The narrator is a door to the inhabitants of that place with a port without docked ships and a pier on which the waves hit in a loop. It is also a link between landscape and language, following his love for words. This is how the voice responsible for giving life to is built. Quebrada Honda (2024), which reflects on issues such as life, destiny, chance and time.
Ana Solari, its author, states that the idea for the story was born in 2005 and that, after 18 versions and before the pandemic, she completed it. An adventure similar to the one the protagonist goes through.
In addition to Quebrada Honda, he published Battlefield (2021), The last woman (co-authored with the Catalan writer Jordi Buch Oliver, 2013), Scotty (2002), The quiet man (2007) and Mr Fischer (2011), among others. The latter won the National Literature Prize for unpublished fiction.
Solari, in addition to being a writer, is a doctor in Communication and a university professor. She obtained scholarships from the John S. Guggenheim Foundation (together with journalist Andrés Alsina, 2000), from the Rockefeller Foundation (2004); She also sponsored the International Writers and Translator’s Center (2005) and the scholarship from the Government of the People’s Republic of China to study Chinese in Beijing (2007).
Photo: Javier Noceti
Would you prefer to travel to the future or the past?
I find it difficult to answer. On the one hand, I would love to travel to certain moments in the past: Greece in the golden age; China under the reign of the Yellow Emperor; the Rome of Julius Caesar; Berlin in 1950; the London of spies during the Cold War; Lawrence of Arabia’s desert; Madam Curie’s laboratory; the house of Marguerite Duras, where he lived with her mistress who was both younger than she; San Francisco and its movement in the 60s, to listen to Ginsberg, Ferlinghetti and the Grateful Dead; the arrival of the commanders to Havana when the revolution triumphs; the library of Alexandria; the library that Umberto Eco describes in The Name of the Rose; the moment when writing began to be invented, there where the Phoenicians and also the Chinese were; the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in England.
I would walk through Renaissance Italy, I would travel with the Vikings when they arrived on American shores… And I won’t continue, because since I love history, I think I would go through all the eras. On the other hand, who wouldn’t want to delve into the future? Travel to space, possibility of other intelligences on other remote planets or galaxies; What did artificial intelligence become: Did it become generative? Can we recover the environment? Are the wars over? Has humanity overcome the challenges of this century and learned to live with each other? Will I be able to set foot on the long-awaited soil of Mars? And although it is not strictly “future”, only the future can give us tools to attend the Big Bang: it would be in the front row.
What book by another author affected you in such a way that you would like to generate that same effect on your readers?
There are a couple of books that affected me greatly, but I do not intend to generate the same in my readers. Ballard is one of them; Simone de Beauvoir and Marguerite Duras; Peter Handke; the diaries of Viktor Klemperer; Paul Auster, are others. I mention authors, not books.
Top 3 books that you gave or recommended the most.
The Lord of the rings (1954); The seller of pasts (2004), from Agualusa; The seventh function of language (2015), by Binet; star maker (1937).
What five things would you keep in a time capsule?
A map of the current world; the imprint of a hand; a sundial; the alphabet in binary code; a copy of Planet of the Apes.
Photo: Javier Noceti
If you could co-write a book with any author, living or dead, who would it be and why?
Years ago I wrote one with Jordi Buch Oliver, a Catalan writer. However, I would love to write with Claudio Invernizzi, without a doubt, and with William Gibson, from when he wrote science fiction. In the case of Invernizzi, because his prose is intelligent and smooth; in the case of Gibson, because I imagine that his science fiction would be more than complex. If it were with dead authors: Irene Nemirovsky and Alexandre Dumas; both would be a challenge. I would be passionate about talking with Evariste Galois, the French mathematician who died very young in a duel and wrote an algebraic theory that was very advanced for his time on the night before his death.
If you were in the National Library of Uruguay and you could steal a book without anyone knowing, what would it be?
The original of the Constitution of the Republic or the first edition of Moby Dick (1851).
Your autobiography in a sentence.
Since I couldn’t think of anything, I asked the AI for help. Here is the dialogue and its suggestions:
-Hello human, I am an AI chatbot powered by GPT. Ask me anything!
-I must write my autobiography in one sentence.
-Clear! How about this phrase for your autobiography? “A journey full of ups and downs, but always seeking to grow and learn from each experience.” How about?
-Not bad. You have another? I am a writer. [la descarto porque suena muy new age y de coach]
-Of course! What do you think of this phrase for your autobiography? “Exploring the corners of my soul through words, in search of the truth that defines me.” Do you like this option?
-Yes maybe. I’m interested in something that’s not too grandiose. Does it occur to you? Something simple. [no suelo explorar los rincones de mi alma ni busco la verdad que me define, así que tampoco]
-Of course, here you have a simpler option: “An honest journey through my life, between pages and memories.” What do you think of this phrase for your autobiography? [tampoco, lo que menos me interesa es recorrer honestamente mi vida, etc.]
In short: I am a writer.
Tell us what you are reading now.
Long list, because I read several books at the same time. Proletkult (2018), by Wu Ming; Maniac (2023), by Benjamin Labatur; country of spies (2009), by William Gibson; Introitus lapidus (2007), by Jim Dodge; One more day (2007), by Mirta Fajardo; The extreme right today (2021), by Cas Mudde; The coming wave (2023), by Mustafa Suleyman; The gifts of Athena (2002), by Joel Mokyr; Moravian night (2008), by Peter Handke.
If you could have an hour-long conversation with any famous writer, but then you would never be able to read any of their works again, who would you choose to have that conversation with?
I would talk to Peter Handke or Heinrich Böll.
The first verse that comes to mind.
From Zitarrosa: In my country what sadness, poverty and resentment/ My father says that another time will come/ from the depths of time/ and he tells me that the sun will shine/ on a town that he dreams of/ carving its green solar.
And from Fernando Cabrera: When it comes to you/ I am left speechless/ oh, my old shyness/ that crouches in speech/ When it comes to you/ Breeze, canoe of the air/ that takes away my song/made a traveling whistle
What book did you borrow from your library and to this day it has not been returned? And backwards?
I always return books! I lent a History of the Economy that never returned and one by Mario Levrero, I don’t remember the title. After that, I rarely lend a book.
As a reader, what do you like to find in a story?
A plot that catches me. Believable characters. A fluid syntax without redundancies, an enviable vocabulary.
Your idea of happiness and your idea of misery.
Happiness: inner peace. Misery: knowing that there are people who live in absolute poverty, a situation that does not seem to move too much those who could reverse it.
What book do you never get bored of rereading?
Martian Chronicles (1950), by Bradbury.
If you could invite three literary characters to dinner, who would they be and why?
Jean Valjean (The Miserables); George SmileyThe spy that emerged from the cold, among other); Geoffrey Firmin (under the volcano).
Photo: Javier Noceti
Because Quebrada Honda?
It is the name of the place where the story takes place; It could have been called Despeñadero de Perros, another place neighboring that one, but I liked the first one better. I suppose it summarizes, in the form of a metaphor, the protagonist’s adventures. It is also the search for a syntax that is the protagonist’s own and unique.
How long did it take you to write this book, from idea conception to final publication?
The conception—the idea—emerged around 2005, and is volume two of a trilogy that began with Scotty. Write Quebrada Honda It took many years—I think the first original is from 2010—and then it was in a drawer for a long time. A dear colleague and poet, René Fuentes, read it—and helped me organize the structure—and every now and then, over the years, he asked me about the protagonist, Juanita. He asked so much that I read it again and it made me want to publish it. After about 18 versions, I finished it shortly before the pandemic started. I delayed publishing it for various reasons.
Why did you choose that heading?
It is a dedication.
If you had to describe your book in a single sentence, how would you phrase it?
A future writer who does not know that he will be one recounts his adventures, in a town left by the hand of God, and those of the characters, while he searches for locations for a mythical filmmaker, and reflects on life and humanity, with quite a simplicity. deep. Underlying an old discussion with myself about the image and the text to represent reality.
What is the most unexpected reaction you received with this book?
Still none. Three people read it; the poet I already mentioned, René Fuentes; Martín, from HUM, and Carlos Liscano, who read the fragment inspired by and dedicated to him (the writer with the black hat).
What advice or inspirational quote would you give to other writers who are searching for their literary voice and style?
I don’t know what an inspirational phrase is. Let them inhabit that universe they create. Don’t be complacent and favor brevity: if you can express it in three words, don’t use eight.
If you could speak any language fluently overnight, what would it be and where would you travel to try it?
Russian: I would travel to Siberia. Arab, would return to Lebanon.
Writing is…
The way of inhabiting different worlds and surviving/in it.
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Fragment of Quebrada Honda:
And I read him:
«When it rains in Quebrada Honda it means that the tyrant is on the loose or a miracle is about to happen. If it rains on Saturday, the future looks dark; that if the rain occurs on Sunday, nothing can be done, and the only thing left is to entrust oneself to the Saint and history demonstrates the veracity of the statement.
»And in the neighborhood, with this stubborn rain, there is no one; not a soul; that the water drags away the garbage, the bags already more than used, and those white or blue things are sad, tied at the end with a tight little knot about to burst. I look away from them, they seem to me
grotesque, that when it rains, beauty is brighter and ugliness becomes uglier.
»The thing is that it really rains hard, because the entrance to the building looks like a swimming pool, like the ones that appear in the movies that can sometimes be seen in the shed near the square. And it is sad to see that little hallway with the floor covered in water; With one jump I reach the stairs, and on the first step the old woman who talks to the cat tells me.
«The old woman sees me and says:
»—You had visitors, you.»
Juanita interrupts me:
—Let’s go to the hammock. And then you read me. There is all the time in the world.
And I leave the notebook there, because she says rightly. Juanita will always say right, it is the only thing my soul feels and I know that is true. And the hammock is like the waves. And Juanita too. Juanita is the sea, and the sea does not contain time. She always is.
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