"I found my literary voice one night in 2003, in Chile. I was woken by a scream and, as if activated by a spring, I started writing a chronicle about Neruda. That was the first text in which I recognized myself. I titled it El grito (The Scream), not only because of what had woken me up, but because it was something liberating. The howl of when you finally find your own voice." The chords of Duke Ellington's Sophisticated Lady fill the evening atmosphere of the Bar while the writer, screenwriter, and professor Jorge Carrión reflects at the bar, Manhattan in hand, on a moment of epiphany in his creative trajectory.
--- And the scream that had woken you up, whose or what was it?
Jorge Carrión smiles. "That's the funniest thing, no one else heard it but me. And, years later, when I returned to that place, someone told me it could have been the cub of an indigenous wolf breed, which howl in the way I described." That chronicle about Neruda would end up in one of the author's books, La brújula (The Compass), "which was not my first published work, but it did end up being the first written with my voice."
Born in Tarragona and raised in Mataró, Jorge Carrión always wanted to be a writer ---"the novel is the genre I have cultivated the most"--- and by the age of 20, he already had two works written. When the existential plot twist arrived that night in the form of a scream, it was another step in a vibrant career that has led him to write essays like Barcelona, libro de los pasajes (Barcelona, Book of Passages), "which I wrote so that my children, as Barcelonans, would know their city"; novels like Membrana (Membrane), "possibly, the one I am most proud of," and comics like Samuel & Beckett (Salamandra), "with which I am very happy, because it is another way of telling the life of the brilliant playwright and novelist."
In addition to this graphic novel, which is already entering the lists of the best of the year so far, Jorge has just seen Las huellas (The Traces) (Galaxia Gutemberg) published in a single volume, which collects the ambitious tetralogy created by his novels Los muertos (The Dead), Los huérfanos (The Orphans), Los difuntos (The Deceased) and Los turistas (The Tourists). In these, the author questions transcendent aspects, such as our relationship with technology, with power, with emotions, and with our neighbor, composing an eloquent radiography of society straddling this century and the last.
A great cultural life project
"I studied Humanities, after which I dedicated myself to journalism and teaching," explains the parishioner, who after university began working as a collaborator for the cultural magazine Lateral and teaching at a high school. Two disciplines that, along with writing, he has cultivated with equal talent, and that are part of a great cultural life project that adds the diverse tonalities of the echo of that nocturnal cry that woke him up twenty years ago, which continues to sound and after which he has not artistically slept again.
As a teacher, after earning a doctorate in Comparative Literature, he ended up directing the Master's in Literary Creation at UPF.He has become "the only Spanish author to have collaborated with the Spanish edition of the New York Timesand of theWashington Post", has written for mastheads such asToday, ABC, La Vanguardia, National Geographic orRevista de Occidente. As a professor, after earning his doctorate in Comparative Literature, he ended up directing the Master's in Literary Creation at Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF) alongside José María Micó.
"Being such a vocational field, there is still enormous enthusiasm on the part of students to learn, which is something I am aware is a minority today in university," he observes. It was in this academic environment that he met Marilena de Chiara, his wife and life partner, a translator, professor, and journalist specializing in the figure of Luigi Pirandello.
In parallel, the author also gets involved in organizing exhibitions and cultivates the podcast genre. After successful ventures with Solaris and Ecos, he is now awaiting the renewal of the second season of Gemelos digitales, which, as he defines it, "explores the human condition in the context of metaverses, virtual clones, and artificial intelligence."
City of bookstores and libraries
Proud that his cultural life project is "eminently Barcelonian, because without everything this city has given me, it would possibly be something very different," the writer lives an idyllic relationship with a Barcelona he left in 2003, "and to which I returned a few years later, not knowing very well if it was my place, until with time I realized that there was no better place for me."
He is in love with the city's bookstores, "all of them, the big ones and the neighborhood ones: Finestres, La Central, No Llegiu, Fahrenheit 45…", and its libraries. "We have amazing libraries in this city, like the one in Clot, where we take our children. In fact, the first thing my master's students who come from outside do is get a library card!" he exclaims. And he pauses to sip a few drops of his cocktail, after which he adds, in a somewhat somber tone, "if they can keep coming, that is."
--- What do you mean?
"I mean the rents, which keep going up. That goes against citizens and also against talent. Because I'm worried that someone might not be able to afford to come to Barcelona to study to be a writer with my master's, for example, or to prosper in any other artistic discipline," he replies.
--- What cannot go up, because it's impossible, is the exquisiteness of our gastronomic offer, in case you want to have dinner after your Manhattan. We have everything!
Jorge Carrión tilts his smile. Ellington and orchestra start with the fanfare of Blue pepper and the character of the night begins to lord over the street and the Bar.
--- Why not?
And he asks to take a look at the tapas, while he signals Marilena to bring them to him.