Burly and marked by disappointments, but with a childish gesture behind his thick-lensed glasses, Juan Manuel de Prada (Baracaldo, Vizcaya, 1970) takes his usual place at Café Varela. He chooses a table by the window. It's raining outside for no reason. He is on a tour for the release of the second volume of the novel A Thousand Eyes Hide the Night (Espasa), titled Prison of Darkness. The novel regains, as everyone knows, the essence of The Masks of the Hero, which garnered astonishment 30 years ago. And its protagonist, Fernando Navales (fervent Falangist, resentful and histrionic), comes from that first narrative world of this writer.
But for this new adventure, De Prada has placed his literary rooster in Paris during World War II. Between 1940 and 1944. All the characters in this twisted tableau are real except the protagonist. And through the pages pass Ana María Martínez Sagi, César González-Ruano, Picasso, Manuel Viola, black marketeers, Nazis from occupied France, rogues, scoundrels, hustlers, Gregorio Marañon, Pedro Flores, Sebastián Gasch, María Casares, Emilio Grau Sala, Carles Fontseré... Each with their hunger, their shadows, and their condemnation. A Thousand Eyes Hide the Night has 1,600 pages and is an Everest of vibrant, baroque writing. Of tremendous stories. Of much cold inside and out.
Is this return to the world of your first novel, 'Las máscaras del héroe', published almost 30 years ago, a necessity, a strategy, or a recovery of the pulse of that amazing writer?
It's more natural. I have always been interested in the backstage of literature and art. I consider the literary and artistic canon to be a setup. This is not to propose a discussion about all the great individuals who have made history, but I believe that understanding an era also comes from knowing its aesthetic trends and cultural atmosphere. And that is provided by the second-tier figures. People who, although they may have been marginalized, are not, in many cases, less talented but have been silenced (sometimes) due to reasons unrelated to that talent.
In other words: you return to failure as a theme.
I have always been interested in it. My initial idea for this novel was to bring back one of the characters from Las máscaras del héroe, Fernando Navales, and delve with him into the times of the Civil War. The thing is, writing a novel about the Civil War from Navales' perspective (a fervent Falangist) is like inviting criticism.
And you chose the Paris from 1940 to 44, during World War II, full of exiles, Nazis, and hunts of spies and Falangists.
Following the biography I dedicated to Ana María Martínez Sagi, among the many archives I consulted were the French ones, necessary to document her years in Paris during World War II. There, to my surprise, I found police records of almost all Spanish artists, writers, and journalists who were in Paris during those years. It is very juicy information that allows us to understand their intimate lives, connections, and cultural and political activities. Almost all Spanish writers and artists who lived in Paris during the years of World War II and the Nazi occupation of France remained silent. In my opinion, the only ones who write somewhat extensively and in detail about their experience there are César González-Ruano and the Catalan poster artist Carles Fontseré.
Ruano, a histrionic character with questionable attitudes...
He creates a personal mythology full of gaps, silences, and lies. Fontseré is more interesting because he reveals everything. He confirms that he collaborated with the anti-Semitic press, did business with the Nazis, with the black marketeers, and, like him, everyone else. He is a very raw character who plays a significant role in the second part of my novel.
Ruano doesn't come out unscathed either.
It's not that bad. For example, I absolve him of something I believe to be untrue: the legend that he handed over Jews to the Nazis. He was unscrupulous, a rogue, a scoundrel, and to make a living, he engaged in businesses that many others did as well, even if they kept quiet about it. Among his activities was selling forged artworks in cahoots with the painter Manuel Viola, who, by the way, was the one who spread that dark story of denouncing Jews in Madrid. Falsifying documents, well, like so many others. It's there in Ana María Martínez Sagi... But handing over Jews...
You propose a desacralization of part of the exile, people who had to engage in unpleasant dealings to navigate through life's hardships.
Well, everyone has to navigate through life's hardships at some point. Especially in circumstances as distressing and needy as those. One of the greatest disservices to Spanish society, under the guise of remembering the past, is creating untouchable models. Presenting characters from those years as flawless men or women erected as civic models is absurd, in my view. I regret to say that not everyone is fit to be a model of anything, and this, in my opinion, fuels fanaticism and generates puritanical fictions.
But there were also those who maintained their dignity.
Of course. Although not as many as they try to make us believe. Remaining silent about that is upholding a great ceremony of hypocrisy. In 1940 and 41, the majority thought that Hitler was going to win the war. Those who had to leave Spain because their ideological positions were untenable under Franco's regime and upon arriving in France found themselves facing Hitler's advance, it's normal for them to give up. At least until 1942, when the war's outlook began to change, and for many, adapting to the situation meant collaborating in Falange's cultural activities because it guaranteed them some sort of safe passage amid such scarcity. I find it quite human.
You have voluntarily placed yourself in a literary territory that is out of step. Do you consider yourself a well-understood writer?
I consider myself an anachronistic writer.
Anachronistic.
Yes, but not in the banal sense of being outdated but from the awareness of being out of sync with my time. In fact, I believe that an artist's mission is to be anachronistic. As Chesterton said, one must escape the degrading enslavement of being a child of their time.
What bothers you?
Political correctness, fears of cancellation, and the disciplining imposed by all ideologies. Whether it's feminism, LGBTQ+,... If you pay attention to that, you can hardly write about anything. It's insane.
Some of these movements are necessary for a certain social progress.
But they must engage in dialogue within themselves to understand that they cannot stifle artistic expression or sensitivity. Otherwise, we will end up in absolute bankruptcy. And we must add to this the squabbles of petty politics that corrupt everything.
When you are accused of being a "fascist," do you understand it?
It's like the fable of the emperor's new clothes. There are political commissars who dictate what can be written and what cannot. And there are idiots among the hypothetical readers and writers who accept those rules... "Fascist"? I couldn't care less. There are many people who read me... even in secret.
Humor is another ingredient of 'Mil ojos esconde la noche'.
The main work of our literature, Don Quixote, is a humorous work. And the most characteristic genre, the picaresque novel, is pure humor. In this novel, humor is irreverent and somewhat surreal. Humor is a way to pass through the many censors that weigh on our spirits today.
This book is released in the year of the fiftieth anniversary of Franco's death and the events linked to that date.
Enough decades have passed for Francoism to be analyzed with some impartiality. The views that attempt to perpetuate about Francoism seem stereotypical and simplistic to me. Francoism had many faces. It underwent tremendous evolution. It is related to fascism, but Franco began to change course in 1942.
Towards what.
Towards other things. When the war ended, Falange was nothing like what it used to be. It was no longer a fascism but almost a Christian democratic bureaucracy and gradually became irrelevant. By the late 1940s, those in power in Spain were from Opus Dei. And from 1944 onwards, Franco's deference to England and the USA was total. The image of Francoism with purges and rampant executions in 1939 has nothing to do with Francoism in the mid-40s, or the 50s and 60s.
There were purges, the death penalty, and a lot of repression...
Oh yes, of course. But Francoism presents itself primarily as an anti-communist regime, like the Americans. Regarding executions for political reasons, they decreased significantly. Commutations of the death penalty for prison sentences were almost universal from the early 40s.
It's not just about repression and killing...
I don't deny that there were many deaths, for example in prisons. What I don't believe is true is that Spain lived under fascism for 40 years. Franco was a pragmatic military man who contorted his authoritarianism to adapt to historical circumstances.