Mario Vargas Llosa: “As the years pass and one grows older, everything turns into a crazy crowd.”

Here he makes this announcement on the back page. The novel will be on sale this Thursday: “Now I want to write about Sartre, who was my teacher in my youth. “This will be the last thing I do.”

This interview was answered by the Nobel Prize winner based on a survey; The transcription of this survey, together with the answers, resulted in various explanations of different aspects of this work, which were so decisive in his long life as a novelist. Here, she admits to crying a lot (“as she should”) in the solitude of her Madrid home while writing about one of the real characters in the book.

He wrote a kind of Peruvian ‘Don Quixote’ about a character like Cervantes who goes crazy searching for anything related to science, music or a phenomenon. Do you think this might be an adequate interpretation of the human adventures you describe in your novel?

Toño Azpilcueta does not go a little crazy, dreaming of adventure, but instead pursues a fixed idea about the integrative role of Creole music, but it is always possible to add a human dimension to the novels written, and this is of course a very accurate vision of the character and his story.

This madness of Toño Azpilcueta dominates his book, but there are also quiet areas where the narrator describes an ideal country where music, the Peruvian waltz, could be the unifying point of attitudes and citizens. This joy brought by music is also a part of the patriotism that the narrator glorifies. Do you feel identified with this character about the relationship between Peru and its history and music?

Of course yes, in fact, music, the Peruvian waltz, became for me a point of integration with my origins and played a role in uniting attitudes and citizens. The joy that the music gives Azpilcueta must be the patriotism implied by the narrator. I feel very identified with the character, her love and pride for herself, and even her utopian illusions.

Some of us see their ‘I dedicate my silence’ approach to ‘Aunt Julia and the author’, above all humor. Here it is again, the soap opera broadcast on the radio, a popular, long-lost Lima still revived in his book. Is the novel you wrote circulating there, too?

The radio, the novel, and the things you listed always bring back my happy memories of Peru. Let me also say that the title is a collaboration with Maribel Luque from the agency Carmen Balcells because I wanted the title to be ‘Un champancito, my little sister’. But we knew that no one would understand these patriotic overtones; This is a phrase referring to “huachafería” and is only understood in one part of Peru, so I appealed to the good will of my agent and publisher and, I must admit, I liked this title better.

While you are writing, do your other writings and dreams come to visit you, in addition to the styles that preceded what you are currently writing?

Stories and characters appear to me and dictate their opinions as they emerge. And when I caught them I could almost tell they had built themselves. As I write, all kinds of inventions come to my mind and I choose the most special ones, of course, at least the ones that are special to me. This book contains many of my first memories of Peru, from the landscapes to the music to some of the characters. I knew Puerto Eten as a child and had a vague memory of it.

Creole music is the sound of this book. Since when did this turn into the atmosphere of a novel, until it finally became like this?

“Creole music is the voice of this book”, I like this sentence very much. While I was writing, I was listening, listening, reading those songs from my youth and adolescence. I experienced these. For this reason, the novel I wrote is almost the one that inspires my love the most among the things I have written. And I want readers to support these fantasies of Toño Azpilcueta with me.

According to Alonso Cueto, Toño Azpilcueta represents the idea of ​​the writer as the one who can reveal the secret of the keys that allow for a harmonious society. Is there a Peruvian utopia that informs your perspective on your country through music?

As I progressed through the story, many ideas came to my mind, some of which were reflected in the book, and these are, of course, my vision of the country, but also a feeling that I can describe as a mixture of compassion and horror. time. And frustrated illusions, failed utopias.

You went into the book’s setting with your children, and they, like you, were assailed by the terrible horrors of the dump described in your novel. How did this vision leave its mark on the definitive writing of ‘I Devoted My Silence’?

My trip to the northern coast of Peru was crucial to writing this novel, as my childhood was full of sand dunes and rough waves. I’m back after a long time and it not only helped me remember the places and sights I had blurred. For example, seeing the terrible horrors of the Reque dump put me in touch with, as he puts it, the part of Peruvian reality that we don’t like. As the years pass and we grow older, everything turns into worldly noise. That’s why this trip was so special on a family level, too, because the four of us adventured overland, without any companions or assistance. The defined structure of ‘I dedicate my silence to you’ is the way I organize it and think about that trip.

Garbage and rats are enormous symbols of the reality from which Lalo Molfino was born, the counterpoint of which is music. Was this opposition at the core of your initial ideas as you approached the book, or was it this visit that led to the emergence of what would become the definition of that world?

Lalo Molfino’s story is a mix of terrible stories and great ideas. Mice in his crib was an incident during a visit to Puerto Eten, and I followed it like anything that captures a character I love at a particular moment, and I couldn’t have it any other way. At the same time, this gruesome origin leads to the question floating around in the book about whether or not he learned that he was thrown away when he was born.

The cajoneros originate in Peru and were recently developed in Spain by King Felipe VI. What do you think of a ruler who says he is passionate about this symbol you brought into the world?

Felipe VI is a great king, and I would like nothing more than the way this monarch, who represents Spain so professionally and seriously, highlights the figure of the cajoneros, another aspect of music and culture, in this case a master craftsmanship. Peruvians.

Cecilia Barraza and Chabuca Granda are two real characters, along with many other characters wandering through the novel. These aspects mean that we move back and forth between reality and fiction as we read. As the creator of this tale, when you encounter characters like these, invented or real, do you ever feel like they all seem to be somewhere between fiction and reality? Or is reality fiction in other ways, Mario, as in ‘The truth of lies’?

Chabuca Granda is a universal character, someone who brought Peruvian music to the most important centers of the world. Cecilia Barraza is a wonderful singer with a unique voice. I was discovered by Augusto Ferrando, a popular television and radio figure who filled his riding program with resources from Peruvian music. I remember a lot from the first time I heard it, it was a pure and uncomplicated voice, it interpreted the songs in a wonderful and challenging way. It was not possible to find more or less notes in these melodies. Since then I have admired Cecilia Barraza, who I think is the best. It is possible that others may be more colorful and strange, but for me Cecilia Barraza is the essence of Peruvian music. And I spent many afternoons here, in the solitude of Madrid, listening and crying my eyes out, as I should. Both characters cannot be missing from the novel.