With a profuse work in narrative and essays, José Balza (Tucupita, 1939) is one of the most respected authors of Venezuelan literature. A writer with a very studied work, today a reference and guide for many younger authors in his country. Juan Carlos Méndez Guédez and Juan Carlos Chirinos, among others, are two established writers residing in Spain who have dedicated themselves to glossing it and studying it carefully in recent years.
National Prize for Literature in Venezuela in 1991, frequent guest at Latin American and Spanish universities and with special recognition for his work at the Guadalajara International Book Fair in 2010, Balza republished this year in Spain, with the help of the publishing house Cátedra, Percussionone of his most celebrated novels, and whose first edition was published with Seix Barrall in 1982. An important part of Balza’s narrative work has its axis in the magical environment of the Orinoco River delta, his birthplace, a space of a dreamlike beauty, a jungle environment crossed by thousands of currents that form islands and the final arrival of the river’s fresh waters to the Atlantic Ocean.
Ask. What personal meaning does it have for you to have published your work in Spain again?
Answer. I think books have something personal while they are written; Then each reader makes them his own and can invent the author to his liking or forget him. Therefore, 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 appreciate the emerging Venezuelan narrative talent?
R. I am not a critic, I have had perceptions about any writer in our language and, apparently, those assessments were never wrong. What seems very different today has common links with what always happened: exiles (Rufino Blanco Fombona), denunciations (José Rafael Pocaterra); Literature is autonomous, if you comply with its nature, you can touch anything. But she will impose her demands on you.
Q. What do you appreciate about current Latin American lyrics?
R. It is essential to practice rehearsal, 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 in personality and thought; requires analysis, no matter how old you are. There are, here and in Spain, excellent and decisive essayists, but they are few.
Q. Other countries have been able to publicize the work of their writers helped by immigration processes. Is it a personal goal for your work to be read outside of Venezuela?
R. Writing is an eternal emigration, on earth and in time. You just need smart readers to stop at 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? Is there room to consider something similar to a national hope in this context?
R. Juan Carlos Méndez Guédez talks about María Lionza – a popular cult of Afro-Indigenous origin with a magical-religious nature – and the return of the goddesses to our unconscious as a solution and response to what we have. In the case of Venezuela, María Corina Machado seems to embody that return.
Q. His work is highly appreciated by many young Venezuelan narrators. Which of his 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, ignoring them, keeping silent about them. But that is not why we are going to live, I say this individually, cultivating the animality that surrounds us.
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