Felipe Soto, a young man born in Chile and living in Catalonia since adolescence, was one of the leaders of the 15-M movement in 2011. Participating in the protests gave him notoriety and catapulted him to Congress where he won a seat in the elections after the revolt. The position only lasted one legislature, but his fame lasted, at least long enough to allow him to earn a living from social gathering to social gathering until the 1930s.
In 2033 the (slow) European justice handed down a sentence in which it agreed with the leaders of the process. After the ruling, the central government chose to negotiate the holding of a legal independence referendum with the Generalitat. In this political turn, Soto saw the opportunity to leave behind his stage as a talk show host and return to politics, so he created the Foro Cívico platform and stood in the Catalan elections advocating for secession, although in reality he had never been a pro-independence party. .
Against all odds, he won the elections and promoted that referendum that was held on October 1, 2034 in which three questions were asked to the voters: "Do you want Catalonia to form part of Spain after a new Constitution in which guarantee its full economic and jurisdictional autonomy? Do you want Catalonia to be an independent State? Do you want Catalonia to continue to form part of Spain under the same conditions as up to now?"
This is how Malpaís begins, the latest novel by Albert Lladó, which also delves into the consequences of the almost forgotten 15-M through the story of Chantal, a woman addicted to alcohol who found a home in the Casa de Postas, a house in the center of Barcelona converted into a refuge by movement activists and self-managed by its tenants. The stories of Felipe and Chantal run in parallel until their paths cross in this dystopian and realistic novel to which its author gives the keys in this interview with La Vanguardia.
In the novel he raises the existence of that refuge house that emerged as a result of 15-M. However, in the collective imagination such concrete results of this social movement are not drawn. What is real in the Casa de Postas?
I have participated in similar projects. Some still work, albeit with problems. They are places where vulnerable people come together and create a community. I taught in an abandoned space occupied by homeless people who have found refuge there. When I began to write I wanted to see History in capital letters and then look for what is in the center, the concrete, what we do not see due to the prejudices of the gaze.
You treat Soto's character with affection, but for the reader it is worrying to see how a person without any kind of preparation whose curriculum is limited to having unloaded furniture in a store and being a well-known face in social gatherings becomes president of the Generalitat. ..
Sounds like the character, right? But at the time of writing, I was not so concerned about Soto as knowing who has an interest in him being in power. He arrives at the Generalitat for a carambola, but he does not really command. The question is what situation have we reached so that people do not want to dedicate themselves to politics?
His character becomes an independentista because he wants a Catalonia that is better than the Spain in which he lives, but the first thing he does when he declares independence is to introduce paid public healthcare...
There is a tension between ideals and what is feasible. It is not his decision but that of those who rule behind the scenes, of those who have helped him come to power. Soto accepts because he sees it as a lesser evil, but we all believe in our own myth and he clings to his thinking that it is necessary to make a sacrifice to achieve other goals.
Why have you located independence in 2034?
I decided to write about this matter because in 2017 we went through moments of great tension and authoritarian impulses were visible to everyone. That caused me as many doubts as it was astonished and I wanted to understand the springs of authoritarianism. Now there is talk that the process has ended, but it is not known what they mean by that. A very concrete political itinerary did end, but the problem has not disappeared. Independence will come at some point and that is the hypothesis with which I work in my fiction.
In addition to political issues, Malpaís addresses social issues such as people living on the street. Why don't institutions fix these situations?
If the institutions have to solve this problem, it may not be possible to fix it. A city where there are many people living on the street has failed as a collective project. That's why I write. There are few things that can hurt people more than throwing them out on the street when there is space and food to spare. When I started going to these refuge houses, I thought that many of their tenants came there because of their addictions, but the truth is that they usually become addicted once they are on the street to endure the inclemencies of that life. Many times it is said that there are people who would rather be on the street than go to a shelter and what should be asked is what happens in these shelters so that people reject them.
Another of the issues that Malpaís deals with is Munchausen syndrome. Chantal's mother has encouraged her daughter to drink from her until she becomes an alcoholic. What is this syndrome?
It is a pathology of care that consists of hurting someone in order to later be able to care for them. Those who suffer it are care junkies and in this case it is a mother whose victim is her daughter, because she wanted to address the aspect associated with emotional blackmail. The great theme that runs through this novel is freedom and with Munchausen syndrome the freedom of the victim is violated.
