--- What are you going to have?
--- Voll-Damm, thanks… Oh, it’s past five! Then, better a Mare gin and tonic.
Lluís Llort has let today slip through his fingers, possibly busy thinking about his next novel, making music, enjoying it, and his work as a veteran journalist in the newsroom of El Punt Avui. But now, at the Bar, it's time to relax and let his conversation, agile, ironic, and cultured, flow at the bar. And let it do so without the radio playing in the background: "With all due respect to professionals in the sector, but I never listen to it because… well, it's a long story. Anyway, I always prefer to choose the music myself."
When defining himself, the word that comes out is impostor: "In the sense that I am not a journalist, I am not a novelist, I am not a musician, but I am happy trying. And living. I feel very at peace." Paradoxically, in journalistic and novelistic terms, he has been trying for many years, and with notable success, as attested by his published titles in children's and young adult fiction, among which the Tap Tàpera series and the Sóc un Animal series stand out, and his works of crime fiction, from his debut in 1999 with Tardor, to the recent and acclaimed Pes Mort and Temps Mort, both published by Crims.cat and Herencias Colaterales (AlRevés). In fact, the latter earned him the prestigious Paco Camarasa award for crime novel.
--- And are you plotting any new novel right now?
--- Nothing remarkable. As a novelist, I am in a moment of rest, I have some projects maturing. I am not an author who writes every day, I prefer marathon sessions when the passion for a plot has me by the… uhhh… Can I ask for another drink? And corn nuts?
Making good use of injury time
When Llort was a teenager and wanted to dedicate himself to music, he realized he had a deaf ear: "I had to stop playing in a band and switch to acoustic. The deaf ear is the one with the earring, so the ear serves some purpose," he specifies. By then, he also started writing, "and I joined the newspaper where I have worked for 35 years."
The issue was not to stop, not to be intimidated. The rest was a matter of fortune. "Luck has accompanied me quite a bit, not always or in everything, but I don't complain. About 30 years ago, in a motorcycle accident, I screamed like a trash metal singer when I became aware that I was going to die. As I closed my eyes, I don't know why the taxi's wheel didn't, at the last moment, crush my head." After that accident, the writer and musician feels "a bit in extra time and sometimes I rush the drink. Although I usually am prudent and moderate, I don't want to add more impostures to the list." He sips and savors a drink of his gin and concludes: "I am not a destroyer."
"Although I usually am prudent and moderate, I don't want to add more impostures to the list"Proud and happy to have met his wife, Aurèlia, and their son, Jou, Llort highlights as an achievement "to have managed to move quite a few readers with some of my novels. And by move I mean to provoke laughter, tension, anguish, disgust, terror, tears". And he assures he is "very happy and rejuvenated to have recovered, by a series of coincidences, the drums... 37 years later!".
--- Well, that extra time really pays off for you!
--- Yes, you always want something more, but if I died right now I would do it with a smile.
A city that contains many cities
Born in 1966, Llort considers his native Barcelona, simply, as his home: "You know that feeling when, in a game of hide-and-seek, you manage to reach the tree without being caught and then you shout home? Well, that's Barcelona for me: Home".
Specifically, the author praises "the fact that, without being a large city in terms of extension, it has the capacity to contain many different cities, very different neighborhoods, sea and mountains. That's why it is usually another character in my novels. It offers a lot".
The author praises "the fact that, without being a large city in terms of extension, it has the capacity to contain many different cities"Even so, this love for Barcelona does not prevent him from being criticalwith several aspects of the city: "There is a lot of misery, thehomelessand crime have increased a lot; I feel bad for the former and I can understand the latter. The urban planning nonsense is already tiring, enough with the colors. Let more areas like the Mercat de Sant Antoni be closed to traffic, agreed, but enough with narrowing streets, thatyes-but-no. Andokto fewer cars and motorcycles, but that bikes and scooters respect the rules and pedestrians. And I'd better not continue, the list is long."
Comfortably settled in a conversation whose art he masters perfectly, Llort finishes his drink. The afternoon is fading and night is approaching, gradually painting the city sky with purple colors, to the delight of an individual who, more than a bird, considers himself a "night owl."
"There is a lot of misery, the homeless and crime have increased a lot; I feel bad for the former and I can understand the latter"--- Another round! Come on, I'll buy the second to last one ---he suddenly asks---.
--- And then you'll want to have dinner?
--- Let it be good tapas, I can't handle a big menu anymore.