03/05/2024
Every year the Alfaguara award novel causes the spotlight of the news media and readers to be directed to a particular novel. For a few months, that book and its author become a mandatory reference on cultural agendas and on the lists of best-selling titles. This year, a jury made up of Sergio Ramírez, Juan José Millás, Laura Restrepo, Rosa Montero, Manuel Rivas and Pilar Reyes decided that the turn of the media exposure corresponded to the Spanish novelist Sergio del Molino, for his book The Germans. “A fascinating novel that tests the characters’ conscience and shakes that of the reader,” reads the ruling of that literary contest.
On his recent visit to Medellín, Del Molino spoke with EL COLOMBIANO about the impressions of his trip through Latin America, the recurring themes in literature and the future of nationalisms and other fictions.
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This experience of touring Latin America promoting a book must be very intense…
“It is as intense as I have never had before. Yes, I had traveled to these countries before for some books, but this has been an intense experience. It has been traveling without seeing. “It has been an experience of seeing these countries from the hotels.”
What impression do you have of Latin America?
“On a trip like this you can’t take any ideas with you. In other words, you are a bird of passage. It would be arrogant and prejudiced to give you an impression. You take away intimate impressions. The best things are the conversations you have with the writers and with the people of the culture with whom you have dinner and with whom you have meetings. Those talks do give you ideas, but it is something superficial.”
His novel explores the theme of identity and migration…
“Those have been one of the great themes of literature. In the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries, migratory flows have defined the life experience of humanity and how nations are formed. There was—and there is—a tension between communities that feel their homelands are threatened and people seeking a new homeland. That tension is everywhere. In the novel The Germans this tension is expressed in a very literary way. And this is because the Germans in the book are not actually Germans, they are Spaniards of German origin. The characters’ great-grandfather was German and they keep the surname.
However, they do not fit into any of the migration categories. They are not migrants or exiles or refugees. And yet they are all of those things, but they don’t fit into any of them.”
You discovered this story in some Nazi pamphlets that circulated in your city…
“In second-hand bookstores there is a lot of old material. These were some propaganda pamphlets, Nazi propaganda, published in my city, in Zaragoza. They were in Spanish and had the seal of the Nazi party. From there I discovered the history of the Germans who came from Cameroon, the Germans who in Spain in 1916 were very well known because they were called the Germans of Cameroon and there were a lot of references to them, a lot of zarzuelas, a lot of references popular.
It was a completely forgotten story that I rescued and is the historical basis of the novel. The novel is not about that, it is not about the adventures of those Germans, but rather the story of a German family in the 21st century, which is forced to face its heritage, its evil.”
Literature always returns to the theme of family…
“That is one of the fundamental themes of literature. The novel was born fundamentally to be able to tell about the family. The novel has reached its perfection by talking about the family. The family is a microcosm that allows us to talk about everything, that allows us to explain the world, that allows us to explain to ourselves all the things that we are. This topic will always be very rich, we will always return to it. I believe it is inexhaustible. The family as a literary theme, as a subject to put together novels, is inevitable.”
What was the difference between writing this specific work and the rest of your novels and books?
“It was more joyful writing, more focused on the characters. But I don’t really notice a big difference in attitude. I know that it will be perceived that the book is a little different from what I have been doing, but I think that the voice behind it and the obsessions are the same.”
Is the nation also a fiction?
“Yes, the nation is a fiction, of course. It is a story that we all tell each other, that the nationals tell each other and that everyone decides to believe. At the moment when there is a significant part of that population that decides not to believe it, then the nation is going to hell.
It is a story that lasts a time, lasts a few centuries, it can last many, but there is no eternal nation. All nations have a birth and all nations end up dying at some point. And that’s because, like all stories, they have a period of credibility, a time in which they are useful.
But, when they cease to be useful to the community that forms them, nations disappear. And that coincides with the fact that people stop believing the stories they make up.”
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And isn’t that fiction anachronistic in times of globalization and technology?
“The other way around. I believe that we are living in a moment of exaltation of the nation, of the national discourse. I believe that new nations emerge, new nationalisms arise and I believe that we live in a time of exaltation of the national as a reaction precisely to the times of globalization.
I think there has been a very strong reaction against the individualist and globalist drive, which has left many people without reference. And these people have retreated into the nation in the same way that they are retreating into religious forms. “I think we are living in times where the religious and the national are once again gaining an important role.”
Does that explain the separatist movements, for example the Catalan one?
“Definitely. Nationalism offers quick solace. It offers a utopia of the future. Offers a vision of paradise. A horizon where it is assumed that all social problems will be solved. And it is a comfort and a cause to fight for that many people need.”
Let’s talk about another fiction: that of literary writing. Now people consume other types of fictions. Series, for example, have a larger audience than books…
“I think literature is often considered dead and it is still very much alive. What happens is that the novel as we understand it becomes contaminated by other genres and other approaches to literature. The literature that survives is that which can be enjoyed verbatim. Furthermore, the reader finds things in the text that the screen does not. The book market continues to grow.
We are constantly leaving literature for dead. And so far what he has shown is that he knows how to coexist very well with many things. Television is going to turn a century. He has had a century to overthrow literature and he has not succeeded. And the cinema has not achieved it either. Neither film nor television are more powerful than they were 50 years ago.”
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From afar, it seems that the PSOE is losing a lot of prestige…
“There is a global trend from which the PSOE does not escape. This trend is the disappearance and decline of social democratic parties in Europe. The French Socialist Party has disappeared, the Italian one too, and the Greek one too. The only one that has a bit of strength is Labor, which seems like it is going to win the elections. The German Social Democratic Party governs, but in the polls for the next elections they show it as the fourth force. In other words, there is a huge collapse of social democracy in Europe and the PSOE is no stranger to it.
The PSOE has suffered enormous wear and tear and probably if it were not in government the wear and tear would be much greater. That is to say, the government does not provide the wear and tear. The government gives him a break. Being in the government allows him to still maintain levels of popularity that, if he were in the opposition, we would probably be talking about a scenario that is almost extinct.
This Alfaguara award turns anyone into a rockstar…
“Yes, but much shadier than a rockstar.”
