"The answer to the question of what I am most proud of is easy: my family and my friends. I am very lucky and I feel very loved!", writer Youssef El Maimouni professes, almost entirely downing the freshly served beer. After which he adds: "and I emphasize that my three-year-old daughter bulls me!"
Evening has fallen when this night owl --who, for family reasons, hardly acts as such anymore-- has dropped by the Bar. In the background, he asked for "Mac Miller's live performance on NPR Tiny Desk Concert" to play, the second beer is about to arrive and, like a bullet fired at point-blank range, the conversation follows an unstoppable trajectory.
"I grew up in Coma-ruga and have very good memories. Doing so in a village, in the 80s, near the beach, was brutal. We were Captains of the Sands, like in Jorge Amado's novel, but without suffering the brutal injustices narrated in it. In adolescence, it was friendships that influenced me the most. As a young man, you seek more extreme experiences, you delve into the self, you question who you are, without falling into any self-destructive temptation either, although at that time I was captivated by the cursed poets, the Beat generation or the 27 Club."
Now he defines himself as "an old-timer with more defined tastes and motivations and with flaws that one tries to alleviate, but they are hard... Like reducing extra kilos, after a certain age," he sighs as his eyes quickly scan some of the tapas displayed on the bar counter.
A Barcelona native since his university student days, social educator, graduate in Arabic Philology and Master in Conflict Resolution, Youssef El Maimouni directs a youth center in Barcelona and, for a few months now, has served as technical secretary for interculturality in a district of the city. "About a year ago, the City Council approved a measure to promote that administrations and public services be as representative as the citizenry. There is much to do, but measures like these, and thought out in the long term, will surely bear fruit," he predicts.
In parallel, he collaborates with Masala magazine and these days he is presenting his second novel, Nadie salva a las rosas (Roca), centered on the crime of a young Moroccan trans woman on the outskirts of a Barcelona patched up with silences, guilt and crime, and which sees the light after his acclaimed debut, the historical Cuando los montes caminen, published in 2021.
---Wow, two novels in just over a year! How prolific!
--- Well, I'm already starting the process for the third one. Although what I most long for is to bring a comic book to fruition, I would love to be in charge of the script for a graphic novel!
Transcendence is following a trace
The third beer is the moment to get transcendent: "I started working at fourteen. My father, who is a bricklayer, used to take me to the construction site on weekends and that made me aware, besides being very cold. But I don't want to take credit, nor praise the culture of effort, we haven't come for that."
--- But you have seen a lot of the world, haven't you?
"I spent an Erasmus year in Toulouse which was wonderful and which I managed thanks to loans from colleagues, because the scholarship is a pittance. I recycled a lot of food from the market. I also lived for a while, a few sabbatical months, in Morocco. I spent a year in Lima. Another year I backpacked through eight American countries, from Mexico to Brazil." And he did all this "always relying on savings, on what I got from the jobs where they hired me." A matter of principles rooted deep in the soul.
"Many of those moments that can be said to have been key in my life, I recognize them as such a posteriori, but they took place, at the time, without me being aware of that gravity or importance that I now give them, once they have passed," reflects the writer, while calmly savoring his beer, regarding the value of facts according to the trace they leave within us as they pass.
Links with the street and authentic city
"At the time, and this is a shared feeling, something that bothered me about Barcelona is that people who are from here, lifelong, for generations, find it hard to open up and incorporate new foreign friendships into their group, into their comfort zone. Most of my colleagues in the city are from outside, people like me who came here to study, to work, and have stayed," explains the patron with a pout and displeasure, who, however, cannot help but point out that his partner is from here and that, over time, he has managed to cultivate deeply indigenous friendships, "although they made themselves scarce," he then laughs after sharing this vision of the city as the necessary result of a constant sum and continuation of sap that enriches its multiple identities.
--- And, with the years you've been here, what would you say is your relationship with Barcelona?
"It's my city," states Youssef El Maimouni. "It's the place I long for when I'm away for a long time. It's already where I've lived the longest. Thanks to my job, the character of my colleagues and my own, I've been able to get to know the authentic or more street-level city, the diverse and plural one. In attitude, I'm a local, and that makes you constantly establish connections." He takes a brief, reflective breath, before clarifying: "But I know how to choose, you won't see me in a gourmet scene, and if you do, it will be like when we were young and went with friends to openings of fancy places or art galleries: because there was free booze!"
--- Perhaps we're not gourmet here, but our superlative culinary offer compels us to tempt you with something for dinner: tapas, portions, a set menu…
"Since this isn't a Mexican or Peruvian restaurant, where they have to stop me, I'll choose the set menu. And if there's any chocolate dessert on offer, the rest is fine with me," replies Youssef El Maimouni, forgetting his recently declared war on extra pounds, and before finishing:
--- Oh, and I'll buy the beers, my parents taught me that too!