"A mixture and interaction of cultures is what now defines modern"

25/02/2015

-What was your conference about?
-I spoke on the idea of a reader's literary biography. Reading is a process in which you get to know yourself and can be self-revelatory. We read to project our personality and feel rewarded by the works we read. We are what we read. And I concluded that what exists in people for whom literature is their profession, when they read, is a literary passion. There are emotional and affective relations, with different authors at different moments of life, and this passionate process is also a personal fulfilment. This is my thesis.

-What was the message you wanted to transmit to the attendants?
-Well, that we must make a commitment to and be open towards the literature that we are made to read.

-You have lived in the United States for over 30 years and have worked as a professor at Brown University for more than twenty. How is Latin American literature seen from there?
-In the past 20 years, Latin American literature has been in the limelight of education and is seen as part of the interaction in the development of a young reader. Reading Latin American literature helps one enter a creative and imaginative world. American students find in Latin American literature a space of freedom which they do not find in their own language. Normally, languages are roadmaps full of cultural demands and values and straight jackets. When someone is bilingual, they can use the acquired language with a freedom they do not have in their mother tongue.
And then you realize that something happens which in our countries does not. We've got high school students reading Borges, Cortázar, García Márquez, all the classics, and that is something our students are not doing. So when they reach university at 18, they've already read all the authors, either translated into English or in the original versions, as part of their Spanish classes.

-In such a globalised world in which English seems to be the common language for everything, does Spanish really have a future?
Yes. There are no more monolinguals left! In fact, in California they say that "monolingualism is a curable disease". They consider speaking only one language to be negative for a person, a hindrance in their work, studies, etc.
Parents are aware of the need for their children to learn foreign languages as part of their education. And Spanish is part of the future of any middle-class American.
 
-We are a bilingual society here in Catalonia. But outside of Catalonia this is seen as controversial. Is it positive for two languages to coexist, in this case Catalan and Spanish?
Plurilingualism is ideal. In the future, we will all speak at least three languages, especially in this globalised world we live in. There are people who think they can only live with English, because everyone speaks English, but this is not true. There is proof that people who speak more than one language acquire other essential human values such as tolerance, open-mindedness, curiosity for other cultures, etc.
Sometimes this issue is discussed politically which, instead of being positive, ends up being negative. But languages should coexist beyond any political programmes or strategies. In fact, languages are horizontal, while power is vertical.

Spanish is a language which has flourished, and in each country of Latin America there is also an original language. For example, the Quechuan language which is spoken in several Latin American countries, has as many speakers as Catalan does, nine million (even though Catalan has more prestige). And there, Quechuan has taken over Spanish.

-At Brown University you do research on a concept known as "Transatlantic Studies". What does it consist of?
-I, as did my whole generation, grew up reading Spanish literature a lot more than literature from our countries. I realised when I was very young that literature speaks beyond borders, and that using literature to benefit nationalism is not a glorious activity. The most interesting works of literature have always been the ones in which different languages and cultures come in contact with each other and interact. The result of this diversity is magnificent, and the more mixture there is, the better.

In the traditional world, the highest value was put on purity. But now, what is modern is the mixture and interaction of cultures. You get modernity when you interlace two systems of information and produce a much larger space. What is traditional is full of authority, prohibitions, class division, etc. While what is modern is more horizontal, based more on the creativity of an individual than on tradition. And traditional values, which are very strong in Spain, have created many problems.

"Transatlantic Studies" aims to reveal the parts of dialogue which can be found on cultural riverbanks. For example, we believe education to be fundamental, this idea is very modern. When Bolívar declared the independence of Latin America there was an Englishman there, Lancaster, who invented the Lancaster education system.

-In such a digital and technological world do you think that traditional literature has future or will it have to reinvent itself?
Technology is neither good nor bad in itself, it depends for what you use it. The worst thing about technology is that now it is much easier to share ideas which are not true, rumours and insults on the internet and social networks and young people seem to be very keen on what is known as bullying. Instead of encouraging dialogue, there are more and more unfriendly relations.

But technology has always been creative... the printing pressfor example! And it would be great if it could work towards encouraging dialogue. We are facing a very complicated stage. We must think of how to do it the best we can. The responsibility here is also of the families, teachers, etc. to prevent it from having such a negative effect. However, there is no doubt that if used well, technology can be very creative.