José María Sánchez Prize

Good evening.

I want to begin by sending a kiss to my niece, Raquel Elvira, who has behaved like a little angel. It is rather risky to bring a child of that age to an event like this, and she has been so calm that she has melted my heart. I am here as if I were at home: among very dear friends and family. Tonight I wish to do two things: give thanks and offer a reflection. I begin with the thanks. First of all, I thank the members of the jury: Fulvia Morales del Castillo, Jazmina Mendieta and the writer Juan Antonio Gómez. I thank them because they have honored me with this award. Nineteen works took part, of such good quality that, in a Prize in which granting an Honorable Mention is optional, the jury has awarded three Mentions because of the quality of the works submitted. Winning in a contest like this is an honor for me. So, thank you very much for having thought my work worthy of this award.

I congratulate the colleagues who won these Mentions. I begin with Francisco Berguido, my comrade-in-arms, since in 1999, when I won the second Mention in the José María Sánchez, he won the first. It would seem we are synchronized in our entries to the contests. Lupita Quirós Athanasiadis, who recently began writing stories. We were at the Congress of Central American Women and Men Writers, not long ago, on a panel of short story writers. There were three or four of us Panamanians, and the rest were Central Americans; in all, more than a dozen stories must have been read, including mine, and the best story—in my opinion—was Lupita’s. She is a tremendous short story writer, with a very elevated and exquisite style, and I congratulate her on the Honorable Mention. And Vianor, whose indigenous name is Iguaniginape Kungiler, winner of the first Mention. I am a great believer in the equality of peoples, and I oppose linguistic oppression. I think everyone has the right to his own language and his own culture. I am very glad the Government recently passed a law guaranteeing the right of the members of each ethnic group to receive an education in their own language. I hope you will translate the work into Kuna, so that your people can read it in the language in which you thought and felt it.

I also want to thank my alma mater, the Technological University, where I lived possibly the best years of my life, an institution that was so patient with me, and that more than once gave me the national flag to carry in a parade, even though the results were not always the ones desired 1. Here I have great friends, such as Prof. Rubén Espitia; such as Prof. Marcela de Paredes, who is here with us and who sat on the jury of my graduation thesis; Prof. Medardo Logreira, who was the adviser of that thesis; and Prof. Celso Spencer, whom I had not had the pleasure of meeting, who has proved to be a great researcher, judging by the great quantity of facts he found about yours truly for his speech, in which he has showered me with so much praise that he has made me blush: I thank him for the kindness. Also the rectors Héctor Montemayor and Salvador Rodríguez, and my companion through so many years of study, Luis Duarte, who is here. So many friends at this University, that I cannot mention them all by name, but who make me feel back at home.

I also thank the people sitting in this row of seats in front of me, who are basically my life. My mother, Eka Franco, who not only gave me life but taught me how to live it. My father, Roberto Pérez, who has always been my best friend and my greatest patron. My grandmother Mam, who is no longer with us in body, but who (I am convinced beyond any doubt) is at this moment standing beside me, listening to my words. My sister, Eka Pérez-Franco. And the hope of the family: Raquel Elvira; God grant that you carry in your genes the letters that have been running in our blood since the days of my great-grandfather, who wrote one of the most beautiful poems I have read 2, down through my grandfather, uncles and so many other writers in the family. I likewise wish to thank my boss, Mr. Larry Kelley, who is here, because for the first time I have a job that allows me enough time and calm to afford the luxury of writing. Many people ask me, “How do you manage to write, if you have a job?” The answer is Mr. Kelley, because I have a job that gives me so much freedom. But the greatest gratitude I need to express is to my wife, to Mónica Rivera, whom I call “love revealed, the answer to my life.” My queen, without you, my exile on this planet would have no meaning at all. [Applause interrupts him.] Not only is there a story dedicated to her, about a kiss at a traffic light, from the time when we were barely going out, but I dedicate the whole collection to her. Thank you very much, my love.

I must also express my gratitude to people in the literary field. I thank Eustorgio Chong Ruiz, who for health reasons could not be with us tonight, who was the first short story writer I read and the person who made me want to write. I thank Don Eduardo Ritter Aislán, who had the courage to write a positive review of my first three books, paying me compliments I knew I did not deserve, and I thank him for his vision and his vote of confidence. Prof. Melquíades Villarreal Castillo, who recently won the Ricardo Miró Prize for the Essay, who took on the task of writing literary criticism of all my books, even when those books were not worth the time he was investing in that criticism. But above all, Prof. Enrique Jaramillo Levi, teacher and friend, colleague in the Writers’ Association, one of the greatest writers, and at the same time one of the most tireless promoters of culture, this country has seen; who has granted me the privilege of being the youngest short story writer anthologized in Panama for the last eight years, and of being the youngest member of the founding Board of Directors of the Association of Writers of Panama. This year, a girl younger than me published a book of stories 3, so I will no longer be the youngest, thank God. It was about time.

Having finished with the thanks, I wish to offer my reflections on a question that keeps being put to me: how can an engineer dare to be a short story writer? “Dare,” in the sense of having the nerve. I think this is a myth. It surprises me that it surprises people that a person of science writes stories. We have the case of Dr. Aida Judith González Castrellón, winner of the 1999 Sánchez Prize, and of Dr. Ricaurte Arrocha, to mention only those present, both cardiologists and writers. Let us also consider the case of Francisco Berguido, who has more master’s degrees than anyone I know. That is why I insist that it is a myth that a person of science cannot write. I think that to be an engineer you need inspiration. Let the engineer and short story writer colleagues present, such as José Luis Rodríguez Pittí and Carlos Oriel Wynter Melo, correct me if I am wrong. To solve certain engineering problems one has to be inspired, and there are moments of Eureka! when one finds their solution. Likewise, to write a story, one needs reasoning and persistence, which are characteristics of those who practice engineering. That is why I think there is really no such division.

For example, when one writes, one has to follow certain laws. Just as to solve an electrical circuit one has to obey Ohm’s Law and Kirchhoff’s Law, so too when one writes a story one has to follow Poe’s Law, which says that a story shall have a single intention. And one must obey Borges’s Theorem, which states that the ending of a story must be at once inevitable and unexpected. And also follow Quiroga’s Axioms, set out in the Decálogo del Perfecto Cuentista (Decalogue of the Perfect Short Story Writer), although Quiroga himself was not one. I think the author plays with the variables of time, tone and theme, and manages in a story, as in an engineering problem, to probe a little into the basic unknowns: what the human being is, why he is here, and what the purpose of his life is. I think the scientist and the artist are two sides of the same coin.

This book of stories, “Cenizas de ángel” (Angel Ashes), was born between two periods of study: between my Master’s at MIT and the Doctorate, which only God knows where I will study. I took advantage of this brief dry spell to put together some old texts, dress them up nicely and send them out into the world, because I know better stories are coming. I hope my worthiest stories are still to come. Unfortunately, I came across Borges, whose work has a paralyzing, intoxicating effect: now I am detoxing by reading Dickens. I intend to devote the prize and the time I have ahead of me, whatever life God sees fit to give me, to reading, to learn what literature is, because I do not know, and to learning the Spanish language, because I do not know how to write, before I dare to take up the pen again. But on this road one gets tired and needs this kind of recognition to recharge one’s batteries.

That is why I am so grateful to everyone who has had to do with this prize: to the one who conceived it, to those who supported it and to those who go on presenting it year after year. Thank you for giving me heart and for having refreshed my spirit so that I can continue on this march of self-discovery and of the search for art for art’s sake.

Thank you very much.