Young poets have always held a fascination. The most famous: Arthur Rimbaud, who left everything in writing at the age of 19. There were others, closer in space and time: Claudio Rodríguez, Elena Medel, Luna Miguel. Then the young poets cease to be. Some because they stop being poets, like Rimbaud who became an arms dealer. And others because they stop being young. Mario Obrero, 19, is still a poet and he’s young, a jackpot-winning child prodigy, a star student of Juan Carlos Mestre and possessor of an unusual oratory that mixes poetry, poise and commitment. The hair, disheveled as if by an electrical influence. And, no less important, he’s nice.
Now Obrero is also a young TV presenter. He hosts the show Un país para leerlo, on La 2, which travels around Spain to meet its writers but above all to explore its literary scenes. Watching the show, one wonders what makes a city “literary”. That there are writers, bookstores, meetings, presentations and all the paraphernalia of the “world”? That some notable works are taking place in its streets? Or is it a condition of precedent inherent in history, in customs, in people, in the kind of evocation and imagination that literature favors? It is unclear.
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A country to read is presented as a literary journey and can shed light on this: the celebrities of the city compete with those of the interviewees in every episode, because local booksellers, corners, landscapes or anonymous passers-by appear who recommend books (as well as others Writers or journalists: there are so many books recommended throughout this program that the narrative breaks up at times and creates a certain anxiety about reading). Reading clubs or readers in a Tenerife prison are also visited: the readers, the often forgotten basis of this whole literature hype.
The format follows the same pattern as Un país para escucharlo, with Ariel Rot, with the musicians; A land of laughter, with Goyo Jiménez, with the comedians; o Caminos del Flamenco, with Miguel Poveda, with other musicians, the flamencos. With an impeccable account, Obrero travels to Granada, Bilbao, Tenerife or Barcelona, places where he walks with soundtrack and slow motion (here the cities always look beautiful as models) and meets writers, some of whom we as “emerging” and some of those we might call “dedicated”. In Granada, two poets: the ubiquitous Luis García Montero and Rosa Berber. In Barcelona Enrique Vila-Matas and Najat El Hachmi. Check out Agur and Aixa de la Cruz in Bilbao. Or Andrea Abreu and Juan Cruz on Tenerife. For now.
The good thing about talking about books is that everything fits in, so you talk about books about everything (although the interviews on this show sometimes focus too much on the book situation or the latest release). During her visit to Tenerife, Abreu, author of the successful novel Panza de burro (Barret), compares the toxicity of a volcano with that of literature and justifies the craft that the writer has when writing is not enough: she was a museum receptionist, a waitress , a dancer in a hotel, an underwear seller or a journalist. “Being a writer is not an absolute must for me, I don’t rule out working as a salesperson again if it really overwhelms me,” she says.
The writer Andrea Abreu talks to Mario Obrero in the episode dedicated to Tenerife.
In Barcelona, Vila-Matas, who is definitely not a TV personality, fantasizes about the possibilities of hotel rooms: “They allow you to have a different space, to change your personality, to be someone else: I’m passionate about opening doors and seeing what’s mine like.” wait”. He also says that in these times it is impossible to achieve immortality thanks to literature: “It is normal to think that everything will be forgotten.” And in Granada, García Montero talks about how the recent death of his partner, the writer Almudena Grandes, made him aware of the vulnerability that binds us, and also recalls how reading united the couple and made them Negotiating light through its light cycles Dreams: “I had to learn to sleep while she had the light on to read, and to keep her asleep when I turn it on at five in the morning to continue reading.” And Obrero takes the opportunity to quote the poem A house by the Asturian Berta Piñán, which demonstrates that there is a plane.
The literary programs on TV, what a strange thing. In less postmodern times, it was said that taste in reading conflicted with taste in the “idiot’s box,” as the device was called. However, there were literary programs: the long-lived and neutral Página dos, which has been on La 2 since 2007, or that of Fernando Sánchez Dragó, a controversial writer but who has probably made the best television about books in Spain with spaces like Black on White in La 2 or Las Noches Blancas on Telemadrid. Also El mundo por montera, which turns to the esoteric, where Fernando Arrabal said that “millennialism will arrive”. And the truth is that it has arrived. Without forgetting Kiko Matamoros who, in addition to being a character in Mediaset fantasies, is also an unexpected and reliable literary typist on social networks.
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