Use?
From Eusebio.
Lahoz?
A surname from Aragon.
But you are from Barcelona.
And Barcelona beats in everything I have written. Five novels. Oh the novel…
That?
You write it with expectations of the future but you organize the past.
What expectations?
Will I finish it? Will it be published? Will it be read? Will you like it? What a weird job.
And organize the past, you say?
It orders it and gives it meaning.
What have you understood from your past?
That I was loose verse.
Define loose verse.
It does not rime. Does not fit. It goes free, against the current… I know what I’m talking about.
Because?
I studied Humanities because one day the son of Montserrat Roig told me: “They teach to write.” Then I didn’t fit in with a job, partner, society… And I ran away!
Where to?
To Italy, then to Uruguay, then to Cuba, then to the Alpujarra, then to Paris…
What did you learn from so much travel?
Traveling changes you, reading changes you, but the people you meet change you even more.
Which person has changed you the most?
My uncle Pablo: he guided me in reading, music… With him I learned to look at everything through art. But one day he went on a trip.
Where to?
He was exiled to Mexico. I was nine years old. I suffered so much losing him! At the head of my bed was his photo and his address: calle Mesones 36, Manzana 10, Lot 37.
Did you write to him?
Writing her letters made me a writer.
What kind of writer?
Memory is my guide.
And the trip?
It takes me from amazement to amazement, to the perpetual beginning that is, for me, happiness.
Unhappiness, then what is it?
Feeling satiated, without curiosity.
And culture fuels curiosity,
That’s why Uncle Pablo taught me to be happy.
Perhaps that is why you have traveled so much.
And I ended up in Paris teaching a subject on exile and “de-exile”.
“Desexile”, what is it?
You return to the place you came from… and it is no longer the place you left. But exile, by the way, can be bright, be creative!
How is your Paris?
It can be cold, gray, hard, hostile… It is imperfect… and endless for culture.
Something mixed up today.
It is the capital of the country of the revolution!
Keep writing?
Today my childhood ball has become the page to write on: it is my way of continuing to be a child, of playing, of being free.
Did he write poetry?
I was reckless when I was young, yes, but today I wouldn’t think of it. Poetry is the greatest art, reserved for forces of nature: Federico GarcÃa Lorca, Miguel Hernández, César Vallejo, Claudio RodrÃguez…
What is writing?
A chance to amend life and an emotional delivery.
How far?
Culture, beauty, art, knowledge are, for the rich, whim or entertainment, game. For the poor, on the other hand, it is a lifeline, a refuge, desperately needed, true truth.
Is it your case?
I will not live with my back to beauty. I give myself to literature desperately.
What counts in his latest novel?
That in the face of carnal desire, better to go even if it hurts later.
Is it good business?
If life summons you, don’t be absent! Better go and try, better have tried it.
To the head pool, therefore?
Put to repent, better that it be what you did than what you did not do.
What page has been embroidered?
The one with the mani from Plaza Universidad with a posh girl who is poor.
What else counts?
That pleasure has its ages: the pleasure of friendship, carnal pleasure, the pleasure of knowledge…, and the pleasure of writing!
Where are you going now?
I have divided myself into all the characters.
Satisfactorily?
Three years settling accounts with the past, writing, rectifying… Is it time used or is it wasted time?
I don’t know, you will say.
It is love of art. A sweet sentence. Because it is not a materially profitable business, there is only emotional profitability.
And what’s your turn now?
Stop writing. I wish the need to write would leave me… Stop writing, stop writing… that impossible dream!
