Are you able to look at the books you have already written and choose a
favourite?
In concrete terms, as
far as literary quality is concerned, I always feel more connected to what I
have done recently. But then I may prefer the time I spent writing a particular
text, I can understand that I was happier, or that there was a fascination, or
that it led to a fascination that was more or less unrepeatable, at one time or
another. The writing of my first novel was a pinnacle in my life, in the sense
that it caused me to change tack and also made me understand who I am and who I
am as an author, but when it comes to what I am as a person, writing «O Nosso Reino» (our kingdom) was a time in which I entered a kind of wonderland, in
this case not of Alice but of Valter.
What does it take for you to feel ready to start writing?
Usually the book begins
when an insistent idea, of varying urgency, finds aesthetic expression in my
head. When a given idea presents itself to me as being literary. Eventually, my
intention is to write on many subjects. There’s a lot that worries me and I’d
like to write about. But I begin to write from the moment when one of these
ideas stands before me as a defined aesthetic, as if it itself were able
conquer its beauty. I would actually like to have greater freedom when deciding
the book I am going to write next, thinking «I’m interested in writing about
this subject, at the moment», but usually I am always seduced by the capacity of
a given embellishment, a certain expressive, discursive splendour, which
subjects can bring out.
And you are exacting. You are someone, who, if you’re not happy, begins
again.
Exactly. I’m getting
more and more demanding. Increasingly horribly demanding. In the sense that I
am developing stricter, more suffocating, more stubborn habits and ways of
writing. I am increasingly nervous as I write, and this nervousness might be
growing, which wasn’t so much the case in my early books. But the truth is that
I am convinced that I am getting to better books (he laughs).
What do you feel when you realise that there are many people out there
that really like your books?
It’s really gratifying.
I am somewhat disbelieving, in the sense that life is rushing by. No matter how
hard we put ourselves into something, the feeling that time is racing away from
us is very brutal, very powerful. So it is very easy – at the same time that I
am aware that I have written certain novels, and therefore I have the memory of
the work that each one of them involved – for me to feel that I am still a
child, in a sense. I get quite astonished by my age and therefore it’s hard for
me to believe the recognition, in the sense that many things within me are
still the things of the child that I remember, and so I am very grateful. I
think that what really motivates me is the knowledge that there are some people
who recognise, above all else, the honesty of my books; that they are books
that are truly committed to being good literature.
One of your fans was Saramago. Do you see this more as a blessing or a
curse?
It is a profound
blessing and it was very generous on his part; at the same time it was as if he
was bestowing responsibility. That is to say, he gave me the responsibility to
live up to what he had said. Saramago, in some way, is asking for this kind of
intensification of my abilities, regardless of whether or not people like the
result afterwards. In my mind, what I take from these compliments that they
make is this commitment to seriousness.
It seems that you are afraid of failing... Why do you write and for
whom?
I always write for the
same reason: because I feel uncomfortable and incomplete. When I allude to
Alice’s world, it has a lot to do with us entering into a plenitude that isn’t
immediately obvious. I have always been a little distressed about the world as
it is and I have always dreamed about a better world and better people and about
being better as well. As such, I believe that I write because of this, to be
better, to conceive maturation of thought and of humanity.
And will there be more books today than people willing to read them?
Yes, eventually. Above
all else, anyone who reads will never read what they want to, they might not
even read what deserves to be read. And a large proportion of citizens do not
read at all. It’s tragic that people don’t read. It’s tragic that we have come
to a citizenship that is a little devoid of quality, shall we say. People can
be very well-intentioned, they can be very good people, but they lack structure.
Anyone who does not read might be passing up on improving themselves, might be
passing up on educating themselves.
«I think that what
really motivates me is the knowledge that there are some people who recognise,
above all else, the honesty of my books»
