Dear Terenci: You were the king of mambo. Brilliant, intelligent, funny, sharp, generous, they say also cruel and manipulative. A celebrity with thousands of followers when social media hadn't even been invented yet. A pop writer who pocketed a fortune in prizes and sold novels like hotcakes. The favorite columnist of the cool and famous women. The LGBT icon who proclaimed his homosexuality to the four winds and if you don't like it, don't look, baby. The self-made man who, having been born in an old dairy on the humble Ponent street, would die practically transformed into a pharaoh. Because, let's not kid ourselves Terenci, you never wanted to be a cursed writer like Jean Genet, who made a (bad) living as best he could on the streets of your neighborhood, the Chinese quarter. No, your model was Truman Capote, the man in silk pajamas who reigned in the Upper East Side. That's why you spent half your Planeta prize on a mink coat and wore a toupee that made your lifelong friends piss themselves laughing. Yes, you were the king of mambo, but one day you died and, except for your intimates and a handful of unconditional readers and admirers ---among whom I count myself, of course---, everyone quickly forgot about you. Sic transit gloria mundi, Terenci. It is true that Barcelona hastened to dedicate a square to you, although I believe you would not have liked it at all. On the contrary, you would have applauded, from the stalls of the Romea, the theatrical version of "The Weight of the Straw" which, a year after your death, Lluïsa Conillé and Xavier Albertí premiered to reclaim you, with Jorge Manrique playing you. Your sister Anna Maria also refused to see how your figure was fading rapidly, for this reason, to keep your memory alive, she promoted the Terenci Moix International Awards. However, when Anna Maria herself died in 2014, no one took over. Two decades after your death had to pass for the general public to rediscover you. For days, the press has been talking about you, coinciding with the premiere of Terenci: la fabulación infinita, a documentary series directed by Marta Lallana and co-written with Álvaro Augusto for Filmin, a platform with good cinema and series that you would have loved. Notice this detail: The day Terenci died, to put it your way, Marta was nine years old and Álvaro was barely three. Therefore, they had neither known nor read you. To discover who you were, they had to do a lot of archaeology and unearthed memories, not always sweet, from Colita, Boris, and even Enric. Do you realize how important this is? Terenci: la fabulación infinita is not an act of nostalgia but a look, from the future, at your figure. Perhaps, after years buried under the sand, like one of the pharaohs of ancient Egypt whom you so admired, your legacy will allow you to win the battle against oblivion. For now, pay attention, you would have loved this, the documentary, which also has a cinematic version, brings you a little closer to those celluloid stars who, as a child, left you open-mouthed at Saturday cinema because, these days, you too have made the leap to the big screen.From there, to eternity, Terenci.
And a piece of advice, to those of you who have recently discovered him: if you feel like reading Terenci Moix, I recommend you start with his memoirs. In this sense, you are in luck because Tusquets Editores has just gathered El peso de la paja in a single volume. As Colita herself said in the documentary that Ventura Pons dedicated to him a few years ago, what will remain of Terenci's literature will be precisely his autobiographical texts, a true ode to freedom and not only to being who you are but also to who you want to be.