundo. Se puede navegar en árabe, chino, español, francés, inglés, portugués y ruso y seleccionar entre más de 1.200 documentos digitalizados por 32 instituciones entre las que se encuentran las Bibliotecas Nacionales de países como China, Israel, Rusia, Francia o Chile. Destaca entre todas la aportación de la biblioteca del Congreso de los EEUU con 553 documentos.

Vocabulario manual de las lenguas castellana y mexicana depositado por la Biblioteca John Carter Brown

Cada documento viene acompañado por una descripción del contenido e información sobre el autor, la fecha de creación, el lugar, el tema y las características físicas. Hay mapas, fotografías, películas, manuscritos, libros, grabados y grabaciones sonoras que rastrean hechos ocurridos desde el 8.000 antes de Cristo hasta el presente.

El MUVA (Museo Virtual de Arte) El País es una iniciativa de la crítica de arte Alicia Haber apoyada por el periódico uruguayo El País. El primer proyecto de este museo virtual fue lanzado en 1997, concebido, diseñado y ejectuado por uruguayos. En sus salas, consagradas a la creación contemporánea uruguaya, se exhiben obras provenientes de colecciones privadas difíciles de ver en otro sitio. La visita virtual del museo permite un recorrido de 360 grados y una vista detallada de las obras, que presentan además distintos vínculos con información multimedia sobre la obra en cuestión y el artista.

 El museo, premiado como uno de los mejores sitios web de Uruguay, merece una visita.