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- Rafael Escuredo - Hello, good morning.
- Today, in the Instituto Cervantes library we welcome a lawyer, writer and the ex-President of the Regional Government of Andalusia.
Is your political period part of the history now?
- Well, calling it history would be a big word. In any case, I’m part of a brief recent history of
Andalusia, as a consequence of the Andalusian process to become an autonomous region.
It was a time in my political career and well, it was a period of fights, a defining period
of the year 1978, when the Constitution and the statute of autonomy for Andalusia came about.
We wanted a first league statute, while the intention was to limit the privilege
to northern communities only, Catalonia, Basque Country and Galicia above others.
- Rafael Escuredo has written poetry, short stories and four novels so far.
Your short stories compilation is entitled “Women’s Matters” What do women think about your short stories?
- Well, the title might come across ambiguous, isn’t that so?
It looks like I played around placing the woman’s role, as it couldn’t be any other way,
in an equal position to men. But the title “Women’s Matters” suggests
that there is a sexist approach. Women’s Matters. And I used it on purpose as it was an expression
that was related somehow to that sexist language that I wanted to denounce.
The short stories are about independent women, women who want to live their own lives and who find themselves constrained
due to the circumstances that historically have put women in a secondary position, in a secondary role,
while the reality has been and it will continue being different. It’s true that women and men are different,
but we are equal not only as far as rights and duties are concerned, but also as human beings.
- Let’s move to your novels, the first three novels are part of your “Memory Trilogy”.
Are your own memories reflected in them?
- Well, they are somehow. That is, no one who writes can elude his own thoughts
and his own beliefs, right? I think that in these three novels I have tried to emphasize that somehow
none of us is alien to the conditioning factors related to childhood or youth,
and all those things are part of who you are.
And of course, to retrieve memory, or avert forgetting on one hand
and on the other, to overcome these factors and reaffirm oneself as human being, progress
without looking back, live life to the full and excel as persons, as citizens...
I find it as the most important task for every human being and it has always disturbed me.
It’s not that I have been obsessed about this, but it’s true that it has interested me and concerned me.
- After “Un sueño fugitivo”, “Te estaré esperando” and “Leonor, mon amour”, we have now
“El blanco círculo del miedo”, which is your first immersion in black genre, in black novel.
Why black novel?
- Because I have been a passionate reader of black novel and the great masters always used
black novel as a weapon, as a tool to make criticism of their society.
And I thought that it was the genre that allowed me to do it in an easier way.
A social criticism can be made through any genre but for instance, through a romantic novel
it might be quite complicated, quite hard. So I have reported through black novel
on one hand the abuse, egoism and greediness of the financial capitalism nowadays,
and on the other, I also wanted to emphasize and stir the elements of corruption,
all the elements that affect and are part of Spanish society
in which there is a connivance between mafias, political power, local government, corruption, assassinations...
which is part of the Spanish reality but that we somehow digest
and let fall into oblivion, or that part of memory where, somehow
we find it normal and we let it, let it go... And I think that all this is very seriously conditioned
for present and future generations of Spain and it felt right or at least I thought so.
And I also thought it was necessary to wake up the awareness of a sector of our society.
And well, eventually everybody contributes as they can or they want to improve the society in which they live.
And this can only be done through criticism, right? What happens is that I don’t introduce political elements in my novel
nor do I allow myself to be a moralist, this is a novel related to everybody’s experience after all.
- You said that you were angry and annoyed while writing “El blanco círculo del miedo”. Is this anger still there?
- Yes, I still am an angry citizen, as many others.
I may not go to a demonstration in a public square, but I express myself through writing.
I think that there are reasons to feel angry when we see these predators in the financial world,
people without morals who have decided that “Salomon Brothers” is the government of the world
and they have also decided that the markets rule the world and act as a substitute of politics.
This abandonment of politics by the politicians who rule the world today, that is really deplorable.
And that is what justifies the anger of civil society, of citizen conscience.
I believe that this is the moment to get action from the citizens, it’s time for them to take the agora
and make a serious criticism about what it is going on.
- Are these angry people part of your novel? - No.
No, no, in any case it’s the writer who has given himself that privilege.
- We know that the novel is being adapted for the screen.
- Well, according to the producer the pre-production phase will develop during this year
and the shooting will start in June or July.
- Very good, we hope to see it in Dublin very soon. We have a final question and since we are here in the library...
Could you recommend us a book or what is the book that you are reading at the moment?
- Well, the thing is that I’m reading... If I tell you about ten, twelve books at the same time, I wouldn’t be lying.
I wouldn’t be lying but it could be any by Mario Vargas Llosa,
on the occasion of the new release and also of his Nobel Prize in Literature.
He is in my opinion one of the great masters. You can learn very much from him.
- Thank you very much once again, Rafael Escuredo, and see you soon.
- Thank you very much, see you soon.