Originally from Santiago, Alvaro Prieto has dedicated himself to multiple disciplines of the arts, from music, textile creation and writing. He studied Plastic Arts at the University of Chile and later was a vocalist and composer in the band Los Miserables, where he was the author of iconic songs such as “NN”, “Progreso” and “El Origen de la Violence”. It is precisely with puns in his songs that he titles his latest book, “NN Memories of a Friend of Chaos,” which he presented in Puerto Natales and this week in Punta Arenas.
Finishing his career, he joined the renowned national band, where he spent a few years singing, and then explored new arts and expressions. After several years he started in children’s literature, mainly by exploring it in tenths. “As a child we played with friends to throw rhymes at each other and that’s when I started getting into rhymes, as a game. I even made a booklet that he gave to friends, but very groundbreaking because it used themes that are not related to the tenth.
In this way she won the Marta Brunet children’s poetry contest in 2005 with her book “Décimas de Segundo. Popular poetry for boys and girls”, which was illustrated by him.
Years later, the idea for the book he is currently launching came about, in the midst of the pandemic, when he was asked to write an article for a magazine that he wrote as a chronicle and whose exercise led him to write two more. “I wrote stories that had happened to me and I sent about five to a friend and without telling me he sent them to a publisher. There they asked me for about twenty of the same ones. I thought I wasn’t going to remember twenty things (laughs). But in the end about eighty came out.”
They are short, autobiographical and dramatized anecdotes, which were liked for their dynamism. They maintain the spirit of punk: quick, short stories that convey a message in itself, whether between the lines or in what is narrated. “It has added value, I don’t just talk about my story with Les Miserables, I start off in my relationship with music, from pure anecdotes. But I was also a member of the Patriotic Front, so I include those stories, although I always add music to them. It is like a testimony of someone who lived through the transition.”
Music is and has been its common thread, from which branches and anecdotes open. The political is intertwined with the artistic work and the hectic life of the 90s onwards.
This Friday, April 26, he will present his book at Casa Morada, Chiloé Nº755, in addition to performing an acoustic set where he will share stories and experiences. While on Saturday she will be developing a textile creation class in the Beetle workshop, O’Higgins Nº1013 second floor, where she will address her vision of “textile trash” and how to interpear the culture of overproduction and consumption.
