Everything that happens in a class by Alberto Fuguet: "Literature shouldn't be afraid of disturbing"

Chilean writer , chronicler, and filmmaker Alberto Fuguet (1963) is losing his voice. He speaks and rasps the air. He speaks and it seems as if it will be the last word he ever utters. He speaks, and what comes out of his mouth is an ever-thinning thread on the verge of breaking. Sometimes, the cold weather complicates things. With extremely low temperatures these days in Argentina, Fuguet's body has taken note, and only today is he recovering from the flu that had him on the ropes. But perhaps there is another explanation for his current state of health: he is finishing writing a novel , and that moment, so particular and tense for a writer, is causing him to somatize in various physical and mental ways.

“I feel very exposed right now, and the last thing I wanted to do was give a talk. Finishing a book is very challenging, and that's when I least want to be exposed . I feel like writing has nothing to do with the public. I thought I'd be hidden away writing, and I had to come out to give this talk. I had to adapt to the public Fuguet, let's say, which is very different from the private one who writes. Maybe it would have been better to be in a remote little town in La Pampa. But it's all good anyway, I'll write again tomorrow,” he says, sitting in the Malba library where a few minutes ago he finished teaching a class called Pop in Literature: The Hard Drive That Feeds Us, and afterward they took some photos of him. But he wants to keep talking. Will he lose his voice?

For someone of the lineage, sensitivity, taste and training of Fuguet, who is the 19th author to participate in the Malba Writers Residency (REM) where he is finishing his next novel: Ushuaia , this time we live in is the best of all possible times in relation to culture.

“ I feel super comfortable in this time, with all the good and bad things that are happening . Before, I felt like I was the freak and there was no one close to me. Today, I feel like the world is much more like me. There are people like Malba who accept me as a resident and not Lina Meruane, right? That's striking to me because it means some things have changed . I feel like I'm just making my debut right now, and my first book just came out. Now there's a time to be able to have a real conversation,” he says.

The world has become pop culture , and what was previously viewed with disdain as low culture (popular genres such as comics, soap operas, serials, romantic songs, popcorn/industrial/mass-production films, etc.) is now prestigious, successful, and has become common study material in academia.

And that's a space Fuguet has always been in. Think of the anthology he edited, controversial at the time, McOndo (1996), his family research book Missing (2009), or the memoirs Las películas de mi vida (2002) or VHS (2017), to name a few from an extensive and recognizable corpus that includes short stories, novels, chronicles, and notable editing works such as Mi cuerpo es una celular (My Body is a Cell) (an autobiography) by Andrés Caicedo .

In a sense, Fuguet was waiting for the rest of them while suffering the bullying of the misunderstood. In literature, he who knows how to wait (and doesn't stop writing) wins. In more earthly terms: Fuguet now feels he has more interlocutors and more peers ; that is, there are more people who understand what he's talking about and what his interests are, and who respect them.

In his book POPism: The Diaries (1960-69), Andy Warhol says: “Pop artists created images that anyone walking down Broadway would recognize at a glance: comic books, picnic tables, men's pants, celebrities, shower curtains, refrigerators, Coca-Cola bottles—all the great things about modernity that the Abstract Expressionists tried so hard to ignore.”

Thus, Pop was tasked with erasing the boundaries and borders between respectable culture (the institutional) and the margins (alternative circuits). In a way, it introduced the necessary dose of chaos and disorder into what was ordered and established. That's what Fuguet's talk is about. Although the first thing he says to the audience is: "Museums and libraries scare me."

And then he makes things clear: “I'm from a generation where pop was our vibe, and that made us collective. Pop is no longer the enemy, it's no longer marginal .” What worries Fuguet, then, is the following question: “When did that happen? Why are stealing, copying, remixing, collage, etc., well-regarded today?”

Fuguet began by talking about two key writers who helped him think about how Pop managed to transcend its ghetto settings and conquer a broader sphere of respectability, eventually reaching this all-consuming present. First, the Latin American boom and Jorge Luis Borges , of course: "He supposedly imagined the internet with The Aleph ."

And then, the aura of Manuel Puig appeared to illuminate everything: "Puig invented the world, and we live in it and participate in it," he asserted, and all the heads in the room nodded in confirmation of this idea. The figure of Puig Pop is very present in Fuguet's imagination due to several of the magical abilities that the Puig Machine put into operation.

Namely: the destruction of the narrator as god – or patriarch – to include multiple voices and points of view, especially feminine ones ( The Betrayal of Rita Hayworth ); playing with diverse literary genres , such as letters, news, and so on, so that the prose is not subject to a classic omniscient narrator ( Painted Mouths ); the appreciation of cinema and popular music as a foundational part of the characters' sentimental education ( Kiss of the Spider Woman ); and their need to transcend their land , their internationalism, among other components.

Fuguet would later say about this: "I think I have benefited greatly as a person and as a writer from that kind of pop operation, without a doubt."

Fuguet takes a sip of water and says, "I'm losing my voice. Why don't we start the talk right away so I can recover?" The discussion with the audience focused on two elements included in the printed program: Culture as an emotional archive (today, everyone shares their most intimate experiences on social media, creating an archive of emotions accessible to anyone); and Pop Autofiction.

Fuguet opined, on this last topic, that these were the texts where the author expressed his cultural obsessions. He cited as an example Mauro Libertella's latest book, Cancion llévame lejos (Vinilo), in which the author wrote about the songs that spoke to him. And he said something interesting: "They are books where new religions are exposed."

A little later, he adds a few more thoughts: "I believe books have a lot to do with their circumstances, and I think this is the time for a book like this one coming out here." He's referring to Everything Is Not Enough: The Short, Intense, and Overexposed Life of Gustavo Escanlar , published by Mansalva.

It's a text that had its first publication in 2011 as a chronicle for the anthology The Damned, edited by Leila Guerriero, and is now coming out in an expanded format. Fuguet continues: "I'm happy that it's coming out through Mansalva. I think it's going to do superbly. Besides, it's clear that it's not a book about me; it's a rock book, but about a writer. They're going to buy it more for Gustavo Escanlar than for me. Because I wonder whether or not he was the greatest Latin American writer. We'll never surpass him, but I like the idea that he could have been. I like that gesture."

Fuguet is a jury member for the Clarín Novel Prize , has his new book published by a local publisher, and is currently doing a residency at Malba. This leads us to consider the intense relationship he has with the country. He says: “ In Argentina, I was treated like I never was in Chile . I'm not that well-known, obviously, but I have a lot of friends here. I feel like I know the language, the city, I admire the journalists, the radio programs, there are movies I love, some I hate. Strangely, I feel empowered to speak like a local. There are authors I really like and others I don't like at all. I never felt odd in Argentina; I always felt like one of the group. And one of the reasons I'm here now is because the protagonist of this novel I'm finishing is an Argentine in Chile who was born in San Luis. And I think it wouldn't hurt me to write this novel in this country. Tomorrow I'm going to San Luis, and that makes me very happy. I'm going to discover the locations I already included in my book. First, I wrote it, and then I got to know it—something very much my own, to be able to master the landscapes. I've done that several times.”

Fuguet began his literary career as a rebellious youth with his novel "Mala onda," a generational opus that portrayed another Chile. He is now recognized as an author with a long career, yet one who continues to take risks and seek new paths for his literature. In other words, Fuguet was able to survive his youth.

“I feel like Some Boys , my latest novel, published last year, is a new beginning, and that I'm writing like never before. I feel that regardless of what happens in the future, books about the beginning of old age aren't just going to be about old people. I believe Some Boys is a book that will endure, and the one I'm writing will as well. They're books that have the energy of someone who's passing away. It's very difficult to put that energy into a book. And it's getting harder all the time. To achieve that, I think you still have to have a bit of anger, to feel like there are still things to accomplish,” she opines.

Fuguet's talk at the Malba library ends and everyone leaves happy. He looks exhausted, but eager to chat a little more. With a very broken voice, he talks about his current connection with cinema: "I'm far from cinema in every sense, as a director and as a spectator. I mostly watch old films from the Criterion Collection . Maybe I'd rather write scripts or be a producer or have them adapt my films. I've already made ten films, a lot. I no longer have the energy to make films without money and everything. And also, that no one sees them. In that sense, I think books are more pop . Cinema, except for Marvel, no one sees and no one talks about them. I made a couple of films that no one saw, and that never happened to me with books. Working so hard to make a film doesn't frustrate or anger me, but I feel like things aren't closing, there's no debate or conversation. There wasn't much buzz."

Fuguet doesn't have much experience with residencies . He says he doesn't need a residency to finish a book. He clarifies: "Now I have more distractions than anything else because of this beautiful city. Probably if I were in Santiago I would have finished this novel sooner, but I liked the idea of ​​coming to Buenos Aires for two months; I'd never had that kind of luck."

The last thing he says is a declaration of principles: “ I believe that literature shouldn't be afraid of upsetting, of being spoken about badly, or of hurting. In fact, I think literature should hurt, it should convey emotions, not be afraid of being disliked. That's the way it goes. I believe that many writers seek to be liked, and that's fatal; they are co-opted by society. I've never been co-opted by anyone. I've been hated by everyone: the right, the left, the center. The church. At first, it seemed like a curse, and now I realize I was very lucky.”

Fuguet didn't lose his voice. In fact, he started talking to a friend who picked him up for dinner. The Buenos Aires night was waiting for them, and he happily lost what was left of his voice.