"When I read an author who remembers his mother playing the piano or his music teacher teaching him a piece, I can't help but be surprised. There was no piano in my house. There were no books either."
And yet, Fernando Aramburu has become one of the most prestigious writers in Spanish literature. On Wednesday he opened up to half a dozen readers gathered around the table on the enviable Finestres terrace over wine and canapés. The bookstore's programming team, led by Camila Enrich, has thought of taking advantage of this privileged space by organizing light dinners with authors who are passing through Barcelona. And Aramburu has come to the Catalan capital this week to present El Niño (Tusquets), his new novel.
The San Sebastian writer, who attended the meeting with his editor, Juan Cerezo, was charming and displayed his full sense of humor. He spoke about The Boy, who is immersed in the gas explosion at a school in Ortuella in 1980 that took the lives of around fifty students. He spoke about Patria (Tusquets), at the request of readers. And he talked about how he came up with a plan “to get out of poverty.”
“My father was a mechanical worker and my mother was a housewife. We lived in a suburb of San Sebastián. At 14 years old I thought that this was not for me and I saw the way to make a fortune: sport.”
Without hesitation, Aramburu enrolled in the Royal Society with 500 other children. He did not reach the first division (nor the fifth regional), so he tried cycling. “I federated and everything, but they kicked me out of the first race after traveling 100 meters for not wearing the hat.” He became a little depressed, but he didn't throw in the towel and tried the javelin: “I arrived at the championship without ever having touched a javelin, I was shocked by how much it weighed. “I came second to last.”
After the trail of failures he realized that sport was not his thing and he exchanged the sword for the pen. “In a bright moment, I saw that if he mastered the language he could get out of the well. I read, I studied Philology, I learned German (for love) and on top of that I linked a lot with my poems.”
The boy aspires to be among the best sellers of the next Sant Jordi with the permission of Eduardo Mendoza and his Three Enigmas for the Organization (Seix Barral), which is considered one of the favorite titles. If those from Finestres have been successful with their literary dinners, those from Seix Barral were more than inspired by inviting the booksellers on Thursday to have cocktails with Mendoza at the Dry Martini Speakeasy. Javier de las Muelas' team invented a combination for each of the characters in the novel
Between Manhattans and Sex on the beach, Mendoza told the Sant Jordi that he remembers best. It was the first, in 1974: “I was very nervous. I started very early in Ancora
El radar americà (Galàxia Gutenberg) may not compete to be the best seller of Sant Jordi, but it doesn't matter because its author, Vicenç Altaió, “is a wise man.” This is what Claudia Vives-Fierro says, who missed the book presentations in Cadaqués and the Ateneu and joined the stragglers on Tuesday at the Jaimes bookstore. Altaió is truly a wise man, poet, essayist, translator, art expert... And now he has expressed part of his wisdom in this work, which he presented with the collaboration of Josep Massot. A book that draws “the map of 20th century art” through small stories that are linked with those of great artists such as Salvador Dalí, José Antonio Coderch, Marcel Duchamp or André Breton through the Italian gallery owner based in Cadaqués Franco Bombelli.
