Javier Vásconez: I cannot conceive of literature without the flow of memory

Javier Vasconez (Quito, 1946) is about to present his latest novel The Shadow Collector It is now available at local bookstores. With this work she participated in the Madrid Book Fair in October 2021. His books, published under the Pre-textos publishing house of Spain, took two months to arrive in Ecuador. “He arrived in Quito just a month ago,” he mentions. However, he affirms that his work is already circulating in Mexico, Colombia and the United States.

Javier Vásconez talks about ‘Casi de noche’, his latest short story anthology to revisit his literary narrative

In an interview with this newspaper, he says that this book is a kind of synthesis of all his previous books (although he makes it clear that he does not take it literally), but that it has its peculiarities. As its title says, its characters are surrounded by shadows. “The novel, like many of my previous books, has certain areas of darkness, a certain relationship with this gothic aesthetic”, points.

As expected, Quito is present –but not as the main stage–; He affirms that there are other cities where his story moves, such as London, Paris, Madrid, Guayaquil, among others.

How do you describe your work ‘The Shadow Collector’?

It has a complex structure and there is a Vásconez who acts as the narrator and another Vásconez –in the same novel– who is closer to the author. The Vásconez who acts as the narrator tells the story and the author writes about many chapters of my past, of my relationship with a school in England, where I was an intern for several years, a hard and complex experience for a child. There are also some episodes, some chapters that are located in Paris in the sixties, in which I was also, when I had a hard and complex experience from an epileptic crisis and I ended up in a hospital, all of that is told in the book.

-He makes a brief pause and continues to give an x-ray of his characters-

There is a story of Miss Zaldumbide, which was told to me by someone and I transcribed it practically completely. It is a gothic, dark story, it is the story of a very special woman.

There is also an interesting and important character like Count Aldo Velasteguí, whose mansion has a clandestine casino, where many things happen. In this casino there is a hectic night life, in which there is a series of political corruption activities and other levels. It is one of the main settings of the novel. By the way, a woman who rides a white Vespa motorcycle circulates through this casino, and she has a very peculiar and complex relationship with the count and later also with Vásconez.

He has Quito as one of his settings, once again this city is part of his book.

In this case, the city of Quito does not have the importance or myth that it has had in other books. It is simply a stage where human conflicts occur or take place.

It is known that in his novel he makes a kind of literary homage

Vásconez the writer is talking about a series of writers who have accompanied his life, whom he has read with great passion, with great interest. Writers like Melville, Rulfo, Faulkner, Nabokov, like many others. There are more than 30 writers who are named, but not cited. The relationship with reading with the reading process, with the pleasure of reading; Vásconez the writer’s relationship with literature is lively, intense, passionate. I wanted to give an agility as if I were in dialogue with the many books and the many writers who have accompanied me throughout my life in my library and in my thoughts.

In a review by Juan Cruz, for Babelia by The country, accentuate the presence of Jorge Luis Borges in his novel…

The presence of Borges at a given moment is quite noticeable in current literature, but not so much as a direct influence but rather as a relationship with other books and authors. Due to the fact that in the novel he speaks, portraits are made, he dialogues with many other writers.

What is the name of your work?

The writer is a collector of shadows, memories, images, photographs, gestures, dead people; It is as if all this circulated through his head, through his memory, in his memories. My novel is a great tribute to memory and remembrance, it is told in a very rote way.

I have always attached great importance to memory, I cannot conceive of literature without the flow of memory, memory is what in some way not only enriches, but of course distorts images, people’s lives and this It is present in a very clear way in this novel.

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In other words, his novels are a testimony of his experiences with a touch of fiction.

Of course, Vásconez (the writer) is permanently behind this novel in all its aspects, in his childhood, in his deep, complex, conflictive relationship with literature, in his relationship with epilepsy, in his relationship with women, with love, with the cities you have visited or in the cities you have lived. All my literature is shaped from that memory and those memories, not in a nostalgic way, but with a celebratory quality.

How was the writing process?

I finished this novel two years ago, it has been stalled – let’s say – due to a publishing crisis in Spain, then the pandemic came and the publication of the book took longer. I wrote it in two years, as you already know the first version I always write by hand, with a pen and then I transfer it to a computer, and that is where my process of correction, editing, review begins.

Among his most recognized works are The traveler from Prague (1996) and the inevitable tale Angelshark, my love (1982). They are almost 40 years of literary career. Have you ever felt that as a writer you have already told everything?

When I finished this novel, due to the way it is constructed and written, it could be believed as a goodbye to many aspects of my literature, and I also believed it a little; but a while ago I sat down again and suddenly started a little novel again, I don’t know how far it will go.

With literature there are no definitive answers, I don’t think that telling stories is the essence of literature. The stories, most of them, are already told. I insist that the way they are told is much more interesting and much richer, because at that moment a challenge begins with myself, how to seduce, how to provoke, how to drag the reader with new forms of writing, with new means.

Where to find the shadow collector?

At Mr. Books, Librimundi and Tolstoy Bookstore. (I)