Arturo Pérez Reverte: "The civil war doesn't interest me; for me, it's settled in Spain."

Arturo Pérez Reverte turns 74 in November, but he's living proof that vitality is far from the preserve of youth. He moves and gestures with the same agility that accompanied him in his days as a war correspondent for Spanish Television. "Shall we go out?" he asks, inviting the Clarín photographer to take some shots outside the elegant Hotel Alvear, where he's staying during his stay in Buenos Aires, a city where he feels like one of the locals, as part of the 49th Buenos Aires International Book Fair .

Editorial Alfaguara (@alfaguaraes)

Author of more than thirty novels , among which the police saga of detective Falcó and the adventures of Captain Alatriste stand out, his latest work, entitled The Island of the Sleeping Woman (Alfaguara), takes place during the Spanish Civil War —something he finds more interesting as a backdrop—on an island in the Aegean Sea. Merchant seaman Miguel Jordán Kyriazis is sent by the rebels to clandestinely attack naval traffic from the Soviet Union transporting military aid to the Republic. There, an intricate love triangle unfolds between Baron Katelios and his seductive wife.

The writer, who will present this novel alongside Jorge Fernández Díaz this Saturday at 4 p.m. in the José Hernández Room and will then sign copies at the Penguin Random House stand, recalls his childhood in the Mediterranean when he used to dive and find Roman amphorae, shares his way of understanding literature, and analyzes a present that, he confesses, he contemplates with serenity while feeling that the world that shaped him is on the way to disappearing: “Seeing the end of a world is more interesting than experiencing its rise.”

–The civil war doesn't interest me. For me, it's settled in Spain. But politicians have rekindled it for tactical reasons. It's a good setting for some of my stories. I wanted to tell a story of pirates, of modern corsairs. I could have chosen many settings, but this one seemed very appropriate for complex reasons: Greece, the Aegean, the Mediterranean, which is my sea.

–You've mentioned several times that you're interested in connecting with the objects and places that appear in your literature. Have you done so this time?

–Yes. The best part of a novel isn't writing it, it's imagining it. Writing it is the worst part. And editing it is already hell. The initial phase is wonderful: trying to make the historical reality merge with your imagination in the text, so that any reader familiar with that world thinks the novel is perfectly possible. All of this requires very rewarding preliminary work. A novel means reading a lot of books I hadn't read before. I spent six months going back and forth to Istanbul, the Aegean islands, Athens—it was extraordinary. That's why I write novels. For me, a novel is an act of happiness. I'm not a writer of creative suffering, agony, or the fear of the blank page. I'm a happy writer.

–The novel begins with a quote from Joseph Conrad, an author you mention a lot.

–I first read him when I was fifteen. I read The Shadow Line and I was fascinated. He's an author like Stendhal, Mann, Galdós, Borges, Roberto Arlt, Balzac, who shaped me as a reader and later as a writer. I still go back to him from time to time. I have a problem that... we'll talk about that later. The thing is that as you live, you leave many authors behind. Not because they're better, but it's like a lemon that no longer gives you any juice. The only author who ages with me, the one I still go to and discover things I hadn't seen before, who surprises me and makes me think, is Conrad. He's an old friend; he's the only one whose portrait I have on the wall of my library.

–What is your connection with the sea and adventure, something so present in your novels?

–I was born in a Mediterranean port. That's 3,000 years of memory. As a child, when I was diving, I pulled Roman amphorae from the bottom of the sea. For me, that's very natural. My father was an oil inspector, lived in a refinery, and sailed on oil tankers. All his friends were merchant seamen, captains, and I also had several uncles in my family who were merchant seamen. So the world of the sailor has been very close to me since I was a child. The sea is one of the elements I immediately associate with adventure. Seafaring authors—Melville, Stevenson, Conrad—enter my life there. It has to do with me. I grew up at sea and between two libraries: my parents' and my grandparents'. I became a journalist as a means of experiencing that adventure. I wanted to meet beautiful girls, fight in brothels in Bangkok. What all twelve-year-old boys want. Later, boys resign themselves and become reasonable people. I didn't resign myself. I never wanted to be a reasonable person. I wanted to make my childhood dreams come true. And now, for me, writing is the way to keep reading. But I'm still a reader. On my tombstone, it would say: Pérez Reverte, reader. And I'd be very proud of that.

–You included a lot of dialogue in this novel. How did you work with that, and why did you decide to narrate it this way?

–A writer who doesn't evolve is a stagnant writer, addicted to themselves, and often dies or gets bored. A reasonable, professional writer has what's called narrative instinct. They notice how their work unfolds and how readers perceive it. Over time, I've leaned more toward novels that are more dialogue-based than descriptive. If I can resolve a concept between two people talking about a concept that would take me half a page or a page to develop, I prefer synthesis in dialogue to page-length development. Not out of convenience or laziness. First, because I know that readers are more impatient now than before. And I never forget the reader.

–If you go through his novels, you find various genres, themes

–Some genres have been stupidly labeled as low literature. I always like, just to be a joke, to remember Soriano. I never met him, but we used to talk on the phone. You read Soriano and you understand Argentina. He was fundamental. And Soriano was despised. His pain, his bitterness, was that all the literary mandarins despised him. He's as important as Borges or Arlt. Sometimes a novel like The Maltese Falcon can change more lives than Joyce's Ulysses . There's room for everyone at the table. My advantage is that I started reading in a very large, eclectic library where everything was. Do you know what happened next when Soriano died? The assholes who despised him wrote prologues to his novels.

–You mentioned Soriano and other Argentine authors. Tango also appears in your work ( El tango de la guardia vieja ). What influence does Buenos Aires and Argentine literature have on your life and work?

–A lot. I came to Argentina in the 1970s. There were bookstores everywhere. I remember people stopping on Florida Street to discuss politics, literature, art, soccer. I fell in love. The women were gorgeous, the meat was wonderful. I've been back about forty times now. I know the country well, the good and the bad, and I love it very much. When I come to Argentina, I'm not a foreigner; I come to see my cousins. As for authors, I'd read Borges, Mujica Laínez, and here I discovered Roberto Arlt. I remember thinking: Who is this son of a bitch? How come no one's told me about this guy? They didn't talk about him here either. He was like an underclassman. Borges is fundamental to me. My novel The Flanders Table is dedicated to him. I also admire the great tango writers. There's one thing I envy: that they're able to describe in three minutes of music and words something that I would need 500 pages to do and wouldn't be that good at. My cultural Argentinian identity was forged with these elements.

–You said in a recent interview that you don't like the world today. Do you feel a bit alienated?

–I'm 74 years old. I don't care. I was born in 1951, in a Europe with real politicians. There was an economy, a culture. I come to an Argentina that at that time was entering a dictatorship, but hadn't yet been crushed. Extraordinary, thriving, with extraordinary intellectual activity. I was raised by grandparents who were born in the 19th century. I come from there. This is not my world. I'm not a Martian, nor do I deny it. I live in it, I try to adapt as much as I can. But I realized that my world is disappearing. My world is dying. The people who were part of it die, the places die. I assume, as a reader of history, that the world is a changing place. I face a problem: the world I love is disappearing, but since I've read Stefan Zweig, the Latin and Greek classics, I know that worlds disappear. I know it's natural. I compensate for the lament over a disappearing world with the certainty that history is like this. I have to leave, turning off the light so others can take care of it. And without drama. It's a privilege to witness the end of a world. It's a blessing. Being able to witness the end of a world is more interesting than experiencing its rise. Because when you have the readings and they allow you to interpret it, it's a fascinating privilege.

Arturo Pérez-Reverte will discuss his novel The Island of the Sleeping Woman with his close friend, journalist and writer Jorge Fernández Díaz, on April 26 at 4:00 PM in the José Hernández Room. After the presentation, the author will sign copies for a maximum of 500 people, and copies will be distributed to those present.