Javier Cercas: “In a happy world, there would surely be no literature”

When a book is finished, the first thing Javier Cercas wants to do is forget it, but with “Terra Alta” it didn’t happen. The book with which he won the 2019 Planet Prize has Melchor Marin at the center of the action, a policeman who never let go of Cercas’s head. In such a way that this policeman with a delinquent past was attached to his creator that the Spanish writer is already making a sequel.

In an interview with the program Ensaio Geral da Renaissance, Javier Cercas tells how the Barcelona attacks of 2017 and the Catalan independence movement are part of the intrigue of this new book edited by Porto Editora.

In a distance conversation, the writer also talks about the current pandemic situation. Skeptical, Javier Cercas believes that we could learn a lot from the pandemic, but says: “I fear that we will not learn. We will continue to be the same stupid ones as always, committing the same barbarities ”.

After having written books such as “Soldiers of Salamis”, “The Impostor” and “The Monarch of Shadows”, which make up a kind of trilogy about the heroes, in this “Terra Alta” he tried to explore another path. Is the book a kind of cop?

I would like you to set a new path. This book arises, above all, from an urgency to renew and reinvent myself as a writer. When I finished my last book, “The Monarch of Shadows” – which was a very important book for me, it was the book I always wanted to write – I felt it was the end of something, of a cycle that had started with “Soldiers of Salamina ”, 20 years ago.

Did you feel like reinventing yourself?

I felt that if I continued on the same path, I would run the worst risk that a writer can take, which is to repeat himself. And become a mere imitator of yourself. When that happens, a writer is dead, he cannot say anything new. So, it took me a while to write “Terra Alta”. It is an attempt to reinvent myself as a writer, to find new territory in order to be able to say new things. That’s the impression I get after finishing the book. I managed to get into a kind of virgin jungle, and it feels wonderful!

“Writers work with obscurity, but also with garbage, with bad, with crises and pain. In a happy world, there would surely be no literature. At least, there would be no novels”

With this book he won the Planet Award in 2019. At the center of the action is the story of Melchor Marin, a young policeman with a delinquent past. Who is this man who has become a hero?

Melchor Marin, the protagonist of the novel, is a very peculiar character. My books, perhaps from the beginning, are a question about what it means to be a hero. It is a moral question, basically, and an ethical one. The hero represents ethical and moral excellence. So somehow, my previous books were an investigation of what a hero was.

Effectively, Melchor Marin is a very peculiar and singular character, he is a very young man who has had a very difficult life, much more difficult than mine! He was born in the most humble and poorest neighborhood in Barcelona, ​​his mother is a prostitute, he does not know his father, he had a terribly harsh and violent childhood and youth. He is a violent character who at one point in his life, in prison, is completely transformed.

This transformation is told to the reader of “Terra Alta” by Melchor Marin himself, who becomes a compulsive reader. “Os Miseráveis”, by Vitor Hugo, awoke him to reading in jail and changes the direction of his life.

Melchor Marin is not an intellectual, it is the opposite of that. But luckily, when he reads this book in prison, he feels something miraculous and magical. In reality it is something that all readers feel at some point in our lives. There is a verse in the timetable that says: “de te fabula narratur”, “history speaks of you”! That’s what Melchor Marin feels.

This old book is talking about himself, his own life and “Os Miseráveis” become a mirror of his life. Through “Os Miseráveis” he understands himself, not only discovers his professional vocation and wants to be a policeman, but he discovers himself. This book gives you back your own existence.

He speaks of his protagonist with great passion. It seems that it is a character that has stuck to you. Melchor Marin still lives in you?

Many strange things have happened with this book. When I finish a book the first thing I try to do is forget about it. That’s what I’m trying to do in order to write the following. But in this case, it was impossible, because Melchor Marin did not want to leave me, nor did the characters around him want to leave me. So, when I finished “Terra Alta”, I knew it was a book in itself, independent, but it was also part of a larger cycle.

Thus, the second part of “Terra Alta”, which is called “Independência”, will be published in Spanish in March. This territory and Melchor Marin opened a new territory for me, a virgin jungle that I am exploring. I don’t know how many books there will be, I believe at least three or four books. But for me, it is a wonderful, rejuvenating and very exhilarating feeling.

In the plot of this “Terra Alta” we see the recent history of Catalonia, the terrorist attack on the Rambla. They are real ingredients, as is the scenario of the book – Terra Alta – a wine village on the outskirts of Barcelona. To what extent does reality interfere with your writing?

Historical events influence my books, influence me as a person, and sometimes they play an important role in books. The August 2017 attacks in Barcelona, ​​which we all remember, in which a jihadist driving a van down the Rambla killed, I believe that 19 people and then, in a small coastal village, in summer, part of that same jihadist cell tried another attack and killed a person. That cell was annihilated by a policeman who was in that village, called Cambrils, and who killed, in less than 30 seconds, four jihadists who were stabbing people, and were wearing belts with explosives that were known to be fake.

At some point in the writing of my book I felt that this policeman, whose identity we do not know, we do not know who he is because obviously the police protected his identity – if we knew him he would immediately be a target of the jihadists – I felt that Melchor Marin had to be that policeman unknown. You know what’s going on, is that we writers work with obscurity. What is not known is ideal for us. If we had known who this policeman was, I couldn’t have written that book. But as we didn’t know, I was able to give him an identity.

“Melchor Marin is not an intellectual, it is the opposite of that. But luckily, when he reads” Les Misérables “in prison he feels something miraculous and magical. In reality it is something that all readers feel, at some point in our lives.”

It also addresses here, not in a direct way, what happened in Catalonia with the independence movements. Didn’t want to address the topic too much? Is the memory still very fresh?

In the book, a few brushstrokes emerge about the Catalan crisis of 2017. As a Catalan historian said, this crisis and this independentist line brought the country to the brink of civil war. In the book, these events appear in a few strokes, but for me, as a person, they were decisive. I am someone else after these events.

I never believed that the place where I live, which is one of the most privileged in the world, could reach a situation like this. This transformed my personal life, because when history with capital letters arrives at your house, it is not out. Enter your home and affect yourself personally. In some ways, this is the fuel of this book. I am a different writer because I am also a different person now.

Born near Cárceres, he has lived in Barcelona for a long time. Did you feel that wounds had opened up in the city? Did that serve as a backdrop for Melchor Marin’s adventures?

As I told you before, writers work with obscurity, but also with garbage, with bad, with crises and pain. In a happy world, there would surely be no literature. At least, there would be no romances. Perhaps there was poetry, little, and very bad! But surely there would be no romances. So I believe that literature is useful.

The best writers are like alchemists. They wanted to turn iron into gold; the best of us transform pain, sadness and crises into meaning and beauty. So I am sure that the literature is useful.

How have you experienced the pandemic situation, how do you see the future?

In Spain things are better now. With the vaccine there is a light at the end of the tunnel, we hope it is not that of a truck that runs over us all! I plan on getting the vaccine when I can. It’s like giving birth. We know that there is an end, that end is the vaccine to end this nightmare.

How do you think we are going to get out of this pandemic?

The world, unfortunately, is not going to change. I am often asked these days if I believe that we will get better out of this terrible situation? My answer is no, unfortunately we are not going to get any better. We could learn a lot from this immense catastrophe: that we need better public health, that we have to invest in science and that is not a whim… Anyway, a lot of things at a personal and political level. But I fear that we will not learn. We are going to continue the same stupid ones as always, to commit the same barbarities as always, as if we all wanted to give reason to Bernard Shaw who wrote: “the only thing you learn from experience is that you don’t learn anything from experience”.