Photograph of the author: courtesy of Huso editorial
Javier Valenzuela He is from Granada. He worked three decades in El País , the chronicler of events and was a reporter on the wars in the Middle East, correspondent in Beirut, Rabat, Paris and Washington and deputy editor of the newspaper. In 2013 he founded inkFree, monthly digital magazine infoFree. Too late to understand It is his fifteenth book and fifth crime novel that he publishes, that he tells us about in this interview. I thank you very much for your time and kindness.
Javier Valenzuela — Interview
- CURRENT LITERATURE: Your new novel is titled Too late to understand. What do you tell us about it and where did the idea come from?
JAVIER VALENZUELA: It is a noir novel that takes place in the Madrid of 1984. I have wanted to relive that luminously dark city that was Madrid of the Movida. On one side there was a explosion of life in freedom, which manifested itself in music, cinema, painting, photography and parties, but on the other hand there was tremendous citizen insecurity. That also it was time of the quinquis and the heroin. I guess the idea of this novel arose from verifying that no one had written something like this.
- AL: Can you go back to that first book you read? And the first story you wrote?
JV: I think the first book I read were the Tales from the Alhambra, de washington irving, in a children's edition, of course. Many novels followed. Jules Verne, Emilio Salgari and Robert Louis Stevenson. I think that's where my love for books was born: books told great stories, they made you travel and have adventures. I started practicing journalism at a very young age and telling stories from many different cities and countries.. But they were journalistic stories, that is, true, relevant and verifiable. I did my first work of fiction when I was very old: the novel Tangerine, what is a Black that takes place in Tangier.
- AL: A head writer? You can choose more than one and from all eras.
JV: Albert Camus, among the French. Hemingway, among Americans. Cervantes and Pérez Galdós, among the Spanish. And in terms of black literature, the Dashiell classics Hammett, Raymond Chandler and Patricia highsmith and Spanish John Madrid, alexis ravel y Martha Sanz.
- AL: What character in a book would you have liked to meet and create?
JV: The pirate Long John Silver, The island of the treasure, de Stevenson. I fully assume the song by Joaquín Sabina: «If you give me a choice between all the lives, I choose that of the lame pirate, with a wooden leg, with an eye patch, with a bad face. The old scoundrel, captain of a ship whose flag was a pair of tibias and a skull. I love pirates, they were absolutely libertarian.
- AL: Any special habits or habits when it comes to writing or reading?
JV: When I write novels I like to have something related to your subject on hand. For example, when writing Gunpowder, tobacco and leather I had one on my desk Star 1922 pistol, a 9 long caliber semi-automatic manufactured in Éibar for the Civil Guard. In the case of Too late to understand, I did not begin to write a chapter until I had heard the topic that was going to give it its title several times. Songs both Nacha Pop, Radio Futura and Illegales like Los Chichos and Los Chunguitos. They are my way of immersing myself in a certain time and place.
- AL: And your preferred place and time to do it?
JV: I have written my five novels already published between Tangier, the Alpujarra and Salobreña. Quiet places, where I can spend six or seven hours straight writing without excessive disturbance. AND beautiful places, where, at dusk, I can go for a walk with great views and meet up for a few beers with friends.
- AL: Are there other genres that you like?
JV: Besides the noir genre? Yes of course. I read a lot of history and philosophy books. History is full of fantastic true stories, stories that often surpass the imagination of the most fertile writer. And philosophy, especially that of Epicurus, Nietzsche and Camus, it reconciles me with life, it gives me what the French call joy of living, joy of lifer.
- AL: What are you reading now? And writing?
JV: I am rereading, almost half a century later, Conversation in the cathedral, by Vargas Llosa. But now paying much more attention to the form than to the substance, to the narrative technique than to the stories in this book. Vargas Llosa made in this novel a titanic and admirable exercise in narrative architecture.
And how I finished not long ago Too late to understandnow I'm not writing fiction, just journalistic articles.. When I write novels I don't read novels, only history or philosophy, so as not to contaminate myself. I leave other people's fiction for fallow periods.
Panorama and current events
- AL: How do you think the publishing scene is?
JV: It is clear that the publishing landscape is dominated by three or four huge business groups that magnificently place their authors and products in bookstores, the media and literary awards. This is The power of money. But there are also dozens of wonderful small, independent publishers publishing magnificent works and trying to make them survive under the crushing commercial weight of the bestseller. I have great admiration and great affection for our David editorials.
- AL: Is the moment we are living in difficult for you or will you be able to keep something positive in both the cultural and social spheres?
JAVIER VALENZUELA: The world of the XNUMXst century is excessively dominated by greed, narcissism and exhibitionism. To the point that its winners are the influencers on social networks and the winners of reality television contests. But It also has very positive things. One of the most stimulating is the extraordinary momentum that the just cause of women's equality.
I love the massive social rejection that the machirula behavior of the president of our football federation has had. And I must say that I was one of the millions of compatriots who felt very happy when our female team won the World Cup in Australia. That's where we're going well.