It is never late if happiness is good. For lovers of literature, the recovery in our country of the most emblematic novel by Colombian author Tomás González (Medellín, 1950), The difficult light (Sexto Piso), is excellent news that invites us to get to know the rest of his work, abundant and personal, translated into several languages, and little known in Spain.
González is the author of ten novels. The first, First there was the sea (1983), appeared thanks to the financial support of his wife and his partner in “El Goce Pagano”, the Bogotá bar where he worked serving drinks. The title was taken from an epigraph in the Gold Museum in the Colombian capital and the book addressed the murder of his brother in 1977 – the country’s violence will be a recurring theme. In Abraham among bandits (2010) he will deal with kidnappings.
Born into a large family of eight siblings, he studied at La Salle and grew up between Envigado and Medellín. In the first town, as a child, he was under the influence of his father’s brother, Fernando, a lawyer and philosopher, who unintentionally acted as a mentor to his nephew.
“Perhaps it prevented me from being irreversibly attracted to intellectualism, and from always seeking in life, much more than in books, the impetus for my writings,” he explained in an interview included in the volume Asombro (Seix Barral), a tour of his thought and work. In The Story of Horacio (2000) the author included quotes heard from his uncle Fernando as well as other characters inspired by cousins ??and relatives.
“My dad thought, perhaps rightly, that the worst thing in life was poverty, and he didn’t want me to be a writer,” he recalled. For this reason he first began a degree in Chemical Engineering. He abandoned her six months later. He then started Philosophy and left it after two years. He survived by dedicating himself to various jobs until he decided, after the publication of his first book, to dedicate himself to writing.
He went into self-exile with his wife and son in the United States where he lived in Florida and New York. There he worked as a proofreader and editor. He would spend sixteen years in the Big Apple until after the 9/11 attacks and the complicated health condition of his wife Dora, suffering from a neurodegenerative disease, he decided to return to Colombia. They then lived in Chía, outside the capital. In 2010, his wife was cared for in Cali by his sister and her mother until her death ten years later. He will move to Guatapé, an Andean municipality, east of Medellín.
The Difficult Light, which was first published twelve years ago, contains many elements of his own life experience. “There was not a single day that the word ‘euthanasia’ did not cross my mind,” he declared of his wife’s long illness, which led to her dependence and a well of sadness.
In the novel, David, who is a painter, faces with his wife the end of the life of one of their children, confined to a wheelchair after an accident. A brother will accompany him to the state of Oregon where aid in dying is legal. In this short novel – one of the characteristics of his works – González recreates the space where he lived in New York, on the Lower East Side, and the accumulation of feelings that the illness and the decision entailed.
He wrote the work already back in his country but with the New York experience very vivid (“how funny would a city be without pigeons, squirrels, rats, homeless people and cockroaches”). David remembers those days in the apartment waiting for news about the outcome when twenty years have passed, he has become a widower and barely sees. He manages to manage the passage of time, which is that of life itself, with ups and downs and visits to the past – another constant in his work.
Sometimes it might seem like he does it in a chaotic way, like in Fog at Noon (Alfaguara) where we learn the story of love and heartbreak between Raúl and Julia when she has disappeared. The narrative is told from various points of view, that of the protagonists and other characters. He does it by combining the first and third person. However, the good management of the author’s narrative resources allows the reader to fit the pieces of the text together without difficulty.
In this story, as in the rest of his production, nature, vegetation – Raúl designs spaces with materials such as guadua and bamboo -, water and climate – the very high humidity that prevents certain creations and rain – have an important presence. . In his works, Tomás González explores the essence of existence through small everyday stories.
His is a writing that transmits a world and a way of positioning oneself in it, with chosen words and phrases of undoubted poetry – Mangroves is his collection of poems in progress, to which he has been adding new verses since 1997 – but also leaving space for silence. .
Tomás González The difficult light
Sixth Floor 152 pages 16.90 euros
