>> By: Armando Alzamora <<
The July 31 as part of the International Book Fair 2009 will be presented Second Book of Martin Roldan Ruiz, This love is not for sissies, a set of stories revolving around the theme of violence in football. The author graciously granted me this interview where we talked, about his publication and the classic that comes from two shared passions: writing and soccer. Who said these issues were not reconcilable?
AA: Martin, I have the certainty that your work, starting with generation car bomb and now with the emergence of this love is not for sissies, marks a kind of existential thread that are evident in your two great passions , ie, the underground rock and football, respectively. I must also admit that your approach to both expressions of our culture is very narrow, extreme I would say, pretty straightforward. I would like to tell us how you feel the transfer of these experiences to the plane of fiction?
MRR: Yeah, actually something that is characteristic of me is the passion for everything I do, even the simplest things. And that comes from childhood. Well, as a teenager when I participated in the underground spot I lived so intensely that allowed me to write generation car bomb. Now, parallel to this, and like every urban child, I always liked going to the stadium with friends in the neighborhood. From a very young going to the famous doublets or triplets to go see Alliance, even though we lived in Brena. A Sometimes we had no input, but prayed for an older person to make us enter in those times when even let in a child with a person over the stadium. That hobby that later became militant, so far, is the material that has allowed me to write the story of this love is not for sissies, based in violence around football fans. But watch out, there are tales of football, rather in the context surrounding this sporting event, try human issues such as marginalization, alienation, social conflict, framed in terms of urban violence.
As for how I am writing these experiences. Shape is cool something you have lived, near or not, and forge a work that will identify people who read it. But, always trying to express in the most honest and sincere. I had the need to express certain aspects of reality that was playing in my novel generation car bomb, but obviously had to be from another perspective, from another perspective, and I could tell that inside a bar in which I participate, were reflected. So in 2004 or so I start the first story and so on to end the seven that comprise it.
AA: On the latter, tell us some details about the process of writing and editing this new publication to be presented, as I have understood, on 31 July in the IDF ...
MRR: In 2004 was that I decided to write stories about the bar. He was carrying the narrative workshop San Marcos, and wanted to take advantage of what I was learning. In this workshop I presented the story Who are the culprits? -In the book is simply titled Guilty "and I remember that got the highest mark. From then on the following workshops, presented two more stories on the same topic. I remember Professor Antonio Gálvez Ronceros, asked if I planned to write a book of stories on this topic, to which I replied that that was my intention. I said that was fine, because these stories were well received, even sparked a conversation about football with him, who is a fan of Hall. I remember that we asked a South American goal of 53 in Lima, in which Brazil beat Peru. It was a privilege to hear how he described the move, pass, and holding the auction. You can imagine, there was no television, and supporters recorded their memories of memorable plays. Another encouraged me to continue writing stories such workshop was Professor Jorge Valenzuela. Two'm really quite grateful, because I was accepted as a pupil free and because I learned a lot with them, especially the stories in this book.
Later there was a downturn, could not write anything, and that certain events limited my imagination and my desire. Until I met a very special person, whose closeness gave me that peace and tranquility necessary to write the four remaining stories of this love is not for sissies and others that I have for another kind of book. For those moments with her, is that I dedicate. Then with the necessary stories, it was necessary to publish it. I had taken independently generation car bomb, and was reaping the benefits of parts sales, which would not let me out of the same way. But I was lucky enough to go to the presentation of the world without Xotchil of Miguel Gutierrez and I met Gabriel Ruiz Ortega I had met recently. With him was a friend who turned out to be the standard editor, David Abanto. Talking to them I asked, not knowing that David was, how she could get a manuscript to a publisher. It is there that tells me David is the editor of Standard. Well I explained what they were stories. I said no commitment to make them go. Well, while I gave him the stories and after a few days ago I wrote saying that he liked, and he was going to propose to the editorial. From there, everything has happened so fast that we are within days of filing.
AA: Two years ago we had the opportunity to publish a story Yours in the missing narrative magazine Other Voices. Then I remember what struck me about your prose was the domain agile language of the bars. Since it personally, I tell you that for three years I was a member of the North Trench, so I know the codes and jargon used in that context. For this and my literary vocation, I admit it is a highly complex work to move this language to a scriptural level, and even more, to be effective and credible in fiction. How would you describe your relationship with this language? Do you consider yourself part of experiential learning or exploration?
MRR: It was very difficult to tell you, because I am a barrister and I have lived with them for years, and I soaked in their language and codes. So when you configured a character like this, the way we talk and how I think is irrelevant. However, in the literary, this is something that the workshops always wondered: how effective was to use the language of these groups in the characters to make it more believable or credible voice 'bidding? Because there are different views. To say, when I brought the workshop Jara Cromwell in 2002, I submitted a story about a criminal with a tragic fate. Well, the language used was typical of a lumpen. And Cromwell advised me not to use too much it would confuse to an uninformed reader criminal slang. That conflicted with my belief from my reading of Reynolds, who was introduced to the urban slang Peruvian narrative. Later in the workshop in San Marcos invited the same Reynoso, and read us a preview of his recent book The enjoyment of the skin, where the character Malte-Reynoso said that it had taken from Rainer Maria Rilke, is a boy marginal which commands a speck in the neighborhood. What we read was a passage with a very beautiful language, which again collided with what I thought was right, how some guys marginal, could speak so poetically? I posed the question and said something I'll never forget: "In this case, the language is also fiction. " And then he explained that despite using jargon he wanted was to create beauty through language, and jargon could also serve this purpose. Then who are we?, I thought, was it okay to use as they discuss how to make a character believable or not? The answer would come days later when the teacher Ronceros Galvez said the story Man on Pink Corner of Borges. There is a passage where the narrator, a braggart, a man from the slums of Buenos Aires, refers to the beauty of a character called The Lujanera. As an uneducated person, speaking in slang, and having no words to express the beauty of this woman, uses figures to speak. And it's true then that I realized that among people in the bar when they find the words to express something as manifested by figures. There was the key!: The jargon has to be present if necessary, but if used in a complementary way that helps the rapid understanding, it is better that way, literally, for without losing the essence of language of a specific group human, you are creating beauty at a time. In that sense to me, was an experiential learning and exploration, right?
AA: I'd like to talk now about football. I have understood the story I read and what they tell me that your book is focused from the perspective of a fan Alliance. What football moments, happy or bitter, you have marked as a fan? I, for example, as a fan of the U, I would say that perhaps my greatest joy was in '99 when champions in Matute, but I remember very bitter moments, like the last Copa Libertadores and the famous 6 to 3. What about Roland Ruiz as a fan of Alianza Lima?
MRR: They started the trouble (laughs). For me, being a fan of Alliance is one of the best things that have happened. I thank my father for making me Alliance, for having led to the inauguration of the Alliance stage when I was five, I remember passages from that experience, and also for instilling the love for the colors and everything it stands for that team to Peru. As for now there are many happy and sad, but I do not usually fall into the tragedy that was the saddest of 87. Perhaps for many it was, myself included, but as a fan militant for me there are moments that are even sadder. Happy moments as well. Is this to be one hundred percent supporter, goes beyond a football game. As one slogan: "There are ninety minutes is a lifetime."
AA: Do you think your work could speak of identity, in the sense that is construction represented certain individuals make of themselves? Let's say the bar fight between the story told in Guilty, where players run between the excessive bravado and panic. I mean, beyond the rivalry, and even representations of your book, can you talk about identity and identity Alliance cream? I would like to know your opinion.
MRR: Sure there are. In the imagery of football both communities are well defined and differentiated and represent what is Peru in some form or another. Vast to read the discussion forums of the fans of both teams for you to realize what is prejudice, discriminations, desires and aspirations of both swollen. For example, between the Alliance is a strong identity of people and proximity to popular culture since its inception. This sets an identity of sacrifice and tragic, for all that has happened to the club in its history. But he has always known how to get ahead, but not one of the most important institutions and has the most fans in Peru, according to recent polls. So, this leads to believe that the creams are all white, pitucos, and therefore cowardly. One of the plates with which the call is the goats''.'' That is a legacy of years ago where the slum considered to forma.En blanquitos that those of University despite his great drive in different popular sectors, still have, perhaps unconsciously, that idiosyncrasy with which they were identified for a long time, the identity of the white and wealthy. Just look at the insults that refer to supporters of Alliance, where racism is latent, although many of his fans very well could be included. Or the thought of higher believed to have been created for college students, unlike Alliance was born of old friends, "or to have more championships or have a large stadium in a residential area. That thinking includes their fans, from the marginal to the most accommodated. It is your identity, and although I know they want to change that mindset, it is difficult, because it still remains So Peru is not what is reflected there?
AA: On another subject, in a conversation we had a few months ago, we commented on the book by Donald Shaw New Latin American narrative (Chair, 1981) and the specificity that is assigned to this genus in our continent, as trend has been suggested from the beginning to the nation building projects to insert into the collective imagination. I have a skeptical attitude about it because I believe that this position ignores other aspects transcendental characteristic present in our narrative. In this sense, what I would consider it important to know if the author withdraws his work through the political and social problems in which we live, or build rather than the aspects that define the specifics''of''our literature are related the expressive level?
MRR: First, and I speak from my experience, the writer should write what his conscience dictates, but you must write without forgetting that what you are doing is art. One can talk about whatever, but always bearing in mind that I say. Believe it or not I do not pretend that in my written stories or have a complaint of this or that thing, I just express what certain things bother me. If the reader sees in it a complaint about something or not is up to them, but what concerns me is not my intention to denounce anything because that would not be literature but propaganda. Now, if there is a need to report certain things, because there are more effective and consistent than a novel or a cuento.Lo I do not rule out, is that everything you write, whether it's a fantastic story, you ship necessarily reality. I do not try to fudge things, if I'm writing a historical moment in the country, and I have to say that the president is a murderer, I'll say. In Generation car bomb, before denouncing something, my intention was that they knew one aspect of those terrible years from the point of view of the subways, as happened to me with Conversation in the Cathedral of Vargas Llosa, in the fifties. So I think that helps us get to know each as Peruvians, and contributes to the national project that you mention in your question.
AA: It was very much in vogue as a result of your participation, together with Julio Rafael Durand and naive, in colloquium''War and Literature "developed last year in Lima, typecast in a group of writers'' marginal''they write on topics related to political violence. And yet, I read statements from where they were branded as renegades to misunderstood. Does class consciousness false claim that statements issued by certain individuals from their place of enunciation are accurate or close to a supposed truth? Ie, how to pretend that Cueto type as Innocent or vice versa? Do not you think maybe that it is a misjudgment?
MRR: Yeah, and that no less a work, for a story or a novel is the acme of all that an individual has with him. I'm not going to write something to try, to tell you, violence has affected both the Peruvians, and is similar views to those of a person who has grown in different same city environments. Each has a different view. That's the beauty of literature, it can give a different view on one thing. Now that is valid or not, that escapes the authors. I did not seek validity in a play for that, but in other respects they are on the side of feelings, not rational. For such a case I read an essay and not a novel or story. If a piece of me moves me, whether the topic is, and written by anyone, it seems valid. So in terms Simple.as have me pigeonholed as a writer marginal, it is because car bomb Generation published independently, and because I have not appeared in the media that allegedly operated by a mafia, but I am not aware, nor do I care about the truth. In any case, now that he published in an MNC, as Editorial Norma, and surely will have more media attention because they no longer fit within the marginal. That to me does not care. Although I will say that I have never liked the labels, but they are inevitable. And about that that I am a renegade, and misunderstood, that left some comments on a blog, comments released without any support. Because, first, do not know me personally, and because they said that discussion group was following the publication of the latest novel by Iván Thays, other false thing because it was organized to discuss how the violence had given the creation of our novels. And that's what I focused on my speech. I will not be so silly, you have few opportunities to talk about my book and I will waste my time talking about another author, do not you think?
AA: Finally, after two years from your appearance on the literary scene with Generation car bomb, how do you see your work received by critics and the general public? How are you doing on the job and what are your expectations?
MRR: For me the best critic is the reader, that is what interested me because it tells you if your work is truly valid or not. So that readers have written me Peruvians and foreigners who have been leerla, contándome sus impresiones, las cuales son positivas, me hace sentir satisfecho de que hice un buen trabajo. Aparte las palabras de escritores con buen nombre dentro de la literatura peruana, quienes han destacado ciertos aspectos de Generación cochebomba, me confirman este pensamiento.En cuanto a mis expectativas, lo único que deseo es poder escribir todos los libros que pueda escribir, y si son publicados de la forma que sea, con una editorial o independientemente, pues colmaran esas expectativas.
AA: El domingo ganamos…
MRR: “Ganamos” se refiere a que me hablas de la mayoría y en ese aspecto como Alianza Lima es el Perú y el Perú es Alianza Lima, pues de hecho we win or do you doubt? (Laughs).
AA: A pleasure, Martin. Thanks for the interview. And give U!
MRR: Asumare, or hookah comes with the thing (laughs) ... Top Alliance for a lifetime!
Photo: Rocío F. MRR
replies
1. Ribeyro:
-Master of stories.
2. Vargas Llosa: Maestro
-narrative.
3. Oswaldo Reynoso:
-Master in the search for beauty of language.
4. Miguel Gutierrez:
-Master in the commitment literature.
5. Novel: "A whole
6. Story:
-All of the ephemeral.
7. Rock Underground:
-rebellious youth movement and honest as ever in Peru.
8. Daniel F.:
Pinglo "After the best composer of popular music of Peru.
9. Alianza Lima:
"One of the ways of feeling and love for Peru.
10. University:
"The other way and the eternal rival to beat in all aspects.
