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At 74 years old, with life in a hurry and what he still has to live as a great stimulus, Arturo Pérez-Reverte has decided to take a turn in his newspaper adventure. Thirty-three years after beginning his collaborations in XL Semanal, he has concluded that long expedition and, after a few weeks of rest, he begins to write in EL MUNDO. Starting next Sunday he will publish his articles, entitled Patente de marque, on the back page of this newspaper. Months of conversations are culminated in this good impulse that brings him to the editorial office on Avenida de San Luis, in Madrid. One of its principles is to always respond to challenges.
He is a language scholar and the living Spanish narrator with the best international impact (more than 27 million copies sold worldwide). In the articles he has made his way but he still has battles to fight, observations to make, nostalgia to unravel. It wears a conventional tailoring that hides those who move through life without dogma, which is why some sexters of ideas do not know which side they should place them on. That is exactly its place: the border between somewhere and anywhere. Like the seas.
Welcome to THE WORLD
Thank you. I'm here, above all, for some friends. More specifically, for a couple of them. In this newspaper I have good colleagues and some enemies. The first should be kept close and the others even closer. THE WORLD is a good place to be.
What does the jump to this newspaper mean to you?
There is a quite pronounced sentimental component. I have written at XL Semanal for 33 years and I was good there. I didn't leave for any specific reason, but I felt like a cycle was ending. In EL MUNDO they offered me to collaborate and I accepted it. This is living writing. It reminds me, in some aspects, of the old days of my beginnings at the Pueblo newspaper. In addition, Raúl del Pozo was also here for more than three decades. And Raúl was my link with that other journalism that I practiced at the time: bronco, street and action. Inhabiting the space where Raúl wrote until the end of his life and linking myself to the place of friends so important to me is a pleasant sensation. We'll see if I disappoint or not. Sometimes you create expectations that don't always live up to reality. I hope the interest and affection shown is worth it. And that in THE WORLD they do not regret it.
It will maintain the column title, 'Patent of marquee'. What can readers expect in this new stage?
I keep it for several reasons. First, because I have been with him for 33 years. One of my books is titled like that and the way I express my opinion is well reflected in it. Wherever you go, you will go with me. It is my heritage. A personal heritage for good and bad. The articles that I will now publish in EL MUNDO will maintain that spirit. I am not going to make more political articles, nor necessarily limited to current events... I will do what I have always done: display my interests, curiosities and rejections, my readings, my memory, literature, cinema... Only the medium to which I am now linked, the context, the environment changes. But my writing will remain the same.
He usually warns that his articles are mainly subjective.
Because they are. Accepting EL MUNDO's proposal implied a risk: this newspaper, like almost all, prioritizes political information. My reservation had to do with being asked to be more involved in political columnism. Among other things, because my opinion on these matters is subjective. I am not an analyst, but an observer old enough and experienced enough to know how to interpret what I see. I will write about politics when it is appropriate or when it seems right to me. But the reader should not expect constant political involvement from me under any circumstances.
Has your life influenced your decision to choose this newspaper?
I am 74 years old and at this age one runs the risk of relaxing or being predictable. THE WORLD forces me to stay awake, it demands lucidity from me. It's like sailing: the sea forces you to be attentive and aware of the barometer, that gust of wind, that flash, that cloud in the distance... The sea keeps you alive because of the healthy uncertainty it generates. Joining this newspaper causes me that healthy uncertainty. It takes me out of my routine. I will meet new readers who may join those who have been with me for three decades. And that will happen in a different space and, furthermore, at a very delicate moment in Spain.
The articles in 'Patent of Marquee' are also an autobiography in progress.
Some readers suggest that I write my autobiography, but I have already written it. I have accumulated more than three decades of articles, in which I have told everything: personal memories, war stories, trips, fights, fights, friends, deaths of friends, finding friends, political opinions, social opinions, religious... My biography is there as it is in one of my recent books, Special Envoy, which brings together my war reports. Between one piece and another is my life. In the articles I do not invent because I have enjoyed a very hectic, very busy existence. Good and bad things have happened to me, and I put all of that in my backpack. I work with that accumulated capital and I will continue taking material from that backpack. I am giving my biography little by little, week by week. Luckily, I still have things to tell. Otherwise I wouldn't be here. And, I insist, this newspaper forces me to be very attentive to how I tell them.
A notable change from its previous stage is that it will now publish on Sundays on the back page of the newspaper.
It is a place of honor that I appreciate. Being in the interior pages would have forced me to maintain a greater link with current events. And I certainly don't want to be tied to it. At my age, articles start to look back frequently. I don't look to the future because I no longer have a future. I only see present and past. Publishing on the last page makes it easier for me to write freely, even a little oblivious to the immediate if necessary. I insist: friends who know me have chosen the right place to stay.
He says that the journalism where he learned this trade has already passed away. What do you expect from a newspaper today?
I approach them with more curiosity than informational desire. I read written press to contrast more than to be aware. The emergence of social networks has radically changed our relationship with newspapers. At dawn you know what is happening on the planet through social networks and the radio. That's why I go to the newspapers to read other columnists - some of my friends - in case they offer different keys or approaches. In the newspapers I look for criteria. The serious mistake is reading only one news outlet, no matter how objective and clean it may be.
Change of header at a turbulent political time.
At my age I have seen enough challenges to know how to make an accurate assessment of reality. I have suffered part of the Franco regime, I have lived through the Transition, I have participated in the arrival of democracy, I have seen how democracy is boycotted from within... Now I feel more like a witness than a participant. A young journalist has the obligation to actively participate in the battle of his time, whatever it may be. A commitment to truth, justice, honesty, decency, equanimity, objectivity must be demanded... But I am not young and now it is my responsibility to observe. My role in these times is not militant... How do I see the world? This is what I want to talk about in my Letter of Marque, with the freedom that my biography and my page grant me. Troubled times are coming, obviously, and that will be reflected in my articles with irony, with disbelief, with humor, with sarcasm. I no longer have any interest in waving flags. I have seen too many scoundrels, scoundrels and scoundrels get involved in them. Patent of marque is a life motto. The corsairs have no god or master.
He has never avoided a strong debate.
I have published articles on politics, religion, nationalism or football that have provoked tremendous reactions. I'm not worried. I'm going to continue doing it.
Can the situation in Ceuta generate a social outbreak?
In fact, I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet. This shows that people have extraordinary patience. And amazing lucidity and prudence. Citizens are aware that there would be no turning back from an outbreak and that is why they are repressing themselves. But everything has a limit. We cannot force kindness and prudence on people. That situation, as it is, is unsustainable. From my experience as an old reporter I know that when you push human beings into dead ends, they become agitated and violence emerges. It amazes me that the one whose responsibility it is to monitor and foresee these things does not consider the Ceuta powder keg to be dangerous. As soon as there is an incident, a death, a serious fight it will be tremendous. The almost criminal passivity of the Government in these events is astonishingly reckless. Either they don't know what being human is or they don't give a damn. Believing that a social outbreak in Ceuta can be useful to stoke fear of the extreme right is another mistake and people are not going to swallow it.
And the Spanish Government does not stand up to Morocco...
Another mistake impossible to justify.
In some areas of power in Morocco they speak of Ceuta and Melilla as "occupied territories" over which they have "historical and geographical rights."
I don't know what Morocco will do about it, but too many people in Spain forget or ignore that Morocco has the finest and most sophisticated diplomacy in the Arab world. It is made up of families that have been educated for this for generations. Very well prepared Moroccans, people who travel, study abroad, speak languages, and one by one they give a thousand thoughts to the clowns that we often have here as foreign ministers. They fight for the two pitons without breaking a sweat. But there is also another important factor: Morocco, militarily, has more support from the US and Israel. This leaves us with a situation of diplomatic and geopolitical inferiority. Spain still has tools to stop Moroccan aggression, but using them would be adopting a position of firmness, of international integrity, which is great for the Government and our diplomacy. Spain is not qualified in this matter. There are plenty of puppets like Minister Albares. We need better level diplomats.
Immigration is now the great axis of international politics.
I refer you to what will be my second article on the back page of this newspaper.
He maintains that we are witnessing the decline of Europe. What attracts you to this historical moment?
I have seen the fall of many worlds. Mine, for example. That of my childhood and my youth. I say it without regret. I have seen the atrocity in Sarajevo, in Nicaragua, in Lebanon... But in those disasters I was just a professional tourist. I went there with my passport in my pocket, a plane ticket, I looked, I listened, I wrote it down and I came back. It was not my world that was burning in Sarajevo, nor in Managua, nor in the Gulf, nor in Beirut. Now it's my world that starts to burn. We are witnessing the end of what we call Europe and the West. See how Cervantes, Plato, Aristotle, Dante and so many others are condemned to death... See how Las Meninas is the pasture of masses who stand in front pointing their mobile phones at the painting and look at it on the screen... See how Europe is a theme park that lost, with its errors and successes, the site as a world reference and is despised and ridiculed... There are too many adverse stimuli. Our Europe of 3,000 years of written memory, in which I was educated and in which I am still very happy reading, navigating and traveling, is crumbling before the new barbarians, which are ourselves. Because we are our barbarians. It is a very interesting show.
Has age made you more skeptical?
Quite. Today everything is manipulated by the worst: religion, country, flag, honor, nation... When you read the Greeks and the Latins you realize that everything was already written. I think of Suetonius, of Livy, of Seneca, of Xenophon. From them I have extracted words and ideas where I take refuge. Life has not made me a cynic. It could have been that way, but books, friends and a few other things have kept me away from cynicism. I can be ironic, sarcastic or bitter, but never cynical. I still believe in a few things.
It also claims culture as a defensive tool.
Because it is. And nutritious. And revitalizing. And essential to survive and keep standing what is left of the world that matters. The scoundrels have been dismantling the culture for decades and that is terrible, because it leaves us defenseless in the hands of all the manipulators. If there were a cultural Nuremberg in Spain, there would be a lack of ropes for both the Minister of Education and Culture.
And how has your way of relating to literature changed, if anything?
I am, above all, a reader who writes novels. That hasn't changed, even if it's a different reader. When I was young I turned to literature to discover the world. It was a first phase. Later, literature became a way of understanding and supporting the world in which he lived. And now, in old age, literature is a way to reflect and look back. The literature that gave me certainties when I started with it, very young, has taken them away from me over time. Now I have less certainties than before.
In October he publishes a new novel, The Most Dangerous Hypothesis. What's new?
It has a lot to do with what we have been talking about. It tells the story of a young boy who searches for the father he never knew, who traffics art on a sailboat in the Mediterranean and embarks with that recovered father with whom he has never lived. On that trip he discovers aspects of himself, completes his memory and learns about history. It is an adventure novel, a detective novel, of cultural interests. I have been very happy writing it. I hope readers are happy reading it.
This year there are elections in the Royal Spanish Academy, to which he belongs. What relationship do you have with the House now?
You will find out in a future article. Maybe the fourth of my new stage. Maybe the fifth. What do I know...
