David Toscana, the consummate novelist

Yes, Mexico and the Mexican world are present throughout as long as Tuscany is the protagonist, this novelist who is purely literary, he enters with extraordinary wisdom into other worlds quite lejanos of his originmainly in the countries of Central Europe and in Russia.

Desde Wheels (1992) and The burden of life on earth (2022), pasando, entre otras novelas, por Enlightened Army (2009), Königsberg bridges (2007), The city that the devil raised (2012) or The Gospels (2010), Tuscany fully encompasses a wide geography: this is the green territory of this extraordinary novelist, a whole world with Mexican memories rising into the air.

It was a joy to see him develop such a strong and deep novelistic vocation. Bit by bit but without pause, novel after novel, he hits the mark every day, trudging through the world he has created through the art of his literary writing.

Whenever I meet a writer of great worth, I repeat the hand of Henry James and one of his most frantic affirmations: to be a true novelist, to write true novels, you must have true will.

This is what James confirms that he knew everything about this area of ​​literature. For a while there were no 20th century novelists with a foot in the 19th century. I have often met three of these writers, and now I have three in mind: Juan Bonilla, Gustavo Faverón and, of course, David Toscana.

Bonilla and Toscana have won the prize with their novels in the past Vargas Llosa Biennial. The two surprised him because they gave five sabelots on these occasions and in front of the other ganadors.

With Alfaguara de Novela 2026, David Toscana expresses a generalization of how many literary prizes are “loved”

Tuscany, if I come to it The burden of life on earthThe Quixote novel, with Cervantine’s ribes, is clear, but where is the round and sure knowledge of Central European literature. The treatment of time and characters is all a play of light, which Toscana handles like a master.

“I won’t give you that,” I told her when she confessed that she had presented her novel at the Bienal Vargas Llosa. I was wrong, the Tuscany story was one he provided to a man trained mostly by women.

Now he has repeated his game with good literary knowledge, refuting the generalization that all literary prizes are “loved”, as Juan Cruz Enrique Murillo says in his well-reviewed editorial memoir, Secondary person. They will know more than ever…

no embargo, Tuscan literary prestige is not enough for publishing experts. Inspectors of this new editorial policy, in terms of ethics and aesthetics and with regard to story, wondered in social circles and in some contemporary articles why a novelist of such prestige was awarded a literary prize.

And they asked him who caused the crime in the flood, and they announced the cause and raised the suspicion: among the members of the jury were two Mexicanswhich attracted much attention and sometimes enabled us to understand where the water got into the coconut on this occasion.

This is what the inquisition weathervane looks like: every novelist who attends a literary award, even if it is held for an editorial, is suspicious of “love” and smut. Come and put your hand in the fire and see for yourself Blind army It is a very good story, like all the others in Tuscany.

Before the malevolent opinion of the inspectors of Spanish editorial policy, I believe in the ethical and aesthetic rigor of the novelist. I know him and he is honest. I know the members of the jury and every one of them, one of the people who made up the jury.

I hope that within a month, when the Tuscan novella arrives in bookstores and is protected by editorial policy, they will have the honor of correcting the writing in the same places of those who wrote to raise the suspicion of “amaño” about this novella, this novelist, this and this one. editorial.

But I fear the inquisitors will be silenced as always who will look for another side, as is their habit, when their desires do not match reality. In conclusion, once again I misunderstand…