Do you have many enemies?
“More than one son of a bitch would like me to disappear, but I also have great friends with whom I can still remember the good and bad times.”
Question and answer belong to an interview that Vicent Andrés Estellés (Burjassot, 1924) gave to La Vanguardia a year before his death, on March 27, 1993. The appointment was scheduled regarding the appearance of Mare de Terra, (Edicions 62), unpublished poems from different periods. The poet, Awarded the Honorary Award for Catalan Letters, was already suffering the consequences of very deteriorated health, but this did not take away an iota of energy in his responses to a man who liked to speak forcefully and clearly. In the conversation Estellés outlined his points of view on his greatest obsessions: death, sex and hunger, present in his formidable and extensive literary creation.
We reproduce here that interview on the 30th anniversary of his death. It was carried out in the living room of the house, among hundreds, thousands of pages that discovered the existence of more unpublished texts, of unknown experiences of an author described by Fuster as “d’una eloqüéncia que fa feredat”.
Will it be possible to know one day the work that is in all these sheets?
I don’t think so, because I myself don’t know what I wrote on them. It was the time when I forgot how to write, and even my memory, and strangely enough, these are my memories. Sometimes I try to decipher words, phrases, but it’s impossible. Now I have recovered my memory and agility in my hands. It is a miracle!
So, will the memories of Estellés never be known?
Possibly this coming summer, but that means a lot of work and I’m not up for a lot of jogging. I do not know, may be.
Enric Valor says that you have always been sick and others describe you as the eternal hypochondriac…
Since I was sixteen I have suffered from multiple illnesses and even more than once the doctors have told my wife to say goodbye to me, but here I am and I still bother more than one.
Do you have many enemies?
More than one son of a bitch would like me to disappear, but I also have great friends with whom I can still remember the good and bad times.
What remains of those bad memories?
The death of my girl… was an angel. And the bitches that some in this city have done to me.
He says it as if his work had never been recognized in Valencia.
No, I do not want to accuse all of Valencia but, curiously, it has been in Barcelona where my work has received the most support and value. Here we play too much envy, hate, something I’ve never understood. There are honorable exceptions like Cipria Ciscar.
And the good memories?
oh! I remember a nurse who took care of me in Lisbon who had amazing tits. What a woman!
Sex and death in his work. And love?
Here’s my wife. What would I be without her? Now he would already be buried. She has always taken care of me and has always been by my side. And I’m a bit unbearable. This is Love.
What literary loves do you have?
Jaume Roig, Rois de Corella and, of course, Ausiás March, who was the one who influenced me the most, the one who destroyed all my ideas. He is the greatest, the most contemporary, the only one.
And what about your generation mates?
Fuster and Espriu. The one from Sueca is an intellectual beast. There is no one who has done what Fuster. Also, their friendship has always been comforting.
About the new Valencian authors?
I read and follow them. I think we now have an excellent generation of writers. There is quantity and quality and that reassures me. In my day everything was more difficult with the censorship and the guys who watched you.
