Madrid Spain.- The Cuban writer Leonardo Padura presented this Tuesday decent peoplehis most recent novel, published by the Tusquets publishing house, and which deals with “parameterization” in Cuba, a time when many writers and artists were censored and persecuted.
At the meeting, which took place at the Rafael Alberti bookstore in Madrid, Padura explained that decent people is somehow a complement of More expensive (1997), his fourth novel, and the third in the series of his emblematic character, detective Mario Conde.
“In More expensive He spoke, from the point of view of the victims, about a process of political and cultural repression that took place in Cuba in the 1970s against the intelligentsia. In this case I wanted to judge from the point of view of the perpetrators”, he specified.
As he considered, “the victimizers have as a pretext the obedience of life, `I did this because they sent me,’ but there has to be a special element in someone’s character to exert that type of pressure and encourage the humiliation of people.”
“The novel is an exercise in memory with the intellectuals who were parameterized… They marginalized many, among them José Lezama Lima and Virgilio Piñera, two of the greatest Cuban writers of the 20th century,” added the author, Princess of Asturias Award winner of the Letters.
As the writer did on previous occasions —the novel of my life, for example—, this new installment intertwines two stories: One that occurred during the time of the Republic, particularly related to the renowned pimp Alberto Yarini and Ponce de León; and another in the context of 2016: a peculiar year for Cuba, marked by the visit of the former president of the United States, Barack Obama, the concert of the British group The Rolling Stones, the Chanel fashion show and the filming of the American film Fast and Furious. With these events as a scenario, in decent people a former government leader and repressor is assassinated, and the police ask Mario Conde for help.
After referring to current problems on the island such as the mass exodusthe crisis of the sugar harvest, the low salaries that are not enough “not even to afford a pack of cigarettes”, Leonardo Padura pointed out that all this “means a very strong tear for the country”.
“That disenchantment is breathed in the novel. All that pessimism regarding a future that we don’t know how it’s going to come about,” said the also author of The man who loved the dogs Y like dust in the wind.
Asked about his characters’ obsession with time (lost of those who have stayed in Cuba) and space (of those who have left Cuba), he explained that “the feeling `they have stolen my time, they have stolen my life’, is very frequent in the country”. “This feeling is expressed very well by Mario Conde”, he added.
To argue about it, he commented that his generation was a very prepared generation, so most of his colleagues are doctors, designers, geographers… however, “many are in a situation where they are nothing.”
Leonardo Padura gave the specific example of a very close friend who “is retiring, with a retirement that is not enough to live on after having worked for more than 40 years, without hope, without expectations.”
According to the novelist, this friend often tells him: “Where have we arrived and how have we arrived?
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