Venezuelan writer José Balza during an interview on September 16, 2019.KIKE PARA
With his extensive work of stories and essays, José Balza (Tucupita, 1939) is one of the most respected authors in Venezuelan literature. A writer with a very studied work that today is a reference and guide for many younger authors in his country. Juan Carlos Méndez Guédez and Juan Carlos Chirinos are, among others, two established writers based in Spain who have devoted themselves in recent years to the glossing and careful study of literature.
Balza was awarded the National Prize for Literature in Venezuela in 1991, was a regular guest at Latin American and Spanish universities, and received special recognition for his work at the Guadalajara International Book Fair in 2010. This year, with the help of the publisher Cátedra, Balza, Percussion in Spain Republished, one of his most famous novels, the first edition of which was published by Seix Barrall in 1982. An important part of Balza’s narrative work focuses on the magical environment of the Orinoco River Delta, his birthplace, a space of dreamlike beauty, a jungle environment crossed by thousands of currents that form islands, and the final arrival of the river’s fresh water in the Atlantic ocean.
Questions. What personal significance does it have for you to have your work republished in Spain?
Answer. I think that books, as they are written, have something personal about them; Then each reader makes it his own and can invent the author according to his taste or forget him. That’s why literature exists, and the older it is, the more current it is, as Francis Bacon wanted.
Q Your role as a critic is highly recognized. How do you assess the emerging Venezuelan storytelling talent?
R. I am not a critic, I have had my own ideas about every writer in our language and these assessments have apparently never been wrong. What seems very different today has similarities with what has always happened: banishments (Rufino Blanco Fombona), denunciations (José Rafael Pocaterra); Literature is autonomous, if you follow its nature you can touch anything. But she will impose her demands on you.
Q What do you value about current Latin American texts?
R. It is important to practice rehearsing, otherwise we will continue to be naive.
Q Are few essays written in the Hispanic American field?
R. The essay arises from a rare maturity of personality and thought; requires analysis no matter how old you are. There are excellent and determined essayists here and in Spain, but they are few and far between.
Q Other countries have been able to promote the work of their authors thanks to immigration processes. Is it a personal goal of your work to be read outside Venezuela?
R. Writing is an eternal emigration, on earth and in time. They just need smart readers to stop in front of them.
Q Could the Venezuelan diaspora become a vehicle for the global dissemination of national literature?
R. It depends on your culture.
Q How do you interpret the current Venezuelan reality? In this context, is there room to think about something similar to a national hope?
R. Juan Carlos Méndez Guédez talks about María Lionza – a popular cult of Afro-indigenous origin with a magical-religious character – and the return of the goddesses to our subconscious as a solution and answer to what we have. In the case of Venezuela, María Corina Machado seems to embody this return.
Q His work is highly appreciated by many young Venezuelan storytellers. Which of your novels or essays would you recommend as a cover letter?
R. I don’t know myself well enough for that.
Q How do you feel in Venezuela? Do you regret not having emigrated?
R. In this country, personal autonomy and creativity are humiliated, ignored and concealed. But that is not why we, I say individually, live and cultivate the animality that surrounds us.
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