We last saw each other walking out of a restaurant in Lima in July 2019. Margarita García Robayo had that bright face of summer and winter, a beautiful oxymoron anchored in a possibility of life. An uncertain and elusive time has passed since then, where telling has become a need comparable to breathing. Its most appropriate synonym, counting, then acquired the meaning that was lacking in existence itself. And so, in that interval where there is no certainty beyond death, wonderful works appeared, seemingly dark but very bright. Like La encomienda, it’s “a prison and early morning novel,” in the author’s words, a newcomer to our bookstores.
In it, a young woman living far from her home country and working at an advertising agency is faced with the collapse of her empty routine after an unexpected visit from her mother. García is a non-Robayo, first-person narrator, but hers is the writing of the most intimate and therefore universal self. “The self is a structure, another character. The truth can be completely ignored. All writers take parts from life and turn them into narrative material.
García Márquez’s birth in Cartagena, where the Caribbean washes away everything, including literary aspirations, did not determine his fate, as his family moved frequently. He had always wanted to devote himself to writing, but studied Law—his father was a lawyer, his mother a housewife—and Communications, which of course led him to the Fundación Nuevo Periodismo Iberoamericano, which Gabo founded. He worked there until 2004, when he moved to Buenos Aires, where he continued to live. Upon his arrival, he discovered Liliana Heker’s literary profession, where he met fellow writer Samanta Schweblin, with whom he became very good friends in his workshop.
More than ten years after her debut with several short story books and four published novels, García Robayo feels she has “found a voice with which I feel more solid, more represented.” Maybe I’ve gained some confidence, some things aren’t that important to me anymore, but on the other hand, you’re losing a bit of the freshness of your fruitless writing. Publication is one of the many results a text can have, but it is by far not the most valuable or the best».
The protagonist of La encomienda writes on his laptop that “everything said is damaged”. He laughs and nods as his creator listens to him, listens to himself. “When something reaches the paper, it breaks down. That’s why I’m definitely very wary of non-fiction texts; there is no such thing. Literature is not life, they run on different paths ».
García Robayo also believes that books are experiences, and hopes that one day someone will experience the same as Rulfo, José Emilio Pacheco, Josefina Vicens, Anne Tyler, Carson McCullers, Natalia Ginzburg or María Moreno. He hides himself when writing for something.