Mexican writer Eduardo Ruiz Sosa describes in his second work: The book of our absence, the history of his hometown of Sinaloa. It’s all happening in one of the most dangerous states in the country, a true story about the countless disappearances and violence in the country, a story that has never been told as it actually happened. The author will present this volume this Tuesday at 19:30 at the Drac Màgic bookstore (Carrer de Jeroni Antich, 1) in Palma, during a performance by Josep Maria Nadal Suau.
QUESTION: You are described as one of the most original writers on the South American scene. Did you have this wonderful imagination as a child?
REACTION: It’s been a long time since I dedicated myself to writing, among many other things, for survival. I think there has probably been an interest in storytelling since childhood. But the most important moment for me as a reader is adolescence, between the ages of 13 and 14. And as a writer, I had some very good teachers when I was 16.
Q: Who were those teachers?
R: At that time, I started working in a reading club with an essayist and historian from my city, whose name is Martín Amaral. I always explain that whoever taught me to write literature gave me the necessary guidelines, references, and points. My teachers at school did not encourage reading very well. And then when it comes to writing, my first teacher was Hermes Mendoza and later two Mexican writers who all taught me a lot.
Q: Did your writing career come about as a result of meeting these teachers you mentioned?
A: Yes a little. My initial interest in reading arose because my parents instilled it in me, and my progress in writing has been greatly enhanced by the teachers I have mentioned.
Q: This Tuesday you are presenting “The Book of Our Absence” at the Drac Màgic bookstore. Visiting the island for the first time?
A: No, this is the second time. I was there to present my first novel in 2014 Memory Anatomyfor current dates.
Q: What will the public attending the presentation see?
A: The idea is to talk about this book, which is my second novel from Candaya Publishing. This is a book that deals mainly with the disappearances of northern Mexico about organized crime, drug trafficking, and the violence that exists there. But most importantly, we can say that it is the process of searching and uncovering the hidden tombs scattered over the mountains.
Q: “Everything in this book is true in some kind of misfortune, nothing happened exactly as said,” he explains at the beginning of the book.
A: These first verses in the book have a will to some overlap. Everything in the book is true out of luck, that is, it is understood on the one hand. On the other hand, unfortunately, nothing turned out as promised. Almost all the characters in the stories were real people and were clearly shot with storytelling and imagination. Much of this is based on my own research experiences or daily life on the subject. There are also historical figures.
Q: Did you participate a lot in kidnappings to write the book?
A: Well, it’s something that touches you without getting too involved, it’s an everyday reality that’s out there. Almost everyone I know has had some form of experience with crime, murder, violence, or disappearance. It is not necessary to enter voluntarily, but unfortunately it reaches us. Then there is a research process to write the book. First of all, I talked to some journalists and read their works. These were my main sources for disappearances.
Q: Did you have to talk to the relatives of the victims to understand the pain of the loss?
A: What I did was use conversations I’ve had on this topic before with people I know coming up on these issues. I’ve decided not to deal directly with the audience, which is this group of women who appear in the book in many places in northern Mexico, but in this case in the northeast, pursuing hidden things. I decided not to talk to them directly because they are already overexposed, threatened, and someone entering their world is a bit dangerous for them. There is a certain insecurity, entering a world that is already very difficult. I decided not to make this glitch and worked with journalists who were very close to them, who made calls and did journalism and investigative work with them. This was my approach.
Q: Has your work encouraged broadening searches?
A: No, this has been acting in Mexico since 2012. My book is a reflection of that, and the book hasn’t reached Mexico yet, it’s still in the process of getting there. It is currently only released in Spain.
Q: The layout of the text is different throughout the book.
A: Theater is the foundation, the structural axis in the book. It is not a dramatic effect structure, that is, they are not dialogue as written in dramatic texts. But yes, the essence of staging, acting and editing is in the book. And then the arrangement of the text, of the broken prose, is very diverse. Talking about a very hard and violent, emotionally and physically intense present has a constant rhythm of interruption. I needed a language that was broken, that didn’t make things right, that wasn’t presented in a clean and bright way, that was shown in the circumstances. Language is the main tool we have, it breaks, it bends and a little bit, that’s the idea.
Q: Do you think stories are better understood this way?
A: I don’t know if I understood it better, but in any case, my affect and emotion is better expressed in this way. This is the way I found to wake him up.
Q: Why did you choose Julia Pastrana and José de Gálvez as real characters that exist and are well known from your work?
A: Well, Pastrana’s case is on the one hand because of the theatre. There is a small introduction at the beginning of the book that talks about two plays I watched a long time ago, separated by almost 20 years. And the second of these studies is about Julia Pastrana. But there is also a symbolic relationship between Julia and the missing, the agony of searching for the wounded body, it seems to me, has many symbolic relationships with the world of absence, I insist.
Q: Do you have more projects in mind?
A: Yes, I am not writing yet at the moment, I am preparing for the next book which will definitely take some time. But yes, I’m already thinking of something new.