Padura: Writing for a reason
By Gerardo Arreola
From the Mexican newspaper La Jornada
HAVANA – When Leonardo Padura arrives at the Cuba Pavilion, a storm threatens. It seems that the Havana International Book Fair has bad luck: it almost always coincides with cold fronts, with days of wind and rain, unlike the image one has of the Caribbean.
But that afternoon marks the launching of the second printing of “The Man Who Loved Dogs,” and the public is not bothered by the bad weather. The ritual will be held in an improvised, open-air auditorium, which multiplies the threat.
Although it seems that at any moment the people may have to depart in a run, they wait and occupy all seats. Many, standing, form a tight ring around the chairs. Another storm brews in the aisles: it is possible that the available copies of the novel will not satisfy the demand. Worse yet, it is very probable that they will be in the black market hours later.
Padura himself starts the presentation. He explains to the hundreds of readers present some of the keys to his most successful novel. The editors had expressed concern because the book seemed to have too many explanations of a well-known event: the assassination of Trotsky.
The author maintained that, for an important portion of his readership, all or almost all the history would be news. He himself – like entire generations in his country – did not know the whole plot until he tackled it.
He has just won the National Prize for Literature. However, another kind of award is presented here: the active recognition of the ordinary people.
“He already is a media phenomenon,” says a young teacher, well informed about the book world. “There are people who have read nothing by Padura but they know well who he is and how he thinks.” Television will say that he is the best-read author on the island.
That afternoon, at the Cuba Pavilion – a center for fairs and concerts in the heart of Havana – the man who is also the Cuban writer best known abroad lives through the reality of his own popular impact: his public, his readers, the copies of his books, the signing of copies (a plus when the book is resold) place him at the center of his literary output. He is an opinion setter and a figure socially recognized in his own country.
The official ceremony to present the National Prize (which has also been given to Nicolás Guillén, Dulce María Loynaz and Cintio Vitier) will be the following day. On Sunday, Padura arrives at the Fort of La Cabaña with a long list of honors.
The book has been translated into more than 15 languages and in 2010 won the Roger Caillois Award presented by the Pen Club, the House of Latin America (in Paris) and the Society of Friends and Readers of the late French critic and essayist Roger Caillois. Earlier, it was given to José Donoso, Álvaro Mutis, Carlos Fuentes and Mario Vargas Llosa, among others.
Padura slips on a jacket and reads his speech. At the time of the hugs, his graying beard is surround by others of the same color. However, he is the youngest National Prize winner in the past decade. All the writers who received it during that time were septuagenarians at the time of recognition, with the exception of Reynaldo González, who was 63 in 2003. By choosing a 57-year-old author, the jury selects a creator in full production.
At the end of his own explanations about his career, the writer always mentions his indefatigable willingness to work. He tells me that, out of all that was written about him in the previous weeks, he particularly liked the description given by Abilio Estévez: “No one like you to show that pounding the anvil every day produces sparks from the hardest metal.”
He reminds me that he not only produces literature but also uses his prose as a public function.
“That has meant engaging in some debates, suffering some misunderstandings, being the target of criticism and attacks, even, but I haven’t stopped for those reasons. I believe that if I write I do it not because of something but, above all, FOR something and every time that I sit down to write a novel, a tale, a chronicle, I ask myself, ‘What do I want to say with this?’ That is why I write. The rest – the good, the bad, the attacks and the recognition, the suspicions and the support – I have earned with that decision, which has been, as my patron saint, José María Heredia, might have said, the novel of my life.”
He has referred, as he often does, to the exiled 19th-Century poet who wrote the celebrated “Ode to Niagara Falls,” who lived and died in Mexico and is the principal character in “The Novel of My Life” (2001), Padura’s vigorous exploration of the roots of Cuban nationality.
The creator of detective Mario Conde is among those who believe that a lot is changing in Cuba. He says that he feels happy if his work can help or has helped “to open spaces of understanding, rapprochement, understanding that literature and thought do not have to be a homogeneous mass.”
I compare Padura’s words with the topics that he has placed on the readers’ table, even if they’re only literary resources: corruption in the police department, the existential drama of the Angola veterans, official hostility against homosexuals, violence, drugs, crime and alienation in Havana, intolerance and authoritarianism, the long persistence of Stalinism. He is now writing “Heretics,” a book about the risks of assuming individual freedom.
Away from the conventions of the novel noir, he has written a social chronicle of contemporary Cuba under a structure of fiction. “The Man Who Loved Dogs” has more than 10 international editions, six translations and four others in progress.
The day after receiving the award, Padura merits only two paragraphs in the official daily newspaper. The novel, which in its official sale was priced at 30 Cuban pesos (US$1.25) is sold on the street at 30 convertible pesos, that, is 30 dollars or 750 Cuban pesos. More than a minister’s salary.
