The Spanish writer Manuel Vilas – Alex Gallegos
Saturday 2 July at Bergamo Festival the Spanish writer Manuel Vilas, poet and narrator, will be the protagonist of the meeting: “Telling worlds. The word between reality and fiction ”. Vilas is one of the greatest living Spanish authors, he has numerous essays and novels to his credit, including the acclaimed In all there was beauty and the last The kisses, both published by Guanda. His is a prose that delves into the human experience, often proposing images with an almost spiritual flavor, but never detached from reality. Vilas knows in depth the mechanisms of the word and the art of the story, through which he builds worlds poised between reality and fiction.
How does the word fit, therefore, in a world like today’s, made up mainly of images?
“Human beings also need words. Pictures are not enough. You can’t tell someone you love them with an image. It is necessary to say: I love you. Without words, humanity does not exist ».
If your prose describes spiritual images, what is your relationship with spirituality?
«I tend to a simple mysticism: the beauty of the sunlight, the shadow of a tree, the secret look of a dog. Everything is mysterious and simple at the same time. All my literature is an exploration of the mystery of life. Yes, in my books there is spirituality, and a lot. Everything is enigma and beauty. The mysteries of life contain joy and pain ».
The theme of this year’s Bergamo Festival brings together democracy and the future of the planet. On the one hand there is the war between Ukraine and Russia, on the other the Covid, and on the other hand the environmental emergency.
“The world was undoubtedly better off before the pandemic. People are afraid now. Politics is failing. Literature is a form of resistance but I am very concerned about individual rights. Russia’s war against Ukraine is a culture war. Putin does not want Ukraine to become a Western democracy. There is no joy in the world today. Too many enemies of life. The world looks like a ship adrift ».
Can literature do anything?
«He can defend life. Life is more important than ideologies. It can remind the reader that the joy of living is a right and an obligation. Kafka used to say that joy is an obligation ».
In his latest book he talks about another great writer: Cervantes. A friend once told me: the world is divided into two categories: those who have read Don chisciotte and those who have not read it, that is, those who have faith, believe and dream and those who do not. What is your relationship with faith?
“I believe that there are things in my heart that I don’t know and that I sometimes see in my dreams. After Cervantes, the writer I admire most is Kafka. Perhaps Cervantes and Kafka are the same writer. I really like Don Quixote, he was the busiest man in the world. He didn’t have five minutes to spare. Behind Don Quixote is Cervantes, who remains an enigma. We will never know who Cervantes was ».
Always in reference to Don chisciotte you speak of the idealists’ dilemma, which is disappointment. The secret to being happy is not having expectations?
«The life of the idealist ends in disappointment, but a life without ideals also disappoints: this paradox is present in my novel. We fear idealism because it is based on a lie, but without that lie life is poor and gray ».
With The kisses wrote a love story full of feeling, whose basic thesis is that the solution, the salvation of life, is love. What is love for her?
«Human love is the most important experience of life. Love discredits politics and discredits the hierarchy of values. People in love don’t watch the news. People in love live the hectic life of their passions. Lovers don’t vote, they don’t eat, they don’t work, they don’t have a pension, they don’t believe in anything but their love. People in love are the real antisystem ».
In the book There was beauty in everything she talks about family, combining personal and collective, novel and autobiography. What does the family represent for you?
“I loved my parents, that’s why I wrote There was beauty in everything. I remember my parents every day. I miss them every day. I still love them every day. “
What is your relationship with the past and with the passage of time?
«Living is a party, I don’t want it to end. The past, as Faulkner said, is never dead, and it is not even past ».
You started out as a poet, now you are a novelist. Which direction is it going? as a writer?
“I’m finishing a new novel and I’ve written a poetry book called Rome, which will soon be translated into Italian. I am in love with Rome. when I am in Italy I have the feeling of being in the most beautiful place in the world. I am a poet and a novelist. You can be both at the same time, it’s all part of what we call literature, but my vocation is that of a reader, that’s why I feel more comfortable as a novelist, because for me literature is communication. Without readers I would not write. I need my readers. I would like to have millions of readers, because I love the whole of humanity and believe in universal brotherhood ».
What is beauty for her? Everything that exists is beautiful. I am obsessed with beauty. I see it everywhere. But the beauty of the world is often threatened by human beings. Things like garbage in the sea, neglect, indelicacy depress me.
Literature. Manuel Vilas: “Without words, humanity does not exist”