The Cuban who wanted to be Paul Auster
MADRID Leonardo Padura said that the world is full of Cuban writers who do not write. He opted to stay in Havana to portray everyday life from within Cuba that it catches. It angry and love.
Yesterday he felt the effort was worthwhile. A Padura got him out of bed a call from Spain at 4:45 in the morning to announce that he had won the Princess of Asturias Prize for Letters, something I had never gotten a Cuban author. A great honor granted me and I assume as a reward for many years prevailed in the last votes the Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami and Syrian poet Adonis.
“I take it as a triumph of the Cuban literature. solitude in the studio, full of doubts and fears of creation, “he said to the nation from his house in the neighborhood of Mantilla, south of Havana, where it was born. He spent the day on the phone and fatigue will crack the voice.
The jury praised him as an “independent intellectual, investigator of the cultured and the popular,” and described his work as “an adventure superb dialogue and freedom “. The prize awarded 50,000 euros in cash and a sculpture by Joan Miró
At 59 Padura is an insatiable artist. Cuban novelist of his generation with greater impact in the world, active journalist for international media, screenwriter whose latest film Return to Ithaca , has just been released while rolling in Havana four films about the detective Mario Conde, his ultimate creation.
Conde is that character cynical, unbelieving, compulsive drinker, that is becoming the most tragic and stark as the life of Cuba years. The saga of detective was born in 1991 with Past Perfect and continued with Winds of Lent , Masks , Autumn Landscape Goodbye, Hemingway , The mist of yesterday , The tail of the serpent and Heretics .
The greatest international impact of Padura, however, came with The man who loved dogs , a historical novel about Ramon Mercader, the man who murdered Trotsky in Mexico. His latest book is the anthology That was eager happen , published two months ago.
How much it cost, as a writer who lives and works in Cuba, find that space for “dialogue and freedom” that distinguished the jury?
I’ve always struggled for independence have a share in my work. Whereas in 1995 no money or editors outside of Cuba I left the magazine in which he was the editor and decided to try his luck as a freelance writer. It has been difficult at times. In 1995 I won the Café Gijón prize in Spain, which gave $ 16,000. A fortune in Cuba! And I found a publisher, Jonathan Cape, who was interested in my books.
-¿El successful international aid to overcome the pressures, political obstacles?
I think the change in perception of the peculiarities of artistic expression in Cuba began to be felt in the years 90. The 70 were years of terrible repression; in the 80s, a little less. But when he started the change has not been arrested. Today prospects remain quite orthodox, but the atmosphere is more open. There is a fee of widespread criticism in most of artistic expression in Cuba.
But his newspaper articles, for example, are not read in Cuba.
He randomly distributed here. I would, of course, the Cuban readers would have normal access to those texts. But the rules of the game.
What gives you the detective genre to literature?
-The police novel lends itself to any experiment literary. Should not be seen as a story in which there is a mystery and a character who reveals. It is a very ductile to present what a society, gender show their dark side. I learned from Hammett, Chandler, Vazquez Montalban that a detective story can be an ideal to describe the atmosphere of a country, to report or discuss concrete realities channel. All my novels and my stories have a strong presence of social gaze. I speak of a reality that is contemporary Cuban reality. The drama of my generation runs throughout my work.
How much of you is in the disappointment and disillusionment that transmits Mario Conde?
Much . He is my age, in my neighborhood, a man who drags frustrations, lost hopes, common dreams my whole generation. His vision is permeated by my personal vision. In his case it is stressed, because it is an essential element of the character, going from defeat to defeat living; always lose something. I, fortunately, I have another life.
-¿Ese tying streak with defeats is a metaphor of revolutionary Cuba?
No, it’s just part of the character. Their problems are sometimes very personal, very existential.
-Suele annoyed that I consult on Cuban politics, but let me ask how is living the thaw with the United States.
It’s a very difficult process. Outside of Cuba it has a perception that has already occurred and actually changing are in the middle of a process. It was very encouraging gestures between Obama and Raul Castro. But much remains to be done. The most important thing is to feel that tension persisted for 50 years has begun to fall. It is much better to live in dialogue rather than confrontation. Any society is best developed through dialogue with fundamentalism. .
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