The renowned Argentine writer and psychologist Federico Andahazi He reached international notoriety with “The Anatomist” (1997), a novel with a bold treatment of sexuality and the desire with which he won the first prize of the Fortabat Foundation. On that occasion, Amalia Lacroze publicly expressed his disagreement with the jury’s decision, qualifying the work as “not contributing to exalting the highest values of the human spirit.” Published by Editorial Planeta, it was translated into more than thirty languages.
Its narrative, characterized by a careful prose and a historical-philosophical approach, covers titles such as “the pious”, “the prince”, “wandering in the shadow” and “the conqueror.” He has also ventured into the essay with books such as “Argentina with conceived sin.” With the passage of time it became an author that combines cultural analysis with a critical look on Argentine political reality, consolidating itself as a provocative and influential voice in the contemporary literary landscape
“Mares of fury”his new book, has just been published by Penguin Random House for the Grijalbo seal and focuses on the controversial figure of Hipólito Bouchard, the French military and corsair who joined the fight for Argentine independence at the beginning of the nineteenth century.
He receives news in his warm home, an ancient house of Belgrano, where he lives with his wife, the plastic artist Aída Pippo, her children Vera and Blas, and treasures a collection of motorcycles, her other great passion.
News: Why did you choose Bouchard as the protagonist of his latest book?
Federico Andahazi: I think he is the most literary character in Argentine history. It seems out of a novel by Emilio Salgari. Moreover, I do not know if he did not take many passages from the life of this man for “Sandokán and the Tigers of Malaysia”, because Bouchard had a fierce confrontation with Malaysian pirates and defeated them. Many writers had wanted to try something with their history.
News: Had a novel life
Andahazi: What I had to consider is how to address it from fiction. Perhaps the most fascinating thing is that having such a life, it is like very marginalized in official history. It is a person, I would tell you, censored. He has barely a street of few blocks with his name and some naval school. But it does not enjoy the prestige of Admiral Brown and is a man who even had a very prominent participation in the battle of San Lorenzo because he kills the standard holder and steals the flag. The big question is, why did he marginalize even literature?
News: Tremendous challenge.
Andahazi: As is. How to compete from literature with this literal story? So much that some data on his career decided to leave them in the mist. He was corsair and there are experiences as incredible as when he stole a frigate, Argentina baptized it and bombarded California, planted our flag and proclaimed the territory as part of the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata.
News: How is a literary figure built with its characteristics?
Andahazi: The guy was angry and very cruel. When facing the Malaysian pirates, some take them prisoners and incorporate them into their crew, and others tied them to the main stick of their ship and sinks it to cannon. In 1818 he arrived at the current Hawaii, discovered that the Santa Rosa corvette, which was part of our fleet, was in the hands of the Kamehameha I monarch, because the crew had rolled down and sold the ship to the king. Bouchard makes the sovereign be the first foreign president in recognizing the independence of the United Provinces. The end of the type is paradoxical, Shakesperian would tell you. He was killed by one of his slaves in his farm in Peru, far from the sea and naval fighting.
News: Can the writer take licenses when counting historical events or should he adjust to the facts?
Andahazi: Very good question! Many times historians, in the name of the truth, establish hypothesis, instead the narrator can come and go over time and give fictionality to what happened. Vargas Llosa would say that it is the paradoxical path of a lie. Sometimes you have the conviction that you are facing the truth in a much more noble way than historians because the contract established with the reader is another. With the historian it is supposed to read the truth of things. When you read a historical novel, you know that the author is taking some licenses.
News: To what extent do the past events catch you to create your books?
Andahazi: My first affective bond is with universal history. Many years ago, when I traveled to Italy to present “The Anatomist”, they asked me why an Argentine wrote an Italian story. When I wrote “Danube lovers”, they asked why a Hungarian story. Because I really believe that history is one .. There is something that fascinates me from Borges, that ability to be universal while still being deeply Argentine. Even in their most Creole stories there are references to the universal. The interesting thing about literature is the universality with which one can work.
News: What arises first? The character, the story or an image?
Andahazi: I think the image is completely linked to literature. In the case of this novel, I found some first written notes more than thirty years ago. It was very pleasant and moving to re -read those pages that I started writing with great impunity at twenty years. I had the feeling of having transported me in time.
News: Does it rewrite a lot?
Andahazi: Yes, I correct a lot. Leo, I reread each chapter. I pulo, I correct it. It is quite similar to sculpture. If you give him the piece. I think that when writing it is much more productive to get texts, get adjectives, polish it, hammering.
News: Who is your first reader?
Andahazi: My first reader was always my old woman, who had a perfect grammar. When he dies, I am left without that reading that the truth that is strange. Every time the book ends the impulse is to take it. Now, my wife, in addition to a great plastic artist, is a great reader. I have to insist to make me criticism because we love each other a lot, it is difficult to be critical of whom you love.
News: You are a person who has always expressed your ideas about the reality of the country. How do you see the current situation?
Andahazi: I have to confess that I am bored of politics, I am tired and recognize that I might get more involved than I should. In Argentina there is a great tradition of writers who turned to politics and vice versa. I come from political formation since very small. I went to a garden of infants of the Communist Party. My grandfather was a party leader and I still have the affiliation meat. They had a very bad time during Peronism. My grandmother, the typical Jewish grandmother who made Gefilte Fish, was imprisoned in the Perón prison in Rodríguez Peña and Lavalle. It was a bit inevitable for me, to link literature with politics. And there came a time when, if you didn’t follow a thought model, you were totally excluded.
News: What did he look for with his participation?
Andahazi: A need, beyond the literary, to yearn for that freedom that began to distort itself. But, politics is not pleasant, politicians are not pleasant. One is accustomed to something else and in politics there is no loyalty. It is a wood of which I am not made. I really don’t feel comfortable with politicians, I don’t have too much to talk about, except for exceptions, of course.
News: But, is it still a parliamentarian of Mercosur?
Andahazi: Yes, but practically does not work, at least for Argentina. I always clarify that the Mercosur parliamentarians do not charge any diet, we have no salary. But, in addition, in recent times the per diem were removed. It is not democratic that only those who can pay the passage can meet. Apart, we can discuss whether the Parlasur serves or not. That is another discussion because, just as it is, it probably is useless. As for how we are, I see a symmetrical mirror of the last twenty years, but of the opposite sign.
News: Don’t you think there is tension and insults to Mansalva?
Andahazi: I don’t offend myself because a guy insults. But, in the case of the president, it seems to me that he dazzles him, that he takes away prestige. That it does not serve as a political tool, even for what they are supposed to attract, that they are investments. Of course one values stability and not having to live with the frightful weight of inflation. But, the characters you see are more or less the same ones that were always.
News: In spite of everything, is it optimistic or pessimistic?
Andahazi: As one gets old, you have less arguments to be optimistic. If you compare the expectations generated by the return of democracy with the result we have today, the truth is to cry. I am worried about poverty that seems to have been discovered only this year and education. If you do not emphasize these things there is no future. The kids have a lexicon of no more than 300 words. I believe that the vision of a government has to focus on the importance of education and concrete results.
