"For me, writing is an artistic impulse more than a profession, and it's something I will continue to do as long as I can, because it gives meaning to my life. It's a way of being, of being in the world". Leaning against the bar, Jaume Benavente simultaneously sips a Vichy and a black coffee. The strains of Serenade for a renegade by the Esbjörn Svensson Trio fill the morning tranquility of the Bar, and the author looks back: a lifetime of writing, of a literary nomadism "where the journey is not only a narrative strategy, but represents the very motive of writing." The means and the end. A personal use cartography where travel and the countless colors of the human soul converge. "My own characters guide me towards the development of each work," he clarifies.
Anna Tomás once defined him as an emotional, reflective, and descriptive writer. "I think she was right ---he sips a mouthful of coffee---, because I seek a calculatedly slow rhythm that allows the reader to immerse themselves in the atmosphere, in the plot, in the conflict, in the landscape, in the chorus formed by the voices of the characters that weave the story."
Slow-cooked narrative with an atypical and very personal perspective in the current landscape of Catalan literature. "I had always wanted to be a writer and explorer, to travel, discover, and tell stories. But when I started, I did so by writing poetry in Spanish." His transition to narrative was worthy of a Thomas Mann novel. "During military service, I ended up in a sanatorium to recover from a tuberculous ganglion, and there, in that peace, in the middle of the mountain, I began to write narrative and to do so in my own language," he recalls.
He studied Fine Arts, a period he remembers as one of the happiest, and has earned a living in the cultural field, dedicating himself to museum conservation and cultural management. Meanwhile, tirelessly, he has woven a literary corpus that includes about twenty works, including novels, short stories, and travel books, with forays into theater and poetry, and which have received prestigious awards such as the Pin i Soler, the Roc Boronat for short novel, or the Ramon Muntaner. Even so, he has never lived from writing: "I haven't even considered it at any point."
From the Atlantic to the Pacific, with stops in Europe
In addition to the emotional and spiritual journey, as a good nomad of letters, Jaume Benavente has moved through various geographical territories in his books. With the novelsLava Fields, Mazurka of Praia, Lights on the Coastand the diariesWinter trip to MadeiraandDietari de Portocomposed between 2000 and 2013, a cycle dedicated to Portugal. With the series of her character Marja Batelaar, she moves like a fish in water in Amsterdam and broadens the focus towards the landscapes and people of Europe. Right now she is literarily exploringanother of his favorite places on the planet,Chile, discovered when a publishing house in that country translated hisNocturne of Portbouand invited him there to present it. "It was an epiphany!".After starting this cycle with Somnis de Valparaíso five years ago, he now publishes L'efecte de les marees (AlRevés), a volume that follows the steps of the Catalan writer Albert Cassanyes on his Chilean journey, in which he crosses paths with musicians, journalists, farmers, and with Mapuche and Huilliche Indians. And also with landscapes, with tides, with the flora and fauna that observes, coexists and sometimes endures humans enslaved by their passions, their base instincts and, sometimes, also, by their dreams and high ideals.
And he has plenty of rope left. "Although I am always open to what chance dictates to me, my immediate plans are to write a novel that closes this Chilean narrative cycle, a play and a novel with an essentially European soul that speaks of the human condition, identity, individual and collective conflicts, the distance between our dreams and reality, artistic creation and the influence of landscape on the individual." He finishes his coffee. "And then other books will follow, I'm sure!", he adds.
The dreamed escapism
"Barcelona used to be uglier, that's for sure, but it was a literary ugliness, with its own character." The writer's relationship with the city where he was born in 1958 is complicated. It always was, as even as a child he lived it as a hostile environment ---"my desire to be an explorer and discover new places had a lot of longing to flee from where I was." Over time, the relationship remains difficult."I feel like a stranger here. Today, Barcelona seems to me like a set for expats that expels its lifelong inhabitants and whose soul is diluted." And he confesses that, if he didn't have his family here, "I probably would have already left to live somewhere else like Berlin, the Azores or some medium-sized Central European city." The escapist fantasy dreamed with open eyes by a nomadic spirit.
He also states that he lives with perplexity "the generalized reggaeton atmosphere in some neighborhoods and the marginalization of Catalan, its replacement by Castilian." Luckily, there are still strongholds like "some passages between streets that are half hidden and seem to live outside of time." Or Quimet d'Horta, which is probably his favorite bar.
--- And because you don't know the gastronomic offer of our Bar. As lunchtime approaches, perhaps we can tempt you with some succulent dish.
A smile reappears on Jaume Benavente's face, who is interested in the rice menu, his weakness, and also pays special attention to dessert, which ---he warns---, "I never forgive."
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