“23-F noises continue, but now there are fewer sounds to attack from”

“My previous books were read by my mother, my father, some of my daughters for ahí and some friqui friend,” he admits Javier Cercas (Ibahernando, Cáceres, 1962), which celebrates the 25th anniversary of its publication on February 26 Soldiers of Salamisthe book with which he rose from anonymity and established himself as a successful and cult writer.

Coinciding with the ephemeris, Random House publishes a commemorative edition of the novel with illustrations by Raúl Lázar, which the editorial presented in Madrid Commercial cafe together with the author.

The celebration, which takes place today, the day after the classified 23-F documents were released. What the writer said publicly at the Congress of Representatives to the Prime Minister on November 20 during the introduction of the series Anatomy of a momentan adaptation of his novella of the same name, which follows the 1981 coup.

From this moment, thinking about the topic, the first few words were discussed, I say in contecimiento: “I tell you that he who goes up to the light does not have to change anything. From this moment we know the reality. I have explained everything in my book”. Expect, however, that the rumor about the song “will not end, because it is a very lucrative business for journalists, historians, writers, editors… But at least less will be bought. The president knows what he wants, and by doing so he has done a great service to the country’s democracy”.

The main news that has been declassified is its complete security, which may make you wonder why it wasn’t released earlier. Before this question, Search defines that the problem is that there is no modern legislation that dictates how these types of situations should be handled: “No one knows anything about it because the main obstacle is that there is no secret law. Felipe Gonzalezwho knows anything about it. The same jefe from the Secret Service asked for a word so he would know what to stick to.”

“You have already left the conspiracies, the reality is much simpler than what you believe. Now let me tell you what happened that the documents were destroyed. But the truth is that if necessary, which is what I investigated for the book. What happens is that there are thousands of pages and it is easier to think about it than to work on them,” he concludes based on the assumption of an extreme writer.

O Soldiers of SalamisJavier Cercas remembers that at the moment Tusquets history editor Beatriz de Moura approved the publication of the book, I told her that only the mayors of 70 years had read it. “The Civil War is dead, nobody cares. The writer was clear, so when she was informed that the first run would consist of 6,000 examples, she thought it was an “authentic story! I heard Ernest Hemingway“.

With a supposedly antiquated subject, a war as ancient as the Battle of Salamis (480 BC), and the most modest publicity campaign, the book was a partial success in Spain, but rather a total success on our front. “Beatriz was not wrong, what we all assumed was the reality. It was true that the subject of war was dead. The concept of historical memory did not exist, several years before it appeared. I think this book was intended to address a public need: our country needs to renew its historical memory.”

Soldiers of Salamis It’s a “fake chronicle” that tells the story of a broken writer named Javier. Look for you to be amazed by an anecdote that another author, Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio, told you about his father. Rafael Sánchez Mazas. The great intellectual of fascism and one of the fathers of the phalanx joined forces with a group of prisoners in the Catalan forest after the civil war. He miraculously survives and then escapes, until a militiaman enters him, who first catches him and then he has to escape.

Beginning with this story, the character Javier Cercas “little by little gives insight that his past is a dimension of the present where he is crippled. The past is there anyway. It includes not only the explanation of his country, but also of his own person”.

“This book went through everything, first it was a confirmation of the republican memory, then I say it was equally distant and finally apologetic,” says Cercas, many times criticized by another part of the political spectrum. The writer in turn points out that “great literature is equally distant from each other. This is the essence of literature. It is very useful, always and when it does not pretend to be useful, even if it is propaganda or pedagogy, which is the worst that can be. In real life, there are times when you have to leave aside, before war, before injustice… But in a novel, you have to understand where the evil is and not explicit.” I don’t have to write for stupid people. The stupid ones with lists“.

The end result was a book that many consider the pinnacle of 21st century Spanish literature. century. A work whose main characteristics depend on brevity and brevity. “The hardest thing is to write intelligibly. I’m working to death so you don’t know what I’ve done. My song is a Latin song that my Latin friends say I made up, but it can’t be because it’s too good: ” The right ars covered with art, real art hides art and look at this”, remata, author Soldiers of Salamis.