The poets Raúl Zurita (Santiago, 73) and Luis García Montero (Granada, 64) have met again in this city in the south of the world, just like when they met in the late 1990s in Santiago de Chile.
Their greeting, their warm hug, show that they have not stopped talking or reading.
But even so, they have a lot to tell each other.
"I love him very much.
It is one of those friends who cross paths as a destination”, says Zurita, National Literature Award (2000) and Queen Sofía Award for Ibero-American Poetry (2020), columnist for EL PAIS, in an interview that both gave to this newspaper at the residence of the ambassador of Spain in Chile, in the eastern part of the city.
The first time they met, in a poetry reading, García Montero, director of the Cervantes Institute since 2018, had already received the 1994 National Literature Award in Spain for his book
Separate Rooms .
.
“When I met Raúl I had a special emotion.
For me he represents a lot as a poet, but also as a civic reference, ”says the writer.
“I was born in the middle of a Franco dictatorship, and I started writing in the years of the democratic transition.
That inevitably linked me to Latin America and the processes that were taking place in Argentina and Chile.
Raúl was a benchmark for the democratic struggle and social awareness.
Those two things that are inseparable in Chilean poetry came together, because Pablo Neruda has been a fundamental reference for us, but also inseparable in the poetry that has woven today”, adds the Spaniard.
That news that García Montero refers to today ranges from the concern that both have for migrants and refugees, to the social and political process that Chile has been experiencing since, just over a year ago, the left-wing president Gabriel Boric took office.
“I will always support Boric.
He is a good man, ”says Zurita.
His friend listens attentively, and tells him that he knows that the president is a poetry reader.
"Yeah.
And that's a great thing.
It is already a reason to love him ”, answers the Chilean, author of books such as
Purgatorio
(1979),
Anteparaíso
(1982) and
Canto a la amor de él desaparecidos
De él (1985).
García Montero, although he tries, cannot hold back another comment: “I am in the direction of the Instituto Cervantes, and I have to learn to bite my tongue and not comment on what does not appeal to me.
But I can't resist saying that in the world and Latin America panorama, the political future of Chile that Boric represents is very important for all of us”.
A poem for Zurita
Luis García Montero traveled to Chile to be invested as an
honorary doctorate
by the Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaíso, one of the most prominent study centers in the country.
But he also landed to offer a poetry recital, on April 20, at the Cultural Center of Spain in Santiago together with Zurita, the Chilean poet Elvira Hernández and the Spanish Martín López Vega.
Raúl Zurita with Luis García Montero.
Cristobal Venegas (© CRISTOBAL VENEGAS)
It was on this stage that he dedicated
Adán y Eva
to Zurita, a poem that, García Montero tells EL PAÍS, was born from an email that the Chilean sent him in 2017. He did so after reading an article of his,
Adán y Eva refugees
.
“'Hey, I'm so excited about this article,'” the message read.
“I thanked him.
And I thought that if Raúl liked it, then what I have to do is turn it into a poem”.
Four years later, in 2021, García Montero published the book
You can't be like this (brief history of the world)
, where
Adam and Eve
appear .
"Admired, wonderful," says Zurita about the text.
“The poem and the article touches you the most devastating and, at the same time, the most luminous of human beings in their encounter, in their embrace, in their complicity.
It's like Luis's poetry: it's like one was in favor of pain, but in reality, everything is so mixed up.
Of course, if we didn't have great, immense, infinite joys in this world, I don't know how we would be alive.
The hope
It is seen that poets have a lot to tell each other.
Zurita, for example, declares that he is still affected by the result of the Chilean referendum of October 2022, in which 62% rejected the Constitution that would replace the 1980 one born during the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship (1973-1990).
“The referendum was totally unbalanced.
But well, I have also had many joys in this country, like being here with Luis.
The joy of encounters, the joy of leaving again, the difficulty of leaving again ”, he says.
“I am a kind of militant of hope, finally.
I deal with what I can.
And there is something that persists with a libertarian spirit”, adds the Chilean poet.
García Montero has brought his latest book to Chile,
One Year and Three Months
, the collection of poems he published after the death of his wife, the writer Almudena Grandes, in November 2021. "When one is left with desolation and that emptiness , and does not find an answer to what is happening, we have no other way than that of poetry to try to challenge ourselves”, he tells Zurita.
“Impressive”, his poet friend tells him after an almost imperceptible silence.
“When someone leaves us it is so simple, because we all leave.
But when someone leaves us, there is no answer for that.
But from there we are born each time.
Each one is the last man to inhabit the earth, and it is because he is going to see someone die, and then it is going to be his turn, but he is not going to know it.
Finally, strength, courage.
Above all, give it to yourself too, because we are in a complicated, difficult world.
But as long as the Luis García Montero exist, everything becomes a little easier.
The world is better with you”, reflects Zurita.
The Spanish poet thinks that one of the characteristics of his friend Raúl's gaze consists of "turning a tragic reality into a reason for hope and joy."
“And it also reminds me a bit of the way Almudena was, when he said that he was interested in joy, that he did not close his eyes to reality, but that it became a form of resistance.
And well, there we are, ”says the Spanish poet to his Chilean friend, gathered by EL PAIS on an autumn afternoon.