“I’m creating literary immortality. I’m writing for readers not yet born.”

On the other side of the panel, a new and unmistakable beak appears – a transparent and dark lens, in the middle something twisted smiles – Salman Rushdie (Bombay, 1947), the result of a brutal attack that took place in 2022. A smile that intensified when his Spanish editor, Miguel Aguilar, told her he had heard from two journalists from Spain and Latin America connected to the video conference. The British-American author of Indian origin is surprised: “Sesenta y dos!”. “We still hope to see the centenary,” she added.

I’ll tell you everything she wanted to decide about the attack that cost her her life Cuchillo —y in this interview—, a book that materialized the victory of words over terroras Rafael Narbona surely defined.

But the current nature of the protests in Iran makes us question whether we believe them a regime of ayatollahs who pay a price on his head in 1989 the publication of his book The Satanic Verses They are trying to do it right now because of the iron will of the Iranians or because of the injustice of Donald Trump. “Not myself, I don’t know anything good about propheciesI have enough prophets in my life…”.

Compared to the President of the United States, the country that has lived since has a history and its nationality declared itself “concerned, like the rest of the world”. “Okay, what can I say, We are experiencing a very dark moment in European public life“.

Back to short fiction

This time Rushdie appeared outside the outlet to present his new work, Penultimate hoursuggesting a return to short fiction not generally practiced since then East, Westa book of stories that have stuck with you for over 30 years.

Pay attention to the expansion of the texts, Penultimate hour contains dos relatos (En el sur y View of the squarewhich do not contain 20 pages) and four short novels: Interpreter Kahani, Finado y Oklahomawhich oscillate between 60 and 82 pages.

“Short stories can also be very deep. We think about it Metamorphosis de Kafka or Death in Venice by Thomas Mann. I would like to return to this format. The short story is long enough to be serious, but short enough to be a good read. However, after this book I will return to novels”.

What you by no means think about is cheeringunlike your colleague Julian Barneswho said it Farewell it will be the last book. “I find it very sad, I hope my opinion will change. Artists have the privilege of declaring that they will never have anything and they will do it the next day”, he brome.

Another great thing I decided to do was Philip Roth. “I was very surprised. He was a very disciplined writer, writing literature like a factory worker. When he announced that he was retiring, I remember thinking: ‘What are you going to do now that you have so much free time?’. But what is certain is that he was very happy with his jubilation.”

In this book of stories Rushdie adopts a twilight tone that speaks of the time of day, vision, deathas well as the aforementioned Barnes and probably the last book. But while Barnes does this out of the essence of thought and memory, he does so across fiction.

From India to EE. UU

Rushdie has vividly explored India, the United Kingdom and the United States, and in this new book the stories take place in three countries.

En el sur Set in southern India, it revolves around two old men, junior and senior, old men, lifelong friends-enemies, who spend their days discussing and comparing their belongings and mishaps. The relationship functions as a kind of inverted experience: the obstinacy of one and the resilience of the other reveal ways to bring decay, the mystery of death.

The end of life or the threat of death can be spoken or written by anyone, namely Salman Rushdie, who is looking for it on August 12, 2022. He says that The “last act” of the work that is life can be faced in many ways.

Here are two examples: Beethoven compiled above Novena Sinfoniawith up Hymn to Joy when you were deaf Dylan Thomas tells us in return, “You rage, you rage before the dying of the light.” On the one hand, I think that before the day and at the end of life it is possible to combine these two actions, both anger and calm.

En Interpreter KahaniRushdie returned to his native Indiaspecifically representatives of Bombay (now Mumbai), where he was born, Breach Candy to reunite with characters from his 1981 novel Hijos de la midnightthe book with which she won the Booker — not only that, until she won a special prize for the best-selling book in the first 25 editions and wanted to win it on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the honor —.

Here new Of the new chapters, Rushdie addresses, as he explains, the same, “the power of art, and specifically of music, to inspire and change the world,” but it is also “Superhero Satire of India”which is “very easy and fun” for you.

The text stars a young musician who is at home with a man from a wealthy family, and the story explores the shock of her humble origins and this universe of privilege, hardship, pomp and social expectations.

Her music acts as a magical element that is not limited to beautifying familiar life, but can change, destabilize or even destroy the environment it has entered: her art becomes a weapon against the hypocrisy of the comfortable class.

In pursuit of immortality

Finadothe first article he wrote about this collection is also about the “ghost report in chief”. The story is inspired by two great figures who studied, like Rushdie himself, at King’s College, London: mathematician Alan Turing and writer EM Forster.

In the beginning it was a relationship about friendship between a very old man and a very young man. “But when I stopped writing, mate to the main character in the first sentence“He explains, surprised by the involuntary decision. Entence thought: well, I’ve never written a ghost story, I’ll ask if this is my moment.”

He mostly doesn’t believe it, though he considers it a “supremely useful fiction”. What you believe in is “literary immortality”.

“That’s what all writers are looking for. I’m writing for posterity, not just for the immediate reader. I’m also thinking of readers who haven’t been born and who I hope will look up to my work,” he says.

Oklahomamore texts collected in it Penultimate houres on “historia más borgiana”, recognized. “It’s the biggest story and it makes me think about it.” Borgesit is a story about stories, about art, about many things that are in your universe”.

In this regard, Rushdie finds himself as a young writer in the United States who finds himself trapped in a labyrinth of conflicting versions of his literary mentor’s previous death. Disciple Try to find out if you are the author, if you really committed suicide or pretended to disappearand the investigation places it in the context of interestingly constructed words, truthful media and relationships.

The story feels like a reflection on the character writer as an extreme writer: someone capable of manipulating identities, documents and history must cross the line between real life and the myth of the author.

Rushdie knows himself more than Borges a great admirer of Latin American literatureespecially del boom: García Márquez, Carlos Fuentes, Vargas Llosa — whose friend he was —… He also mentions Elena Poniatowska, but acknowledges that Don’t draw too much from contemporary Spanish authors.

That’s not to say they’re not interested in Spanish art and literature—remember that one of their latest books is a modern reinterpretation Quixote—. De hecho, en Oklahoma rent boards on my last visit to the Prado Museum to the main character, who confesses his love for himself “the three most incredible rooms in the world”: which contains black paintings Goyade Las Meninas de Velázquezy de El Boscoprotruding not only Garden of delicacieseven so Locura stone extractiona framework that has a certain protagonism in the story.

Also evokes in this short story the time when Goya, 73 years old, settled in Quinta del Sordoand reflect on the already mentioned theme of fury and calm before the end of life.

Freedom of expression

The last story of the book e.g View of the squarea parable about freedom of speech, starring an old man who inhabits the public square every day to talk and debate with anyone who will listen.

“We lived in a time when communication between different parts of society collapsed. We didn’t even understand each other in the same language,” says Rushdie.

“The growth of censorship in the United States is a very big problemcrime against the Primera Enmienda. If they ban books from libraries and schools like The Years of Sunshine, The Story of a Ruiseñor or The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, young people should read them. Fortunately, juices in respect produce sufficiently positive results”.