Javier Cercas has taken possession of the R chair of the Royal Spanish Academy, vacant since the death of Javier Marías. At the entrance ceremony at the Academy, the writer gave the speech ‘Misunderstandings of modernity. A manifesto’, in which he defended the usefulness of literature. «Authentic literature is composed of words in rebellion, and hence it represents a danger for power, for any power, which for that reason – because it only wants submissive citizens, people who say Yes – will always aspire to control it, to subject it, to tame it; If it were up to him, don’t hesitate: he would ban it immediately,” he said. “Is there anything more useful than that?”
The author of works such as ‘Soldiers of Salamina’ or ‘Anatomy of an Instant’ had words of praise for Javier Marías, whose chair he now occupies. “He was one of the great Spanish novelists of the last century, perhaps one of the great Spanish novelists simply.” He used his way of understanding literature to define what identifies great writers: “They do not reflect reality, they do not even recreate it: great writers invent it.”
That said, Cercas denied several “misunderstandings” that have plagued literature for some time now. Firstly, he denied that the writer ignores his time and his peers; On the contrary: “He assumes that the best thing he can do to be useful to them is to focus on his work and, at least temporarily, isolate himself from their time and their peers.” Cercas also denied the belief that the protagonist of literature is the author. “False: the protagonist of literature is the reader, who is the one who finishes the books.”
The new academic also refuted the argument that a successful novel is equivalent by definition to a bad novel: “According to her, ‘Don Quixote’, which was one of the most read books of its time, would imply ‘some form of defeat.’ artistic’, just like the dramas of Shakespeare». He argued that “literature is above all a pleasure, like sex,” and also “a form of knowledge of oneself and others.” Literature, he stated, “is useful as long as it does not set out to be useful: as soon as it sets out to be useful, it becomes propaganda or pedagogy, and it stops being literature, at least real literature, and it stops being useful.”
On behalf of the RAE, academic Clara Sánchez welcomed him to Cercas. The author was elected academic at the plenary session held on June 13, 2024. His candidacy was presented by the academics Pedro Álvarez de Miranda, Clara Sánchez and Mario Vargas Llosa. Cercas has a degree in Spanish Philology and his works have been translated into more than thirty languages, with many awards received in numerous countries, from the National Narrative Prize or the Planeta Prize in Spain to the Prix André Malraux or the Prix Méditerranée in France .
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