Eder. Óleo de Irene Gracia
Iván Thays
Herta Muller, un poco confundida en medio de tanto escándalo. Fuente: expansion Luego de leer varios artículos -la mayoría de ellos a favor- del Premio Nobel a Herta Muller, encuentro en los blogs de The Guardian un post muy interesante del prestigioso Robert McCrum que intenta unir el premio Booker a Hilary Mantel con el Nobel a Muller. Y lo hace siguiendo una regla fundamental: » it’s the work, not the life, that matters». McCrum es más que convincente. Celebremos, entonces, ya sin reparos, mientras esperamos que aparezcan por Lima los libros de doña Herta. Dice:Müller suffered horribly under Ceaucescu, and her work has been shaped by political repression. Mantel’s early adult life was blighted by a debilitating, undiagnosed illness. Müller committed herself to her writing in great privation and obscurity. Mantel laboured for years on a book (A Place of Greater Safety) that was repeatedly rejected, and finally shoved into a drawer before its belated publication in 1992. Now, after years of quiet dedication, both women have been fully recognised. This underlines a fundamental truism I have always believed about the book world: it’s the work, not the life, that matters. This sounds banal, no doubt, but consider the environment in which books and writers exist today. It’s a world of publicity and pre-publicity; whispers, gossip, buzz; in-house meetings and book-trade conferences; interviews and lunches; puffs and quotes; a cat’s cradle of hype and expectation, almost all of it to do with the life and character of the author, not his or her book. Then, once the book is published, it goes on: literary festivals, broadcasts on TV and radio, dinners, lunches, breakfasts, drinks, translators’ conference calls, platform appearances ? on and on, a 24/7 cycle of activity, none of it to do with putting words on the page in the tranquillity of an empty room. The life, in other words, takes over from the work. For prizewinners, all this is especially true, a blessing followed by a curse. So I celebrate Hilary Mantel and Herta Müller. They’ve both got a hell of a year ahead of them. With a bit of luck, their work will emerge at the other end, stronger and triumphant. Let’s hope so.
