A beast with two heads, a forked tongue and eight limbs. Many might think that we are talking about any of the monsters starring in the latest Hollywood horror film. But it is actually the baby of a novice who was born with deformities. Not in the current era, in which one could have a certain sensitivity to the subject, but in 1623, during the Viceroyalty of Peru, “when everything bad was reduced to saying that it was the devil himself,” says Santiago Roncagliolo (Lima, 1975), which is based on this plot in his new book, The Year in which the Demon was Born (Seix Barral).
“Even today we separate those who are different from society and blame them for all the evils. We may no longer call them monsters, but we still treat them as such, even though we actually are. I’m interested in these characters who feel out of place. I myself have been a foreigner all my life and have felt that way. Everything I write is a defense of people who are different like me and, over time, I have realized that real monsters are not in the paranormal world, but in the history of countries.
Roncagliolo has been writing for years about monsters of all kinds, some good and others terrible and embodied in terrorists, abusers and torturers. “This time he wanted to explore witches and find out to what extent anyone could be considered one. “Witches were created to blame women for men’s problems.”
He does so with the figure of Rosa, a woman who claims to be able to speak with both God and Lucifer and who appears just when the novice’s child is born. Alonso Morales, a young bailiff of the Holy Office court, will soon place her on her target list, as he must find out if she is a witch or a saint.
“It was a time when there were very rigorous regulations. It was like a big school that treated society like children. Sex and pleasure were prohibited because they were considered to distance you from God.” However, some convents became “small republics of liberated women,” especially those that depended on the congregation, which was in Rome and, in practice, belonged to no one. They grouped together any woman whose plan was not to be a wife. Lesbians, writers, singers who joined the choirs… The nuns used to be discreet but some convents ended up taken over by the military.”
On the other hand there was the Inquisition, which “was very bureaucratic and what it did was not burn you, but humiliate you and expose you in public so that everyone would insult you. That made people feel better, because it spit out the bad. That happens today on social networks. The Inquisition still exists, but it has now become pluralistic.”
Although the stories he tells occurred centuries ago, the Peruvian writer remarks that “my novel shows what Spain could be again. There are still politicians who believe that a woman’s plan is to be a wife and mother. Nowadays people are very polarized. They say things are black or white. They leave aside the gray ones and this is dangerous because, then, if someone thinks differently, they are called a bad person. Where has democracy gone? “We are living in a time that seems like a resurgence of the 17th century,” he concludes.
