Energizing the Soul

What follows is the full text of an exclusive interview Roberto Pérez-Franco gave to Eduardo Soto, of the Panamanian newspaper El Panamá América, published in part on August 24 in the Estilo de vida (Lifestyle) section.

Of your four books published so far, all are short stories. Why do you prefer this genre?

I feel the modern literary short story is the genre closest to my literary interests and aptitudes. I became interested in it when I was young, and I have been exploring it for fourteen years now. I have preferred to focus my strength on the short story, since the time I have available for writing is limited. I feel that now, after so many years and books, I have begun to understand the structure of the short story better, although I admit I have not mastered it yet. I aspire to reach that goal someday. I prefer short fiction because its concision and forcefulness are to my taste. I also cultivate, however, the opinion column and poetry, but for pure pleasure and without any great aspirations.

Do you have plans to produce books in other genres?

I think so. The recent admiration I feel for great novelists, especially for Dickens, has led me to want to produce a novel someday, even a short one. I have two subjects in mind, one urban and one rural. We shall see. These matters of art, as you know because you are a writer too, are not automatic. Someday I also hope to publish a selection of my poetry, but that will have to be in the future, because I hardly produce a poem once in a long while. I admit that in my adolescence I wrote a great deal of romantic lyric verse, but of low caliber and with the characteristic timbre of the adolescent in love. Curious readers, however, will be able to find the collection of what I have written on my web page.

You finished your latest book on returning to the country, after studying for a master’s. Now you are leaving again to study for a doctorate. How do you strike the balance between the professional and the artistic?

Many people find it strange that someone should have interests as dissimilar as engineering and literature. But this is not so unusual. The hard part, as you say, is balancing time and energy between the two occupations, above all because one puts food on the table and the other does not. In reality, I do not strike a balance: when I am doing one thing I abandon the other almost entirely. For years I devoted myself to securing a scholarship to study for a master’s and then to completing it. This was reflected in a five-year drought, between 2000 and 2005, in which my literary activity was almost nil. Once my studies were over, I devoted myself to preparing a new collection of stories, which earned the Sánchez Prize. Now, however, I am deserting again: this Sunday I travel to Boston to begin a four-year doctorate, which will surely bleed the ink from my pen for another five years. I will try, however, to keep the inspiration alive in my breast.

Those who know your earlier works find certain characteristics recurring in the new book. However, they note that your command of the genre has matured. How does this latest work square with the earlier ones?

There are indeed recurring symbols. Some say an author writes a single book, in several volumes, over his whole life. Perhaps I am writing mine. However, it is quite clear that there are new symbols. Perhaps in the new book the intentional variety in the styles of the stories is more noticeable. As for maturity, I think it is fair to say there is some growth. I began writing very early. I now feel that my first books are more ‘calisthenics’ than anything else. However, they were the first steps on a long road that I am only just beginning. I agree with those who perceive in the new book more control in the technical handling of the short story, but I do not feel—let us say—a short story writer, at least not yet. I aim high and I use the geniuses of the past as my guide. I understand that I am only just beginning.

Let us talk a little about the specific stories that make up the collection ‘Cenizas de ángel’ (Angel Ashes).

‘Cenizas de ángel’ is made up of fifteen stories. Some were written just a few days before the contest deadline, in 2005. The catalyzing effect a deadline has on a writer’s productivity is interesting. Other stories were written in earlier years; there is even one I began in 1993. Besides, they are stories of exploration. I read many short story writers, and this filled me with strength and with new ideas. This impetus was reflected in the variety, almost playful, in the substance and form of the stories in the new collection.

Most of the stories are dedicated to other short story writers. Was this practice random, or should we look for a meaning in it?

There is, or I like to think there is, a relationship between the style of the story and the style of the person to whom I dedicated it. For example, a story dedicated to Juan Ramón Jiménez may have a certain resonance or similarity with the prose of the Spanish poet. The story I dedicated to Edgar Allan Poe, in turn, is dark and violent, and plays with the sanity of the main character. It is common practice among young artists to imitate their favorite masters, as an exercise to improve. To my surprise, very few people perceive this relationship I tried to breathe into the stories when I wrote and dedicated them. The reader, in any case, and not the writer, must judge whether or not the desired effect was achieved.

The first story, titled ‘La intrusa’ (The Intruder), has a marked erotic component, which is not common in your earlier works. Tell us about this.

That is an interesting question. That story is unique in many ways. I think it is among the three best stories I have published. And yet, because of the sexual shading of the text, it is the kind of story that—for example—I would not like to read at a literary gathering where my parents and my aunts were present. (He laughs.) Given that I began writing so young, it is understandable that the stories in earlier books were ‘chaste’ in the sense of lacking explicit sensuality. However, now that I am a mature man, let us say, thirty years old, and married six years, it is normal that the life reflected in my stories should be free of taboos and more honest in every sense, including the sexual. However, it is not an erotic story. It is a story that ‘uses’ the erotic as a device, but does not set it up as a goal.

Is this your favorite story in the new collection, and in your work?

I think so: ‘La intrusa’ is my favorite story in this book, at least for now. The feeling stories produce in us, even in their own authors, changes over time. Another text in the collection that I like is ‘Cenizas de ángel’, which has a completely different flavor, more elaborate and symbolic. I place both among my five best stories, together with the stories ‘Vida’ (Life) and ‘Cierra tus ojos’ (Close Your Eyes), from my previous book, and a still unpublished, newly written story that I will publish in my next book. However, I understand that the story ‘Vida’, which I wrote in 1998 at the age of 22, is still considered by some critics—among them Jaramillo Levi and Melquíades Villarreal—to be my best story, a sort of precocious ‘opus magnum’.

In these new stories death and fate often appear as irrevocable forces. What aim are you pursuing with these symbols?

I do not introduce them consciously, but I agree with you that they recur in many of the texts, not only in the new ones but even in earlier books. It is, I think, something that weighs on my way of seeing life, and that seeps into the stories I want to project in my texts. Now, I am not afraid of dying, but I am very aware of death. The philosophy of Socrates, which is the closest to my heart, teaches that a life well lived is a preparation for facing death. So death does not represent anything fearsome to me. As for fate, I personally do not believe in it. That is, there is obviously a certain determinism, but I am convinced that one can carve out one’s own path in life. However, as dramatic elements, they are incomparably useful. Shakespeare said it long ago: love and death are the two great themes of humanity.

The rural setting is still present in several stories in your latest collection. Why?

That’s right. I think it will be, for a long time, one of the common denominators in my books. In the stories ‘Caña rota’ (Broken Cane) and ‘Viento del norte’ (North Wind), it is perhaps less explicit than in other stories such as ‘El hombre que llega’ (The Man Who Arrives) and ‘Legado’ (Legacy), but even so the influence of country life can be clearly made out. I grew up in a pasture, surrounded by cows, on the bank of the river. My town, La Heroica Villa, has on me the effect Andalusia had on Juan Ramón: it is like the riverbed over which I flow. Other stories, however, take place in urban settings: ‘Excusas’ (Excuses) is a purely Panama City story, which uses elements of the city—such as traffic lights—to move the plot. Still others unfold in completely different settings: ‘La leyenda del rey viudo’ (The Legend of the Widowed King) takes place in an undefined Nordic kingdom, apparently in the Middle Ages, and ‘La última rosa’ (The Last Rose) seems to take place at the time of the Crusades, in a European principality. The one that gives the book its title unfolds in the jungle of Darién. The setting is, however, always subordinate to the theme.

What do you think of literary contests?

I think they are necessary. By the way, I thank Professor Enrique Jaramillo Levi for having created the Sánchez Prize, and the Technological University—my alma mater—for going on organizing it every year. It is true that contests are human, and a book that is not awarded a prize one year may turn out to be better than another that was. But even so, contests are useful. Not long ago I read in a book on the emotional side of the human mind that writers in particular produce more when they have a certain level of stress. I think that, for this at least, contests have a good effect on young writers: the eagerness to compete, the hope of winning and the ominous nearness of the deadline are good fuel for unjamming the pen.

You have said in the past that writing is sometimes hard for you. Have you written anything more since receiving the Sánchez Prize?

The prize had several positive effects. First, it allowed me to reappear on the literary scene after my absence during the years of study. Second, I allowed myself the luxury of investing all the prize money in buying an encyclopedic collection of the great books of Western civilization. But the greatest benefit the Sánchez had was, precisely, to serve—as José Ingenieros says—as ‘dew’. It moved me to write more, because I felt I was making progress. You know I had entered the Sánchez in 1999, with no more success than an honorable mention, which I earned more by virtue of the story ‘Vida’ than by the merit of the whole book. However, after receiving the one prize in 2005, I felt my batteries recharged and I went back to writing. I already have more than seventy pages of new material. Although, to be honest, for every story I write, I feel that three or four others remain unwritten, because I do not know how to put them into words.

Which authors are you reading at present, and why?

I recently read Dickens’s novel Great Expectations, and I marveled at the almost baroque complexity of his prose. I also often reread the twenty-two-syllable poems of the Argentine poet Francisco Luis Bernárdez, which serve as a bridge so that my prosaic mind may grow used to deciphering the abstract language of poetry. But what I have read most is in my own genre, the short story. My favorite writer, Borges, is one of the best short story writers in the history of literature; in his complete works, which I had sent from Argentina, I always find technical instruction and intellectual pleasure. As soon as I land in Boston, I will buy an anthology each of the stories of Raymond Carver, Heinrich Böll and Frank O’Connor, by whom I have read perfect stories, which energize my soul and move me to write more and better.