Lucia Sharun-Illescas returns with her masterful novel Malambo: “My characters are people who fight.”

If, as Honoré de Balzac argued, the novel is the personal history of peoples, thenMalambo”, a master book of the writer Lucia Charun-Illescas which was re-released after 21 years and was presented a few days ago at FIL Lima 2022, this is the B-side of our colonial era, an approach to the world of those who until now have barely been represented in our national literature.

Because with its historical vein, the title of what is considered the first Afro-Peruvian writer tells about the vicissitudes of the characters who inhabited the area of ​​enslaved blacks and maroons in Lima in the 16th or 17th century. A place known as Malambo, on the banks of the Rimac River, where Andean culture also converged and which today, ironically in modern colonialism, bears the name of Francisco Pizarro.

“I started the novel many years before [de 2001]”he thought Lucia Charun-Illescas a RPP News. “I started, left, fixed and returned. We writers have a thousand jobs because writing is a long-term investment. Until then, we must survive. In addition, I was engaged in historical research. read already published documents about that time. And, of course, this is also quite fantastic. This is a literary creation,” he added.

In your presentation, I heard that as an Afro-Peruvian you were curious to explore your African roots, which opened up a whole new horizon. He even encouraged more Afro-Peruvians to do the same. Was this the starting point for writing “Malambo”?

Yes, I had no identification with the characters of recognized or famous novels in national literature, except for “Matalache” by López Albujar, very old, and “Monologues of Darkness” and “Siren’s Song”. “. These three novels, very good and written by men, are rural novels. They do not represent Afro Lima. And that was one of my gaps. How is it possible that we are not in our national history. There is only one page in educational programs, dedicated to the abolition of slavery.

“Malambo” is also a portrait of Lima, with all its social flaws typical of the time, but with architecture and geography recreated with a great sense of detail. What books do a writer like you turn to when he wants to sit down and write something?

Firstly, the muses are calling, because there are no muses, the muses are female (laughs). It works! It’s sweat! To sit down to write is to rewrite. You can have all the material, but there is no other way to create than to sit down. And, of course, there is a certain skill that at some point you have, you learn.

In learning to write, what readings have marked you, helped you write in a certain way, or found a tone?

Well, yes, I read a lot at times before the classics. For example, [Alejo] Carpentier, a representative of beautiful realism. I’m very interested in – excuse me for always saying “authors” because there are definitely few women in Latin American literature. I have read all the authors boom, which are also mentioned by many North American authors and draw a parallel between the south of North America and some landscapes of Colombia or Mexico. The fact of reading them affects our understanding of life, and this is what the author or author is looking for: that there be continuity in what is written.

There is another reason that makes Malambo an attractive novel. And it is precisely the musicality of his prose, his verbal richness that unites Afro-Blackisms, Quechuisms, and the Castilian period. Its beginning already gives us indications of what the reader can expect. Do you think hearing is something trainable?

I come from an unconventional family. My parents were orphans and I have no family tradition. I can’t say what my grandparents told me, they told me what I know. I had to discover many things myself, traveling through the interior and sitting down to listen to people. This is personal musicianship. There are people who have a certain musicality in the language, in the language. My mother is an educated person, she read. Therefore, as a child, I listened to their manner of speaking. I have a certain musicality. Since childhood, I have had a wide language thanks to reading. I write and read aloud what I have written. What I say must ring out. This is where I think I made it.

There are passages in the novel that I find amusing. In the description of Manuel de la Piedra, for example, you write: “Between the clouds of blonds and redheads, between height and fifty, he seemed not to care that his size, in spite of the belt, was already unhindered in favor of a prominent belly, disordered and plump, like a clay pot from Guadalajara.” Are you aware of your sense of humor?

Yes, yes (laughs). I understand, and sometimes I feel like I’m out of control. It’s my personality that is a little teasing at times, a little disrespectful. But I have fun, because the author or the author should have fun when he writes. I’m not one to take myself too seriously in this regard. I drop the topic and when I read, I enjoy it. This is how I interpret the creative process.

If a historical novel can mean a confrontation with the past, what aspects do you think you have portrayed in your novel that have survived to this day?

Perhaps the main aspect: Thomason, the artist, comes to the point where he realizes not only his slavery, but also his closeness to death, so to speak, and there is a person who tells him to think about what he is doing. while doing. And these are slaves, maroons. He takes his life into his own hands and leaves. And this is the idea. One must take life into one’s own hands. The images of the enslaved that we have are usually of a passive nature. The idea of ​​an enslaved Afro-Peruvian is that of a celebratory, happy person not very aware of their culture and past. And my characters are people who fight, defend themselves, who have individuality. These are not tragic characters. “Matalake” is a tragic slave figure recurring in the novels of the time.

I understand that you started writing a novel with a woman as the main character, but in the end Thomason imposed himself.

Yes, it’s true, I wanted to put a woman as the main character, but she was a young woman, and Thomason, I believed that she had life experience, as well as the memory of African ancestors. I thought it was important for the character to live through both eras.

This does not mean that the female characters have a strong presence. Does your position as a feminist filter out when defining these types of characters?

Definitely. The women in the novel are strong and determined. One of them is looking for her father, who disappears, and goes all the way from childhood, almost adolescence to his growing up. I think the female characters are critical to the development of the novel.

I read that you have two more novels ready for publication. Could you tell us some details?

The theme is the same: Afro-Peruvianism, Afro-characters in the evolution of history. They are not only part of this coastal world, but of all that Peru is. The African American presence is often centered on the coast, but the Afro-Andean culture is still present and we are not very aware of it. For example, little blacks from Huanuco, from Pasco, brunettes, the dance of the black capaca, which is a representation of people who existed, had a life, no doubt, a profession… We need to work a little on this topic. We don’t pay attention to the Africans in the Andes.

“my favorite novel“: Great Works of Classical Literature with Commentary by Nobel Laureate Mario Vargas Llosa. An RPP production for all Hispanic listeners.

Clorina Matto de Turner wrote 3 novels, and “Aves sin nido” is the first novel of the indigenous peoples of Latin America. He denounces the injustice of the landlords and the exploitation of the peasants.