The author of The sports journalist was yesterday with the Princess of Asturias Award for Literature; criticizes his country and is optimistic
Richard Ford Madrid.-fated feels a novelist. It is dyslexic, he studied Letras because it was the race in which he was accepted, he devoted himself for years uncreative trades, failed as a journalist. At 40, unemployed and in crisis, gave himself full length to his imagination.
“If it had not failed in everything else, would never have been a writer. It is clear that there was something vocational behind those frustrations, “he says today, three decades after the turnaround in his life that meant the sports journalist , the consecrating book that introduced the world to his favorite character, Frank Bascombe.
Ford speaks by phone with the NATION from New Orleans, where yesterday he learned he had won the Princess of Asturias Award for Literature 2016, one of the highest awards to the career of a writer who indulge in the Hispanic world and that joins a list of awards including two Pulitzer, a Pen / Faulkner and Femina.
“it’s wonderful to feel that I have not wasted my time with literature,” he jokes. The awards are an honor he says, but mostly as a “byproduct of something greater: to have readers.”
This is clearly something that is not missing the author, born 72 years ago in Jackson , Mississippi, land of Faulkner. His harsh language, minimalist, cold appearance, gave birth to some of the most vivid accounts of the culture, people and the current US policy. Ford writes with a scalpel that leaves no scars.
The jury of the Princess of Asturias praised his “careful attention to detail in the descriptions, the dark and dense look at the daily life of anonymous and invisible beings” and “desolation and emotion” that transmit stories and novels in which breathes “the mosaic of stories cross that is American society”.
He highlighted especially the creation of unforgettable Bascombe, frustrated novelist, journalist , and finally retired real estate agent through which he used to tell Ford United States. From The sports journalist (1986) to the recent collection of novellas Frankly, Frank (2014) through Independence Day ( 1995) and Thanksgiving (2006).
The Princess of Asturias -created in 1981- awards the winner 50,000 euros and a sculpture by Joan Miró. A Ford boosted the Spanish Antonio Muñoz Molina and Irishman John Banville. I won the last round of voting to Polish poet Adam Zagajewski. In the list of finalists they included David Mamet, Antonio Lobo Antunes and Philippe Claudel.
‘This award coincides with the 30th anniversary of the creation of Bascombe, take it as something special?
I’m trying to see these successes with great optimism. It means that behind there are readers who are the center of my work. I write for the present and feel I can be useful; help my readers interested in the things that matter.
-Many critics see a pessimistic look at his work
Because not read. I am very optimistic. I could not have spent writing for the past 40 years without being an optimist. I am a person who learns and holds in high esteem his sense of humor.
How do you think literature has evolved over the years?
I’m trying to be a better writer in each book, but I do not know if I succeed. Security was no better 30 years ago; I have not clear whether I am now better than two ago. I get up, I read the newspaper, I sit down to work. I have become slower, but that’s good because it helps to pay attention.
‘Is methodical, daily writing?
I am the more disciplined you can learn
-. what would you say to a young man who is thinking about becoming a writer
-Trataría to persuade him not to do it? . But only when you try everything and can not flee know that there is something vocations.
Her novels have been a portrait of American society, how live these days of upheaval, with advancing Donald Trump, the shadow of terrorism, xenophobia, violence?
With much bitterness and disappointment. But I say that Donald Trump will not reach the White House. It is a fool and a clown that has nothing to do with the history of this country, its culture and its governmental tradition. I’m sure you will lose because with the passage of time their stupidity will be more and more evident.
But its success so far, what does it say about American society
‘Our Constitution speaks of the right of citizens to be happy. There are many people who feel betrayed, who suffers from growing inequality. Unfortunately there are Americans who are not interested in politics. But it is absurd to think that the solution is to build walls. The poor will continue coming to live in our land and we have to accept it. We will be them at some point.
-once said it was difficult sometimes to love his country.
‘Master United States, but it is true that I find difficult to love him when I see so much poverty in such a rich country. It is difficult to love America when there are so many weapons, when it is so easy killing people indiscriminately. I know it happens in Argentina, in France, all over the world, but it is my country and it hurts because I love it.
Frank Bascombe subscribe to these words.
Yes, but his political thoughts are shorter and ironic than mine. It is not my alter ego, as some say. It is a fictional character, made of words. I understand that for readers is more real than myself.
-¿Pensó ever kill him?
No, I think he’s going to you die with me [laughs].
-¿Está preparing another novel Bascombe, then?
I’m taking notes. I had a great idea that I want to develop, but I can not anticipate anything. Know apologize
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