{"id":5394,"date":"2012-09-15T07:01:07","date_gmt":"2012-09-15T05:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/agustinfernandezpaz.gal\/entrevista-para-o-boletin-g-2\/"},"modified":"2012-09-17T12:43:05","modified_gmt":"2012-09-17T10:43:05","slug":"entrevista-para-o-boletin-g","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agustinfernandezpaz.gal\/en\/entrevista-para-o-boletin-g\/","title":{"rendered":"In Santiago de Compostela with Agust\u00edn Fern\u00e1ndez Paz<\/em>. Interview for Bolet\u00edn Galego de Literatura"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Santiago de Compostela with Agust\u00edn Fern\u00e1ndez Paz<\/strong>[1]<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Agust\u00edn Fern\u00e1ndez Paz (Vilalba, 1947) is one of the fundamental creators of contemporary Galician literature.\u00a0 We talk with him about the thirty years plus he has spent writing works consciously set in the system of children\u2019s and young adults\u2019 literature, the future challenges having abandoned his professional labour as a teacher, the criticism and recognition he has received for his work and, in particular, his other side as an insatiable reader and his passion for reading.<\/p>\n

You have stated on various occasions that literature is constructed with threads of life.\u00a0 In your work you seem to create landscapes from your own memory.\u00a0 What is there of you, your childhood, the threads of your life in your work?\u00a0 Is there an autobiographical episode hidden in all your works?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The idea that literature is woven with threads of life seems vital to me.\u00a0 Life, in a wide sense, is the only material which I have to hand to construct my books, everything comes from it.\u00a0 From the plots, which allow me to express my vision of the world, to the way I write them, with my experience as a reader as a backdrop.\u00a0 Naturally, this has nothing to do with the association which sometimes occurs between my personal life experiences and the stories narrated in the books.\u00a0 Because these stories are invented, of course, although they feed off material in my biography, and undergo a more or less intense metamorphosis in the process of writing.\u00a0 There are, however, books in which it is easier to intuit the personal experiences which brought them to life.\u00a0 For instance, Trece a\u00f1os de Blanca<\/em> (\u2018Thirteen Years of Blanca\u2019), Avenida del Parque, 17<\/em> (\u201817 Park Avenue\u2019) or several short stories in Lo \u00fanico que queda es el amor<\/em> (\u2018The Only Thing Left is Love\u2019).<\/p>\n

Childhood years have a special importance, and I\u2019m not saying that because some of the books I write fall into what, to understand each other, we call children\u2019s literature.\u00a0 Rilke wrote that a person\u2019s homeland is childhood and Pessoa stated that a writer\u2019s homeland was their language.\u00a0 In my case, language and childhood take me to my years in Vilalba, when I saw the creation of the world and discovered the names of things, in this marvellous process which takes place in the first few years of anybody\u2019s life.<\/p>\n

You have also stated on many occasions what your work methodology is, from thinking of an initial idea for a story up until you move it, after intense meditation and a lot of work, to the computer.\u00a0 How do your novels begin?\u00a0 Is it an uneasy or obsessive process?<\/p>\n

Obsessive, yes, but there is no room for uneasiness in it, only for the excitement that the creative experience produces.\u00a0 What propels the process into action is almost always a fact of daily life.\u00a0 It needn\u2019t be an extraordinary event, what has to be different is the way in which you look at it.\u00a0 Often they are experiences which you forget after a short time.\u00a0 But there are times at which this experience stays in the brain, takes a seat in it and ends up becoming an obsession which asks to get out.\u00a0 It is at that moment I understand I have before me a possible book, which I will later write or not, because life is very short and ther is no way I could have time to develop all the obsessions which appear in my head.<\/p>\n

If I decide to write, then yes the process is very similar: the creation of a plot which gives life to what you want to express, the progressive definition of the characters, the process of documentation, the previous records, the writing of the first draft, the doubts which arise, the successive revisions.\u00a0 Like life, it is always the same and always different.<\/p>\n

And when you consider a text is finished, do you visualise its graphic presentation?\u00a0 Do you decide which illustrator you want to work with or must you often accept impositions?\u00a0 What is your relationship like with the illustrators or with those commissioned to design the graphic part of your books?<\/p>\n

Visualization is inevitable, the influence of cinema and comics is very powerful.\u00a0 But I think it is hardly relevant; the important thing is the power the text has to connect with the illustrator\u2019s personal world.<\/p>\n

I always write the text independently, without thinking at all about possible illustrations, except for the few occasions on which I wrote some story for early readers; in those cases I usually also do a kind of script which can be of use to whoever is going to illustrate it.<\/p>\n

In other books of mine which have illustrations, sometimes I have had the opportunity to suggest who I wanted to work with, although it is usually the publisher who finally decides.\u00a0 On some occasions I maintained a close relationship with the illustrator, on others I knew nothing until the illustrations were finished.<\/p>\n

It seems that literature is a constant presence in your life.\u00a0 It can be perceived in your work, through explicit citation or implicit reference, the intertextuality, and at the same time reading your work always means an intense rediscovery, an exciting journey through literature from many other creators belonging to very diverse traditions.\u00a0 Another of your passions is also obvious: cinema, music, art in general.\u00a0 Tell us a little about your opinions regarding this and, if you are able to choose, tell us which writers you could never renounce.<\/p>\n

Yes, literature had, and has, a great presence in my life.\u00a0 As do cinema and comics, which I won\u2019t talk about here so as not to go on too much.\u00a0 I am a good example of Cunqueiro\u2019s statement (\u201cMan needs, as if it were water, to drink dreams\u201d) reiterated by Paul Auster not long ago (\u201cWe need stories almost as much as we need to eat, and in whatever the form they present themselves \u2013 on the printed page or on the television screen \u2013 it is impossible to imagine life without them\u201d).<\/p>\n

I remember reading at all stages of my life, at some with more intensity than others.\u00a0 Writing is secondary if you compare it with reading; if I am anything it is a reader.\u00a0 I have had the defect, or the virtue, that everything interests me: narration, poetry, essays.\u00a0 Although I mostly read narrative, poetry is the most solid space, to which one returns again and again.<\/p>\n

It is logical that this experience as a reader is reflected in my books, many times in an explicit way.\u00a0 In my novels there is always a character who is passionate about reading.\u00a0 It is, shall we say, one of the house brands.\u00a0 This allows me to be able to talk about books which I like and which I wish to share.\u00a0 And, at the same time, it allows me to better characterize the personalities, given that Borges\u2019 sentence (\u201cI am the books that I have read\u201d) is also true for them.<\/p>\n

The authors which have most interested me have followed one after another throughout my life.\u00a0 Among them are names which are considered canonical and others which belong to the so-called genre literature (noir novels, mystery and horror literature, science fiction), I have never had any problems in combining all types of reading matter.\u00a0 For some authors I have obsessively read everything by and about them: Kafka, Joyce, Lovecraft, Ferr\u00edn, Valente, Camus, Rosal\u00eda, Chandler, Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez, Cunqueiro, Cort\u00e1zar\u2026\u00a0 With the passing of time some no longer interest me; others remain in this group of authors I will never abandon.\u00a0 And there are always new names which one discovers over the years, from Paul Auster to Wislawa Szymborska, covering Manuel Rivas, John Connolly, Bernardo Atxaga or Ian McEwan.\u00a0 Luckily for us, we would need various lifetimes to read all the extraordinary books which we have within our reach.<\/p>\n

What about authors of children\u2019s and young adults\u2019 literature?\u00a0 What are your classics and whom do you follow at the moment?<\/p>\n

I began to read authors of so-called children\u2019s and young adults\u2019 literature in the seventies, when some Spanish publishers, such as Noguer or Alfaguara, started to translate works which had renewed the European panorama after the Second World War.\u00a0 Thus I was able to read authors such as Gianni Rodari, Roald Dahl, Mar\u00eda Gripe, Michael Ende, Astrid Lindgren or \u00darsula W\u00f6lffel; in some way, they showed me the path which I would later follow with my books.<\/p>\n

There are also the authors of forever, which I read for the first time in my childhood and which I re-read when I was older: Verne, Salgari, Stevenson, Poe\u2026\u00a0 In their books is the root of my passion for reading, I will never be able to forget the debt I owe them.<\/p>\n

At the moment, I am unable to follow what is published, although there are authors which particularly interest me: Aidam Chambers, Marjaleena Lembcke, Jostein Gaarder, Christine N\u00f6stlinger\u2026\u00a0 The work of some authors in Galician children\u2019s and young adults\u2019 literature and that which is being produced in other languages in Spain also seems of a very high quality to me.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In Aire negro<\/em> (\u2018Black Air\u2019), one of your novels, the doctor begins a therapy with Laura Novo based on the reading of books full of passion and vitality, of those which awaken the desire to live in anybody.\u00a0 This is repeated in other works of yours like, for example, in Corredores de sombra<\/em> (\u2018Corridors of Shadow\u2019), where the protagonists exchange reads.\u00a0 Do you share this idea of the power of books and of reading to change people\u2019s lives?\u00a0 Do you believe in the therapeutic value of reading and also of writing?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Literature has a very profound dimension, as well as other more obvious ones, as it is capable of arriving at the essence which characterizes us as human beings.\u00a0 The complexity of people, the depth of life, the great questions of humanity, feelings and emotions.\u00a0 All of this is in books, that is why I think that they the capacity to change our lives, even if we don\u2019t know why or how.<\/p>\n

You began writing after you were forty.\u00a0 How did this need arise and what were your motives in opting for literature aimed at young people?<\/p>\n

I began publishing at that age, but I was writing long before.\u00a0 I did it in notebooks which we would now call reading, film and pedagogical diaries, but it didn\u2019t even occur to me to publish them, as I have already said if I consider myself to be anything, it is a reader.<\/p>\n

Writing thinking about publishing arose somewhat by chance.\u00a0 Coincidentally at that time, at the end of the seventies, the official introduction of the Galician language in teaching began.\u00a0 So I began writing stories to use in my classes, then I moved on to doing them to include in didactic materials and, finally, I began to publish independently.\u00a0 It so happened that two of my first books won significant awards, one in the Galician field (the Merl\u00edn, for Las flores radioactivas<\/em> {\u2018Radioactive Flowers\u2019}) and one at state level (the Lazarillo, for Cuentos por palabras<\/em> {\u2018Stories for Words\u2019}; it was the first time that it was won by a book written in a language which wasn\u2019t Castilian).\u00a0 Discovering that my books were well received and had readers encouraged me to continue writing.\u00a0 And, although I carried on writing theoretical texts \u2013 Leer en gallego<\/em> (\u2018Reading in Galician\u2019), Los comics en las aulas<\/em> (\u2018Comics in the Classroom\u2019) \u2013 and didactic materials, fiction slowly won more terrain and acquired more and more importance in my life.<\/p>\n

Have you ever considered the possibility of writing \u201cfor\u201d adults or do you think you already do?<\/p>\n

In some way, I think I already do; several of my books (Aire negro<\/em>, El centro del laberinto<\/em> {\u2018The Labyrinth\u2019s Centre\u2019}, Lo \u00fanico que queda es el amor<\/em>, Amor de los quince a\u00f1os, Marilyn<\/em> (\u2018Love at Fifteeen, Marilyn\u2019}, Con los pies en el aire<\/em> {\u2018Feet in the Air\u2019}) could be published in any collection of so-called literature for adults.\u00a0 But it is my choice that they are included in young collections; in this way I reach a sector of readers which interests me greatly, the young; and, if the social prejudices which there are towards children\u2019s and young adults\u2019 literature didn\u2019t exist, I would have no problems in reaching adult readers.\u00a0 It is a choice I feel comfortable with; I have no intention of changing it in the future.<\/p>\n

To sum up: I feel very distant from the concept of children\u2019s literature as a minor literature.\u00a0 I don\u2019t write my books because I don\u2019t know how to do other types of texts, nor do I think that children\u2019s and young adults\u2019 literature is a rung to be able to step up later to a higher rung.\u00a0 For years I have been striving in an explicit fight to dignify this literature; a slow fight, but which in the last few years has borne fruit.<\/p>\n

In this sense, things have changed a little, although much less than one would hope for.\u00a0 A decade ago, authors of children\u2019s literature were invisible, we didn\u2019t exist; and if they talked about us, it was to do so with a view which was accompanied by a certain underestimation.\u00a0 Now we are partially visible and it verifies a change of mentality, although there are still some looks of contempt towards children\u2019s and young adults\u2019 literature.<\/p>\n

Do you think these prejudices, or let\u2019s call them \u201cpreventions\u201d, towards children\u2019s literature and its creators still exist?<\/p>\n

I think that these preventions still exist, although with a much lower intensity than a few years ago.\u00a0 In this aspect a lot of progress has been made because we started from a situation which oscillated between invisibility and the stereotypes this society applies to everything that carries the label \u201cchildren\u2019s\u201d.\u00a0 Now, as well as there being some specialist critical voices, there is a sector of general criticism which concerns itself with us and which tries to judge us according to the possible qualities of the text, which is no small thing.\u00a0 I suppose the situation will get better, although prejudices, as well we know, are by nature very resistant.<\/p>\n

Anyway, this isn\u2019t the main problem of criticism today: it is the lack of space in the printed and audiovisual media.\u00a0 If only we had 10% of the space they dedicated to football!\u00a0 We would swim in abundance!<\/p>\n

Is it still somewhat considered as a minor literature?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Twenty years ago, when I began to publish, children\u2019s and young adults\u2019 literature didn\u2019t exist for the critics. Any book for adults, however bad it was, appeared in the also scarce annual panoramas of Galician literature.\u00a0 They didn\u2019t talk about those for children\u2019s and young adults\u2019 literature, whether they were good or bad.\u00a0 In the paper \u201cContra la invisibilidad\u201d {\u2018Against Invisibility\u2019}(which I presented in some open days in Salamanca in 1995 and which was later published in CLIJ<\/em>) I explained the state of the situation and demanded this essential critical look.<\/p>\n

Having said that, I have to clarify that, especially from 1996 on, the critics began to pay attention in what I was writing, almost always in a positive way.\u00a0 Perhaps this turning point was the novel El centro del laberinto<\/em>, which even had reviews in the big Galician magazines Grial<\/em> and A trabe de Ouro<\/em>, something unheard of in those days.\u00a0 None of my books have had this recognition since, but there are others from children\u2019s literature which have.<\/p>\n

The critical view seems essential to me.\u00a0 Not only does it fill a vital role in the literary system; it is also a stimulus for the author, even if the assessment received is negative.\u00a0 I read those who write about my books, of course, but I have a rule never to comment on them.\u00a0 The freedom of those writing criticism to me seems as is important as that which I claim as a writer.<\/p>\n

The thing a writer can complain about is that the book doesn\u2019t receive any attention and passes by unnoticed.\u00a0 Of course, as compensation, there is always the generous reception of the readers; in this aspect I consider myself very fortunate.<\/p>\n

Looking back on your career it is easy to identify a wide range of themes and forms.\u00a0 Which themes and techniques do you feel most comfortable with?<\/p>\n

As far as themes go, I don\u2019t have any special preference.\u00a0 It is true that at times they categorise me as a mystery writer, because ghosts have an obvious presence in many of my stories, but that is only because they formed part of my childhood reality, the Galicia of the fifties, where the line between the living and the dead was very diffuse.<\/p>\n

The invention procedure I like most is imagining stories which take place in a realistic context and in which, in one way or another, a fantastical element bursts out.\u00a0 This presence of the inexplicable is that which, paradoxically, allows me to expand the limits of reality and talk about it in a more authentic way.<\/p>\n

From the perspective of form, I have a preference for the use of different narrative voices and for the use of the first person.\u00a0 And I always pay great attention to the structure of my books; I think that it is decisive when it comes to articulating the narration.<\/p>\n

You write as much for a children\u2019s audience as for young adults.\u00a0 Which do you feel most comfortable with?<\/p>\n

The truth is where I feel most comfortable is when I write those books which I call \u201con the border\u201d; that is to say books which are usually published in young adult collections but which may also interest an adult reader.\u00a0 And those which are most difficult for me are narrations for early readers, a terrain I don\u2019t consider easy at all; it is about texts which have to have a simple form and, at the same time, tell a suggestive story which reflects an original vision of the world.<\/p>\n

In the last few years you have devoted yourself to \u201cfreshening up\u201d your texts, moving beyond the concept of re-editing and creating a new category which is not very usual in current writers.\u00a0 Your books appear in new editions, updated or modernised and you re-write the texts, you add, you take out, you put in, and the result is a book which keeps its original spirit but goes beyond it.\u00a0 What is this process of re-writing responding to?\u00a0 Is it, perhaps, related to a perfectionist character?<\/p>\n

This obsession of mine to re-write the texts is, in part, owing to quite a simple fact.\u00a0 In my first books I held a different stance towards writing, it wasn\u2019t my most important occupation, and also I knew less about the craft.\u00a0 This changed with the passing of the years, time made me realise the mistakes of form in what I had published.\u00a0 From there the intense re-writing process arose, which especially affected all those books written before 1996.\u00a0 I was lucky enough for the editors to allow me to redo them and I think the work was worth it: the new editions of Cuentos por palabras<\/em> and Cartas de invierno<\/em> (\u2018Winter Letters\u2019), to name two examples, are much better than the originals.\u00a0 The stories haven\u2019t changed, nor I think has the spirit of the books, but technically they are much better worked out.\u00a0 On the other hand, I acknowledge this perfectionist obsession.\u00a0 The temptation to re-write the texts is difficult to resist, one always thinks that they can be improved.<\/p>\n

Earlier we mentioned Cartas de invierno<\/em>, which has recently reached its 20th<\/sup> edition in Galician, an unusual event in the panorama of books in our linguistic area.\u00a0 Is this the work which has given you most satisfaction?<\/strong><\/p>\n

If I think about the enthusiastic acceptance of the readers, Cartas de invierno<\/em> is, without a doubt, the book which has had the best reception.\u00a0 Not only in Galician, but also in Catalan (its 17th<\/sup> edition has just appeared) or in Castilian (I think it has had 15 editions)[2]<\/a>.\u00a0 And the letters or e-mails which keep on arriving give an account of the readers\u2019 interest.\u00a0 I love the fact that this explicit homage to the atmospheres created by Lovecraft is still as alive as when I wrote it.<\/p>\n

In spite of everything, it is not the book I feel most satisfied with by any means.\u00a0 I prefer other titles, maybe because there is more of me in them or because the process of their writing obliged me to face more complex challenges.\u00a0 I\u2019m thinking of books like Corredores de sombra<\/em>, El centro del laberinto<\/em>, Aire Negro<\/em> or Lo \u00fanico que queda es el amor<\/em>.<\/p>\n

If you had to highlight a few titles from your body of work, which would you highlight?\u00a0 Which would you say is, among all of them, the most innovative?\u00a0 And could you indicate which one you have the most affection for or the one which meant a fundamental step in your career?<\/p>\n

I think that some of my books were openly innovative, some for their form and others for their theme.\u00a0 I think that Cuentos por palabras<\/em>, Aire Negro<\/em>, Noche de voraces sombras<\/em> (\u2018Night of Voracious Shadows\u2019) or Mi nombre es Skywalker<\/em> (\u2018My Name Is Skywalker\u2019) contributed to moving the frontiers of Galician children\u2019s and young adults\u2019 literature.<\/p>\n

As far as which ones I have most regard for, it is not easy for me to select as I have published more than forty titles and many of them were, in their time, very important to me.\u00a0 Perhaps, as well as those already mentioned, I would highlight Corredores de sombra<\/em>, El centro del laberinto<\/em>, En el coraz\u00f3n del bosque<\/em> (\u2018In the Heart of the Forest\u2019) and, especially, a book which I consider deserving of better fortune than it had, El laboratorio del doctor Nogueira<\/em> (\u2018Doctor Nogueira\u2019s Laboratory\u2019).<\/p>\n

Education in general and the role of reading in the classroom are questions which always seem to be under debate, in search of the most suitable recipe, and subjected to constant measurements.\u00a0 From your experience of so many years as a teacher, should reading be an end in itself or an instrument at the service of curricular content?\u00a0 Are their magic recipes to awaken the taste for reading?<\/p>\n

It is difficult to answer such a broad question, these questions would demand a monographic conversation for them alone; to touch on, for example, the role which the current educational system plays: if it is contributing to the correction of social inequality or if it is organised to legitimise and reinforce them, for a start.<\/p>\n

However, focusing only on reading, I believe it is an essential ability for people living in current society.\u00a0 A democratic society is only possible with critical citizens, with the ability to express themselves and defend their own ideas; reading is one of the necessary factors for this to be possible.\u00a0 Of course there is the danger of other models of society, where reading is reserved for the controlling minorities and the citizens are submissive and can be manipulated, in the manner which Ray Bradbury imagined in Fahrenheit 451 <\/em>or Orwell in 1984<\/em>.\u00a0 There is a reason why the first thing dictatorships do is to burn or to ban books, because they fear the potential they hold.<\/p>\n

And yes, of course there are ways to awaken the pleasure of reading, procedures which have already more than proven their efficacy: in this field almost everything has already been invented, it only has to be put into practice.\u00a0 It is another thing if public policies are inadequate or the values which this society really promotes move along other avenues.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How do you see the role of reading in the face of the future?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We live in a society which has experienced a profound transformation.\u00a0 It has never read as much as it does now, the educational level of the population is far superior to those of a few decades ago, when the majority didn\u2019t go beyond primary studies and only the minority had access to knowledge.\u00a0 Today, in addition to the extension of schooling, the information and communication technologies generate new spaces for reading, and from there arises the necessity to develop new abilities in relation to the Internet, already essential for access to instrumental contents.\u00a0 At a deeper level, as well as aesthetic pleasure, reading, above all literature, is essential to know ourselves better and to understand what the society in which we live is like, along with the complexity of life and interpersonal relationships.<\/p>\n

In a world wrapped up in reflections regarding the global and the local and from your experience as a writer with an open path to the peninsular and international languages, how do you value the concept of \u201cperiphery\u201d, when on occasions they allude to you belonging to a \u201cperipheral system\u201d or to the list of creators who use a minority language?<\/p>\n

A writer is never peripheral, the centre of the world is always on his work desk.\u00a0 The creation process doesn\u2019t understand peripheries, in the same way that the language one uses is always the ideal tool, despite the socio-linguistic problems it may have.\u00a0 In theory at least, the geographical and linguistic situation should not have a bearing on the process of creation.\u00a0 Even less so in this era of the Internet, where concepts of centre and periphery in communication are very open to question.\u00a0 If I write in English from an island lost in the Pacific, it is the same as if I were doing it from an office in London, as long as I have adequate channels to communicate with my agent.<\/p>\n

Where the problem lies, which exists and is very serious, is in the political questions, in economic and power relationships.\u00a0 Writing in a minority language, belonging to a minority culture, supposes grave problems of visibility, as much in the society to which you belong (and I\u2019m thinking now about Galician books in Galicia, confined like an Indian reservation in a good many bookshops, or in the subordinate treatment they receive in the media, or in the mantra that we are a subsidised literature) as in the possibility of being translated into other languages and therefore reaching potential readers in other countries around the world.\u00a0 So the question is political, and it is the measures of cultural policy which can help to solve it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In your works, you clearly reveal your ideological positions with regard to language, culture, social questions, etc.\u00a0 For example, in El centro del laberinto<\/em> you defended linguistic and cultural diversity in the world against the aggression which neo-liberal globalisation favours; in Mi nombre es Skywalker<\/em> you give centre place to social questions; a life philosophy is almost presented in El Rayo Veloz<\/em> (\u2018Lightning Quick\u2019); in La playa de la esperanza<\/em> (\u2018The Beach of Hope\u2019) you describe the Prestige oil disaster on the Galician coast.\u00a0 In this sense, they have labelled you many times as \u201cideological writer\u201d.\u00a0 What do you think about this label?<\/strong><\/p>\n

All works of creation, mine and those of other writers, have a strong ideological charge because they all reflect a vision of the world and of society.\u00a0 They apply this label to me because, in quite a lot of my books, I touch on social questions from a transforming perspective.<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t bother me, as long as they clarify the above.\u00a0 Because, for a moment, let\u2019s think about the books to which they don\u2019t ascribe this label.\u00a0 For example, think about the classic story, which can serve as a paradigm, in which Mummy Rat is at home (a home like those in the American Doris Day films), very relaxed, with her apron on, and she decides to bake a cake for her little rats.\u00a0 And then Daddy Rat comes home from the office, with his tie and his briefcase full of papers, and he greets his affectionate wife and his children, and they eat the cake together.\u00a0 How sweet!\u00a0 But this text and these illustrations are laden with an ideology which defends the values of a very specific class.\u00a0 The thing is that when this ideology matches the dominant one, it becomes transparent, it doesn\u2019t seem to exist.\u00a0 How lucky that it can be seen in my books.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

From literature you have also participated in the open debate in Spain and in other parts of the world on \u201chistorical memory\u201d through what has been named in your career the \u201ccycle of shadows\u201d or \u201cthe memory trilogy\u201d, that is to say works which, from the present, touch on events and repercussions of the Spanish Civil War and post-war period.\u00a0 The short story \u201cLas sombras del faro\u201d (\u2018The Lighthouse Shadows\u2019), in the volume Tres pasos por el misterio<\/em> (\u2018Three Steps to the Mystery\u2019); the novel Noche de voraces sombras,<\/em> and Corredores de sombra<\/em>, in this case using the Civil War as the background for the story, would be placed in this line.\u00a0 Tell us about the origins of this interest in relating these events, in dealing with shadows, particularly thinking about the young readers who are partly ignorant about what happened in our immediate past.\u00a0 Did you have a need to express this theme in your literature?\u00a0 What do you think about the attitude of youth towards recovering memory?\u00a0 And, above all, what are the similarities and differences between the three works?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I will start by clarifying that none of them are historical novels about the Spanish Civil War, but the protagonists of all three books are people of today, who live in the 21st<\/sup> century, as are we.\u00a0 They aren\u2019t books about the war; they are set in the present. I don\u2019t talk about people at the time of the war, although I could do (as John Boyle does with Nazism in The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas<\/em>), but about something which worries me much more, which is the repercussions that the Civil War continues to have in our lives.\u00a0 In mine, and also in the youngest generations, because it is impossible to understand the Spain of today without accepting the enormous earthquake which the war was, and the very long post-war period still hangs over our lives, although apparently it seems that we are talking about something from long ago.\u00a0 It is somewhat distant, of course, thankfully, and Franco has been dead for many years, but the spectre of the dictatorship still surrounds us in daily life.<\/p>\n

As a society, it is necessary to accept that we have deleted the memory.\u00a0 When I was writing Noche de voraces sombras<\/em>, the newspaper Faro de Vigo<\/em> did a feature on what adolescents of today knew about the Civil War.\u00a0 The panorama was pathetic; reading those accounts one could imagine those responsible for so much forgetting rubbing their hands together with satisfaction.<\/p>\n

The younger generations are largely ignorant of this past.\u00a0 The Civil War and the bitter post-war are wounds which don\u2019t stop weeping, despite the self-interested voices which refer to them as an already forgotten past.\u00a0 But what is not known cannot be forgotten, they are realities which can only be overcome after a true examination of everything that happened.\u00a0 As one of the characters in my book says, \u201cyou should know what happened in those years so it never happens again, and to honour the memory of so many broken dreams\u201d.<\/p>\n

But it isn\u2019t only the youth of today. I, and the majority of people of my generation and later ones, grew up and lived without knowing crucial aspects of our past.\u00a0 How is it possible, for example, that until a few years ago I didn\u2019t know that the San Sim\u00f3n Island, in the River Vigo, had been a huge prison, a concentration camp into which so many prisoners were crowded?\u00a0 And like this, hundreds and hundreds of events of which we know nothing, or we know in secret, while we have to tolerate them still giving us an interpretation of the war so far removed from what really happened.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Until the appearance of Noche de voraces sombras<\/em>, the Civil War and its repercussions had hardly been central themes in children\u2019s and young adults\u2019 literature.\u00a0 To what do you attribute the fact that the theme of rescuing what happened in this country in the years prior to the Civil War and the consequences of this conflict, extended in a long and repressive dictatorship, from oblivion \u2013 particularly thinking of young people – wasn\u2019t touched upon?\u00a0 Why did it take so long?\u00a0 What do you think of the accusations of \u201copportunism\u201d that are often heaped upon novels which deal with the theme of war or of memory?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The protagonist of The Music Box<\/em>, the film which Costa Gavras made in 1989, tells us: \u201cit\u2019s too late to avoid what happened, but is never too late to remember what happened\u201d.\u00a0 These accusations of \u201copportunism\u201d form part of the ideological argument made by those who want to perpetuate the cloak of silence.\u00a0 Only now are we beginning to discover the reality of the concentration camps which functioned in the post-war period.\u00a0 Now we know that here too, as in Chile or in Argentina, babies were stolen to be given to families of the victorious regime.\u00a0 Now, as in the thaw to which I allude metaphorically in my novels, we are beginning to find out how much suffering and pain there was.<\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t a coincidence that I felt the necessity to write about all of this around the year 2000, when the revisionist policies of memory were in their zenith and threatened to triumph, supported by the climate created by Aznar\u2019s government, when he began to create a re-reading of history which was a blatant apology for Francoism.<\/p>\n

Also in those years, the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory began its activity, pushing for the search and opening of graves in which the murdered were buried with impunity, those passed on to the paramilitary groups which imposed terror in so many areas of Galicia, Le\u00f3n and so many other parts of Spain.<\/p>\n

Back then, a well-known political leader exclaimed on the radio: \u201cStop opening graves!\u201d.\u00a0 I, in the solitude of my home, shouted at him that it was the other way around, that all of them had to be opened, that the name and dignity had to be returned to so many dead, because only that way can we really talk about this past.\u00a0 I reiterate what has already been said, they ask us to forget, but what is not previously known cannot be forgotten.<\/p>\n

My novels are an attempt to open some of these forgotten graves, to dig up the ignored dead that lie in them and restore their dignity.\u00a0 They are fictional beings; Ram\u00f3n Pe\u00f1a and Sara Salgueiro only exist in Noche de voraces sombras<\/em>, the same as Rosal\u00eda and Rafael in Corredores de sombra<\/em>.\u00a0 But there are thousands of anonymous people like them, with sufferings and unsuccessful lives like theirs.\u00a0 My novel is homage to these lives broken by a barbarism which showed no mercy to those people who dreamed of a better and fairer world.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Do you consider the theme to be closed within your literature or have you thought about doing another book about the Civil War?<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know if I will go back to the Civil War or not in any of my future stories, who knows what these ghosts, who will stay with me for the rest of my life, like the protagonist in \u201cLas sombras del faro\u201d, will say in the coming years.\u00a0 In any case, when I look back and review these three stories, I feel that, in some way, part of the moral debt I owe is paid.\u00a0 And that, although it may be minimally, my books also contribute to opening the graves of the past.\u00a0 The only way in which wounds are healed and the future can be faced, mine and above all that of the generations such as that of my daughter or that of the students with whom I lived for all those years in the classroom.\u00a0 So that one day ours can be a fully democratic society.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Bearing in mind that you are a writer who is attentive to your closest surroundings, how do you find the most recent panorama of Galician literature?\u00a0 Which aspects awaken optimism or happiness in you, and which others bring dejection?<\/p>\n

Galician literature has an enviable vitality, particularly if we take into account the cultural and linguistic context in which it develops: there are authors of repute, quality works, new values, new paths are explored\u2026\u00a0 And every year some excellent book is published, others are mediocre and there are a large number of average quality titles.\u00a0 That is to say, as in any of the European literatures.\u00a0 If we examine only children\u2019s and young adults\u2019 literature, then I would have to be even more positive because it seems evident to me that it is a sector with a lot of strength.<\/p>\n

Nothing leads me to dejection.\u00a0 Now then, there are problems which worry me greatly, almost all derived from the social situation which Galician language and culture are in.\u00a0 There is a wide sector of society who don\u2019t read (and that signals some deficiencies in the cultural and educational policies which come from far away) and in the sector that reads there is a good percentage which never does so in Galician, because of ignorance of what is on offer, or because of prejudice, or because of insufficient literacy in Galician.\u00a0 Or perhaps because of the invisibility of Galician books in the media and in the bookshops.\u00a0 In some of the big city bookshops buying a particular title in Galician can become an adventure worthy of Indiana Jones.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As a reader, what would be your canon of classics?<\/strong><\/p>\n

My canon is, in good measure, changeable; or, rather, accumulative: alongside books which seemed extraordinary to me at the time are added others which I discovered over the years.\u00a0 Rather than specific titles, I would talk about what they have in common for me, what it is exactly that makes them classics.<\/p>\n

To me they are those which have life, that is to say, those which have the ability to arouse a new, different perspective of society and people in the person who reads them.\u00a0 That is, when they provoke a mutation, even if it is small, in the system to which they belong (they cannot write any longer as if this book didn\u2019t exist) as well as in the people who read them (it is not possible to look at reality in the same way as before reading it).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


<\/p>\n
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[1]<\/a> Interview conducted by Blanca-Ana Roig Rechou and Isabel Soto for the magazine Bolet\u00edn Galego de Literatura<\/em>, n\u00ba 38, \u201cEncontros\u201d, Santiago de Compostela: Servizo de Publicaci\u00f3ns da Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, pp. 161-178.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[2]<\/a> At the time of recovering this interview for the making of this dossier, Cartas de invierno<\/em> has reached its 26th<\/sup> edition in the Galician language and the 20th<\/sup> in Catalan.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Santiago de Compostela with Agust\u00edn Fern\u00e1ndez Paz[1]   Agust\u00edn Fern\u00e1ndez Paz (Vilalba, 1947) is one of the fundamental creators of contemporary Galician literature.\u00a0 We talk with him about the thirty years plus he has spent writing works consciously set in the system of children\u2019s and young adults\u2019 literature, the future challenges having abandoned his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agustinfernandezpaz.gal\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agustinfernandezpaz.gal\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agustinfernandezpaz.gal\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agustinfernandezpaz.gal\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agustinfernandezpaz.gal\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5394"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/agustinfernandezpaz.gal\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5394\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agustinfernandezpaz.gal\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agustinfernandezpaz.gal\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agustinfernandezpaz.gal\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}