About two years ago, when the illness that completely turned his life upside down finally had an exact name; Martín Caparrós began to write his own story. This time the chronicle had him as the protagonist and, in principle, just for himself, he dedicated himself to reviewing his existence, his loves, passions, family, political ideas and aesthetic convictions. The final result was “First of all”his most recent book, which hit bookstores a few weeks ago and quickly climbed the best-seller ranking.
These memoirs cover his life chronologically, from his birth to the present day and are the valuable testimony of an era that extends from the militancy of the ’70s to Macrism and the return of democracy to the reign of the Kirchners. El Nacional Buenos Aires, the newsroom of the newspaper Noticias where he worked with Rodolfo Walsh and Juan Gelmanexile, studies in Paris, his repeated stays in Spain (land of his father and grandparents), his novels, his awards, his work with Jorge Lanata, his women spread around the world, his more than one hundred trips around the world. planet for the United Nations (an experience that he would later put into the book “Hunger”) and dozens of anecdotes, reflections, unknown data from his life. “A good life,” as Caparrós considers it, looking at it from today.
Interspersed with the landmarks of the biography, “Antes que nada” also dedicates many chapters to dialogue with the disease, that incurable evil called ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis) that the writer suffers today. Precisely, the book was the place he chose to publicly reveal the diagnosis, although he knew about it before and kept it hidden so as not to become a victim so soon. In those pages, as he confesses, he was finally able to spread his fears in front of him and look them in the eyes.
These days, he works tirelessly at his home in Madrid, on several books at the same time, while he battles with the libertarians in X, displaying his greatest virtue: saying everything he thinks, no matter who it bothers.
From the other side of the sea, via zoom, he spoke with NOTICIAS and this is what he told us.
NEWS: In “Before anything” the intensity of the first years of his life is surprising. Personal and family political activism, travel, training in Europe. He was always accused of being arrogant, but it must be recognized that his youthful experiences authorized a certain arrogance.
Martin Caparros: It pissed me off that they refuted things that I knew I knew. But when I don’t know, I’m very happy to say I don’t know. Yes, I had learned a lot of things wandering around. And it was quite unstable. I think that until I was in my forties I never spent more than a year in the same job. I always thought that somewhere else there must be something I was missing. That happened to me with jobs, places, relationships. On the one hand this is a little distressing and, on the other hand, very mobilizing.
NEWS: Its relationship with Spain is very strong. You have lived there for long periods throughout your life. Furthermore, his father and part of his family are Spanish. Why did you go to live in Spain this last time?
Caparros: My relationship with Spain is very strong but not stronger than the one I have with Argentina. I am Argentine. In fact, one of the decisions I made when I came this last time, almost 12 years ago, was that I was not going to give up my accent. I didn’t want to speak like a Spaniard. I am still Argentine, I still read the Argentine newspapers in the morning. I didn’t have a very clear reason for leaving this last time. It was a time when nothing tied me too much to Argentina. I had ended a long relationship, I didn’t like the political situation, but at the same time I had been saying it for 10 years. So, I didn’t have anything new to say about that situation either. I wanted to be closer to the world. Argentina locks us in a lot. And, above all, he was tired of that kind of permanent friction, of semi-fight sustained all the time. I finished writing “Hunger” in Spain and then I stayed. I got hooked with a woman, Argentina became increasingly rougher and I stayed, without ever having decided.
NEWS: Very important characters appear throughout his memoirs. For example, Juan Domingo Perón, whom he is going to visit with his very young father in Puerta de Hierro. Also drawing a lot of attention these days was the mention of his meeting with Juan José Saer, with whom he confesses to having had an erotic exchange.
Caparros: It’s something that Argentine journalists ask me but in Spain or Colombia no one was interested. And I told it because it is part of my life. I didn’t see why I wouldn’t include something that for me, at the time, was significant. I was always heterosexual, but there was a time, when I was 20 or 22, when it seemed very reactionary to refuse to see what other possibilities were like. At that time, for a young man, it was like a form of breakup. The males were very macho and did not mix with other men. It was important to me not to follow that trend, but to try it, see if I liked it. It was part of my sentimental education. He could, perhaps, not have said who the man he had tried was. But it seems to me that if he did it, he had to take charge. And I didn’t like it at all when he asked me to please not say it. Until now I had never told it. But I wrote this book without thinking that it would be read. I wrote it because I needed to write it. He had the diagnosis of a disease that ends badly and more or less quickly. I wanted, then, to go through my life, something I never thought I would want to do. It is a book that is not designed based on a reading, which I wrote more for myself.
NEWS: Although writing is your profession, writing can also have another value, for example, helping you get through bad times.
Caparros: Yes. And in this case it is like that and in two concurrent ways. On the one hand, because when I am writing I am very similar to who I was 5 years ago. Many times I say: “Now I’m going to get up and get a coffee.” And then I realize that I can’t get up. When I’m writing is when I am the most. And on the other hand, the part of the book in which I talk about my illness allowed me to have a dialogue with myself. There I tell myself things that it was difficult for me to tell myself in any other way. I don’t believe much in the catharsis of writing but in this case yes, it happened to me.
NEWS: Do you have a relationship with your family, your siblings and your mother?
Caparros: My brothers live in Buenos Aires. We have a loose relationship, let’s say, not very intense. I love them, they are my brothers, but they are not the people I see or communicate with the most. My mother turned eighty-eight (she had me very young, I was 20 years old). Keep working. She was very active in achieving the Free Abortion Law. He was a leader in that movement and continues to do his things in that sense. She is a psychoanalyst, but she has a very long feminist career, which she tries to continue maintaining.
NEWS: Who within the intellectual and journalistic world are your friends today?
Caparros: Of the Argentine writers, those closest are Rodrigo Fresán, Alan Pauls, Daniel Guebel. Several writer friends have died: Luis Chitarroni, Sergio Chejfec, Marcelo Cohen. We are very close friends with Lanata, she is one of my two or three closest friends. I’m worried because he’s going through a difficult time. He is someone I love very much.
NEWS: You are not afraid of controversy. Where others retreat you move forward. And in recent times he has been arguing especially with libertarians.
Caparros: Sometimes some friends or my wife ask me: “Why are you still on Twitter (X)?” They tell me horrible things. And I don’t care much, if they want to say it, let them say it. The only thing I can’t stand is being insulted with spelling errors.
Now I started blocking people. I don’t have to have the aberrations they say on my screen.
NEWS: What did you feel when you were diagnosed with your illness?
Caparros: It is information that comes very little by little. They start looking for what you have. And when other causes are ruled out, you know that the worst ones remain. So, it wasn’t something I didn’t expect or suspect. Having this confirmed, of course, is a shame, but curiously it put me down much less than I would have imagined. I don’t know why. I try to live as well as possible and, in general, it works out for me. There are times when I shit myself, that I would like to do things that I can’t and, furthermore, the future is not promising at all. But for now, to my surprise, I manage to live what I live with quite a bit of pleasure, with quite a bit of pleasure.
NEWS: What place does work occupy in this stage? Does it allow you to put your head elsewhere?
Caparros: It allows me to put my head in its place. What I like most in life is writing. And I want to be able to continue being me as long as possible. I spent hours writing and I have like 7 or 8 unpublished books. I don’t stop. I have a lot of time to sit here and type and type. For now, luckily, I can continue typing. And when I get tired, I dictate to the computer, which more or less understands me.
NEWS: And what are these books of stillness like?
Caparros: They are chronicle books with an essayistic side. I wrote one that has a little to do with the situation, called “Encyclopedia of Goodbye.” I also wrote the life of José Hernández told by Martín Fierro, who is going to come out with Rep’s drawings. I was also doing an interactive novel, “Lives of JM”. I wrote something called “Godless” for a Penguin Random House collection of short essays.
NEWS: What did the news of your illness change in the people around you and in the public?
Caparros: Many people sent me messages of support and affection. The truth is that it was very exciting. I don’t know, beyond this, what will happen to how they read me. I don’t think it will change the way they read me.
NEWS: Illness and death are not the topics most covered by the media. Therefore, talking openly about these issues opens an interesting dialogue.
Caparros: This is a peculiar time when we have no use, no application for death. I mean, there are much fewer believing people who think that death allows you to have a life somewhere else. There are also no noble causes worth dying for. Neither a heavenly life, nor a posthumous glory. We have nothing to do with death. So we prefer not to talk about it, because to talk is to accept that lack and that emptiness.
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