The writer Gustavo Rodríguez, Alfaguara 2023 award, in Lima, on February 7.CESAR CAMPOS
At the beginning of this century, when he still did not have the audacity to daydream about the Alfaguara Novel Prize, Gustavo Rodríguez (Lima, 54 years old), then a publicist and from time to time a political advisor, obeyed a slogan of the writer Oswaldo Reynoso: publish .
It has not gone bad.
One hundred guinea pigs
, the unpublished work that was chosen as the winner among 706 manuscripts, is his ninth novel, the sixth under the Alfaguara label.
From a ninth-floor duplex where one can see the tip of the Pacific Ocean, among paintings by the Mexican Siqueiros, engravings by José Tola, and sketches by Víctor Humareda, Rodríguez gives his point of view on Peru, which he defines as an adolescent country in he seeks validation, and opens the doors of his literature, the pool of water into which he jumped after thirty.
Ask.
In the midst of the deaths of the marches, of the strikes, your prize was known.
The only happy news from Peru internationally in a long time.
How did you feel around that powder keg?
Answer.
So far I'm having a hard time answering that question, because it's multi-layered.
On an intimate level, I felt stupefied, because I was woken up at 4:20 in the morning by the jury and I couldn't quite believe what was happening.
Then I entered a kind of reverie absorbed by the award protocol and the presentation to the international press, and then came the barrage of affection and affection from friends.
But there is a layer that I did not expect and it has to do with the fact that we are a country that is going through very difficult times.
We feel crestfallen and it is natural that we try to appraise some achievements of compatriots in order to cling to some kind of pride.
Q.
Nothing new for the country...
R.
That's how it is.
Twenty years ago, when Peru was shaken by the Vladivideos [videos that exposed corruption during the government of Alberto Fujimori] we also felt hopeless.
Suddenly we began to take pride in several other things, since neither politics nor football gave us happiness.
We embrace gastronomy and its chefs like a flag, the tenor Juan Diego Flórez and his singing, Sofía Mulánovich and her table, and this bubble was generated that ended up in the Peru Brand.
I hope that the same thing is not happening, that we do not cling to floating happiness, but rather that our pride and heroism has more to do with organized young people who fight against the scourges that have left us in this situation.
I prefer to believe in a more anonymous and massive heroism than in certain figures that give us luster.
Q.
Was it difficult to express your joy in the midst of these devastating news?
R.
The first thing I said in the award proclamation was that this was a strange day, personally happy, but within a context that was not happy at all.
Finally, that is the food of literature.
The confrontation of emotions, these contradictions that inhabit us as human beings.
Q.
One Hundred Guinea Pigs
is a novel that will reach your readers' hands in March and about which, naturally, great expectations have been created.
R.
That scares me too.
The main requirement to be disappointed is to have a very high expectation (laughs).
Q.
The protagonist of this story buys guinea pigs as a hope to change her life.
I kept thinking about the symbolic of the guinea pig.
R.
We are in a moment of giddiness.
We are a Republic that, having not solved its underlying problems -racism, inequality, little respect for institutions- tend to have pendular histories.
Sometimes we think we're in a bonanza, we calm down, and every once in a while we turn to face these old monstrosities.
We are at that precise moment in the circuit, where we are out of control looking for a way out.
Peru is like a guinea pig without knowing where to go.
Q.
Will another moment of temporary peace come?
R.
Yes, that's how it will be unless we start discussing as cordially as possible what kind of country we want.
Being a Republic implies certain things that we are not taking into account because of the high-sounding voices that I hear.
Do we want democracy?
Being one implies many aspects that many voices are not supporting.
Q.
In this polarization, are there more people in favor of a heavy hand and a scourge?
R.
Obviously we are a country of authoritarian stock.
The vast majority of our history has been lived without democracy.
But I don't know to what extent this feeling that we are an authoritarian country is also due to the fact that the media tends to give voice and microphone to the loudest voices.
Throughout all this time, they should have shown us more sensible voices, but they have empowered many violent people who have created this climate that makes Peru a strange madhouse, which the other neighbors view with concern.
Q.
In
The Fury of Achilles
you addressed the absence of a father.
In an interview you mentioned that Latinos are always looking for a father.
Is this divided Peru also looking for him?
A.
Sometimes I tend to think that we are symbolically chasing a savior, a messiah who will order and tell us what to do.
Consciously or unconsciously we are looking for a dictatorship.
It has been proven that when a large part of human beings sees chaos, they prefer to lose their freedom in exchange for having order in their lives.
And that is a very dangerous situation.
We do not realize the terrible consequences that would bring.
P.
Dina Boluarte is the first female president of Peru, but even so she has not been able to inspire feminism.
A.
Actually, the movements seek respect for human rights to begin with and it cannot be said that your regime has respected human rights.
When you fail in something as obvious as that, it is difficult for you to be an example of feminists or any type of social activist.
I believe that Dina Boluarte's regime in any country, that claims to be civilized or democratic, is being poorly evaluated.
Q.
What were those political conversations with Oswaldo Reynoso like?
R.
He was an old-fashioned Marxist, but at least he was coherent.
He didn't insult.
And we could reach certain agreements.
And when we realized that it was not going to be possible, we preferred to avoid certain topics.
We had the party in peace.
And, finally, this is how the dialogue between Peruvians should be.
This is taught from a young age, at home and at school.
Q.
Before what happened, were you excited that a teacher would become the president of Peru?
R.
It was enough to listen to a couple of interventions by Pedro Castillo to notice that he was someone very limited.
But he could understand that for many Peruvians this Cinderella story made a lot of sense.
As at the time, that of Alejandro Toledo [former president of Peru] made sense.
Q.
Since you are talking about Toledo, you advised him in the campaign against Fujimori at the beginning of 2000. What did he suppose?
R.
It was a challenge out of conviction.
I was going to advise whoever might have a chance against Fujimori.
Toledo ended up triumphing, but years later he ended up disappointing us, and it is one of the reasons why he never participated in a political campaign again.
I didn't want to take another disappointment like that.
Q.
Let's imagine that you are a consultant for Dina Boluarte for a day, what would you advise?
R.
That he resign.
It is the only dignified way out for what may happen later.
Jaime Rodríguez at his home in Lima, Peru.CESAR CAMPOS
P.
One hundred guinea pigs
touches on the themes of dignity, old age and death.
Have you found signs of old age?
R.
More than old age, of a progressive deterioration.
I wouldn't have written this book 20 years ago, but when your hangovers start to get worse, when your knees ache more than before, when your back starts to struggle, you say: I'm on my way to what my elders suffer.
There is a prerequisite for writing this novel and it is to begin to experience physical maturity firsthand, which is prior to the slope that lies ahead.
Q.
Is it true that you usually talk to your family about how you want your death to be?
A.
Yes, we joke about that.
I try to naturalize my death with my partner, with my daughters.
My partner doesn't like me talking about it, but with my daughters we joke around a lot.
They play along with me, and I like that.
It's a nice way to exorcise what we don't usually talk about very often.
Q.
How would you like your funeral to be?
R.
I would like it to be a celebration of life rather than a cry for death.
Let there be music, drinks, videos with memories of everything we have lived together.
I like an environment like this more than something heavy.
Q.
What wakes for friends or close people have fulfilled this task?
R.
The best wake or the most emotional and comforting wake I have attended has to do with the genesis of
One Hundred Guinea Pigs
.
It was my father-in-law's.
I saw him die surrounded by love, affection, affection.
Easy with life, leaving prepared, making peace with everyone.
That for me was the trigger for me later to start writing this novel like a man possessed.
Q.
You are the second Peruvian to win the Alfaguara Award after Santiago Roncagliolo.
R.
Yes, 17 years later.
I consider it as a fortunate confirmation that I did the right thing in facing constant production work in this very long craft that is literature.
I am grateful that it is at this time in my life.
If I had been younger, who knows if I would have been conceited or if I would have been paralyzed by the challenge of showing that I am up to the prize.
Q.
What has Roncagliolo told you?
R.
Santiago was at the proclamation dinner.
There nobody knows what is the face that is going to come out.
Only the winner and the people behind the prize know about it.
He was at the table with other Peruvians, such as Gabriela Wiener and Jorge Eduardo Benavides.
They tell me they jumped off the table.
There were friends who told me that they shouted it like a goal.
Which excites me a lot.
Santiago was one of the first to put photos of my face on the screen and show his joy in his post.
He told me I owe him a whiskey for which he yelled at the gala.
We'll take it (laughs).
Q.
You were born in Lima, but you studied at school in Trujillo.
When he returned to Lima, did he feel like a provincial?
A.
Totally.
Somehow in
The Fury of Achilles
I capture it when the boy raises his head and looks at these tall buildings that he is not used to, which are mere steps if you compare them with cities that are more cosmopolitan than Lima.
Q.
Did you ever experience racism?
A.
Yes, every Peruvian who is not completely white, neither genetically nor by manners, is at some point on the ladder, exposed to being ripped off by someone.
Q.
That's why it appears in your novels from time to time.
R.
Yes, because you cannot escape the racism that occurs around you, even if you are not a direct victim of racism.
You cannot avoid the great drama of your country, at least if you want a credible fiction that takes place in a country like this.
Q.
When you started out in literature, you received fierce criticism. It seemed very strange to the writers that a publicist would write.
What was the most hurtful thing they said to you?
A.
I prefer to keep it to myself.
I prefer to cut with what, I think, is no longer thought of me.
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