Jean-Baptiste del Amo broke out in 2008 as a hurricane with Free educationa novel that won the Goncourt prize for first work. She worked as a social worker and the news was so shocking to her that she felt a strange feeling that she had never thought of before. But the criticism was not unequivocal. Set in the Siglo de las Luces, aquel debut ya dejaba entrever su universe: The Paris of the time transformed into an ornate phantasmagoric case, a city of many folds that can transform itself with every page.
Below are titles like Roomwhere family relationships were explored through a strong organic metaphor, and Animaliafinalist for the Goncourt, Femina, Médicis and Wepler awards. WITH El hijo del hombre I received the Fnac prize and returned to one of the central images of my work: parental bonds disrupted by violence.
Now the public The night was ruined (Seix Barral), novella en la que if they unreservedly enter the territory of terror. Detached Lt Lire magazine as the novel of the year, the work not only emerges in a village in the south of France, as claustrophobic as it is fluid, but unsettlingly connects with the author’s own coming of age in the outside world of Toulouse. With ecos de Stephen KingDel Amo builds a story that works both as a home for the genre and as an exploration of my innermost self across a generation.
Set in the 1990s, the novel follows Alex, Mehdi, Max, Thomas and Lena, a group of teenagers who end the morning with the news of a friend’s suicide. Ready, no embargo, certainty from moment to moment. As they ponder and explore, a common element emerges: a recurring dream that they all share in what emerges abandoned house. The ruling ententes do the same as the corrupt youth: the cross on the umbral. Y, everything changes from this moment on.
Please. His writing has evolved considerably from one work to another, don’t you think?
Response. Actually. Many times It is my project that defines my relationship to language. When I write a book like Free education or Animaliawith a strong historical and temporal background, this language brought me something more baroque, more abundant, more lyrical.
»In exchange in the book as El hijo del hombrewhich acts as a counterpart Animaliawith only three characters and one location, my writing began more concise and compactalthough it always retains its basic character: organic, embodied, very physical.
»WITH The night was ruinedI look forward to my own history in the nineties. If the lyricism or baroqueness of my previous novels didn’t work. It was necessary to assert a more immediate language without giving up stylistic ambitions, but with clear current impulse. On the other hand, as a writer, I don’t need to demonstrate to anyone. I feel freer. I don’t want it to be “good” and that’s allowed my writing to evolve that way.
P. Usted defines the imaginary before the very old literature in reality: what paper should be desempeñar fiction today?
R. I think we live in such a society reality imposes a kind of tyranny on us. Through media and connected devices, we are exposed to a constant stream of reality, instant opinions that are created instantly. We are also immersed in a literature very focused on reality, in a testimony that can give rise to texts of high quality, but which outweighs me in questions.
»I create it literature is not called upon to restore reality as it is until it is revealed. To me, it’s not about adhering to reality until you can express the poetry of your own essence. Based on reality, there are many possible relationships. Today, I believe our false notion is that for me, that’s what I’m most interested in exploring where I’m coming from as a writer.
P. Your books evoke very intense reactions. Do you think literature can lead to destabilization?
R. I absolutely do not believe that. It can destabilize the individual reader, the one who chooses to connect with the book and become receptive. But not on a group or company scale. However, it was a desire he had when he was younger Today I do not believe that literature can change the world.
P. Scribe The night was ruined starting with my own memories. Are there any people in this group of teenagers who identify with you?
R. I create it I screened something for each member of my little band. Like Tom, he was as passionate about horror cinema as entomology. Like Mehdi, he suffered violence and harm from other comrades. Like Max, I discovered my homosexuality during these years.
»Lena wonders if the person is the furthest away, though she shares this idea of photography – in my case, writing – as an escape. For me, she embodies the ideal girlfriend I dreamed of as a teenager, and the teenager I was happy to be. por su coraje. That’s why all the characters contain something of me.
P. It also evokes another “character” present alongside the novel: the abandoned house. Does it represent a character, a metaphor, or a narrative device?
R. It’s all over and over again. He is a character because he becomes the focal point of the novel, the conductor around whom the others gravitate. It helps to get an organic dimension and therefore also human cases.
»It’s also a narrative device, so you can imagine a novel based on that element. You know that when you’re pitching a horror story to readers who aren’t necessarily fans of the genre, you should try to speak to them in a different way. The construction of the book revolves around this idea: how the house can contaminate the lives of the characters, how the text can pass through from social commentary to pure and dry horror. The real horror breaks out in the second part of the novel, so the reader, captivated by the desire to know what will happen, cannot ignore the book.
Jean-Baptiste del Amo. Photo: SG
P. Who from there enjoys and loves this genre. As a young man, he was an avid horror fan through film and literature. Are you still a reader of this type of story?
R. Yeah, not much. What I repeat in this example formal renovation within this genre. Over the years I have become more discerning. However, these are horror films because I don’t necessarily have the same formal requirement in the cinema: I can enjoy them without asking any more questions.
»In literature, on the other hand, gender codes are known from childhood. Therefore, he preferred to preserve this memory and try to figure out how to write a novel of terror in the French context that was today quality work.
P. He said coming of age reflects “what we are collectively today”. Why do you think this age is key to understanding our time?
R. Because adolescence is, generally speaking, a moment compared to adult education and the brutality of the world. It is sometimes an anodyne moment, but in that moment we are aware that something will always change. I believe it symbolically says a lot about our society.
»for me The night was ruined habla ninety years, this moment when we remember all that we have lost and to which we will never return: the end of certain illusions. In this sense, the novel clearly has a metaphorical dimension.
P. So when reading the text, there is a big difference between adult characters and teenagers.
R. Yes, this is something that is inherent in adolescence: it is a complete lack of communication with the generation of parents. In that is the season of doom we are forced to look at the critical form what we have lived – the life of adults – and we try to build our own uniqueness. I was interested in observing how these people experience this communication error and how they try to verbalize it. And not only in relationships with their fathers, but also between them, because they have secrets within the group.
P. And especially in this generation of the twentieth century, do you think that a freer form of thought has been broken?
R. Yes, without a doubt. My fathers generation lived in May 1968: a social revolution that made them believe that another form of life was possible. They experimented with new freedoms on paper for women, opening up their sexuality, but in the end economic reality hit them. You were asked to fit into the system: full-time work, family… And my generation later came back feeling that you can’t dream. How we were forced to repeat the economic, social and work model of our fathers.
»For usadolescence was a kind of “non-lugar”. We do not have a clearly defined common culture. Let’s live the moment, the hope, a certain feeling of annoyance, exhaustion. However, we had common references: video clubs, Nirvana music, food, food… Everything was done by creating a common culture and our unity.
P. And do you think the horror genre, outside of your personal taste, belongs in any way to this generation of the twentieth century?
R. Before that season approaches, here is a survey of my novels the territory of urban suburbs, because it is a topic very little covered in French literature. For a long time, French writers came from a certain elite, from comfortable families, trained in institutions like the Sorbonne, unlike in the United States, where many writers were trained on the streets.
»In France, it was believed that in order to write one had to maintain a very “healthy” relationship with language, the least present in the European tradition. Therefore, the authors who have undertaken to explore these territories are relatively recent. For example, in Nicolas Mathieu or in me: voices that speak of spaces that have long not been considered novels. Nevertheless, we who grew up in these places know this they are territories where anyone can occur: intimate dramas, real aspects of society. Not everything happens in Paris.
»On the other hand, the nineties were very intimate for me because that was when I was building my identity. I would like to re-emerge in them and make them home in any way I can. The most honest way to do this was through fiction, not realism. Queria blar de la amenazaand it was best done through the imaginary space of horror as I experienced it during my adolescence. This genre allowed me to understand certain aspects of the world. And this largely did not happen in French literature, although in Latin American literature. We’re not interested in the same narrative here: while magical realism exists, we care about it Nouveau Roman.
P. When you become a teenager, what will I tell you?
R. Ugh… no matter what. But I think I’ll try to get her some money. I wanted to confess my homosexuality, not meet love, go alone… I would try to reassure the child that I am. I’ll tell her not to worry, we’ll meet somewhere else.
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