Between Form and Plot

ENGLISH HOUR GOING NATIVE NEIL STOKES [email protected] Between form and plot ow does moving around because I’ve been a translator. H a lot affect your work? Every Monday at 7.10 pm, El P u n t A v u i T V ’s E n g l i s h Even if you think you know a lot When I change my horizons Hour airs the interview series Going Native. This about another language you and my landscape is new, some- week, Neil speaks to the author of Pell d’armadillo don’t. The person who is the thing new comes from it. I have and Maletes perdudes, writer Jordi Puntí, who native speaker knows best. It’s writer friends who need to fol- talks about the challenges of writing novels probably easier when it is not fic- low the same rules every day, but tion but when it’s fiction you that is not my case. I sometimes have thought so much about all think this has to do with when I those sentences that it makes it was a child. Both my parents more difficult to accept. worked in a factory, so when I What about the New York left school I would go to their fac- fellowship you recently did? tory until they finished work at I’m writing a novel now about sevenish. And so I used to do my the life of a Catalan musician, homework in the factory with all Xavier Cugat. He was born in the noise of the textile machines 1900 and when he was five he and I learnt to concentrate very moved with his family to Cuba. easily, so I can write anywhere. In 1915 he travelled to the US, What’s it like to break where he eventually started a ca- through as a writer? reer as a musician, and he intro- It happens over time and you duced Latin rhythms to the US realise little by little that it is and became a huge star. So, I ap- growing. I feel that every time a plied to this fellowship that gives Neil talking to writer Jordi Puntí on El Punt Avui Televisió / ARCHIVE new translation comes out, it’s you an opportunity to work in an extra life for the novel, that the New York public library, these characters I imagined years which of course has everything ago now have an opportunity to try to do it gracefully. some skills you can learn because it is a large, well-funded stay alive and entertain and With my novel I was try- and there are many uni- institution. I spent a year there make people think. Every ing to do was to appeal to versities teaching writing, doing research and writing, and country throws up different people looking for enter- but there is a part that has the good thing is that this fellow- kinds of readers. Catalan and tainment, but also to to do with the instinct for ship is shared by 15 scholars and Spanish readers share with me a people who want to find philos- telling stories. It’s like people writers. Everyone has their own landscape and an understand- ophical points so they can think who can tell jokes, while others different project but at the same ing of what life is. But in Bulgaria about what is happening. An- can’t. time, as you are sharing the same or Australia you realise people other thing is thinking of what You have also translated space, you end up exchanging a read the novel in different ways. the reader will think. I like to novels. To do that do you experiences, recommendations, Are there formulas to pro- think that it is in its reading that have to re-write the book? advice, all kinds of things. duce a successful novel? the novel is properly finished. I have the biggest respect for How far ahead are you I never thought about a for- How do you keep all that translators. As a translator you with the book? mula or a secret ingredient. in mind while writing? are very much an author, too. It’s difficult to say. In this case What I was doing when I wrote It’s not easy and it takes time. You put things in your own it is not a biography but a novel the book [Lost Luggage] was to Lost Luggage took me over six words but you don’t imagine, be- based on real life, which makes it find the balance between the years to write, but it requires cause the story has been given to extra difficult in that you cannot form and the story. Usually be- many different things. First, you. Yet this process is still a very only use your imagination but stsellers are books heavily based there is patience. You don’t get creative process. It is also the best you have to follow the path of on plot and not so much about results immediately so you have way to read an author, for me. I the man’s real life, although form and style. But I consider to invest a lot of time and energy compare it to having a radio that sometimes you can make excur- myself a literary author so it’s a into it, and at the same time you you dismantle and have to reass- sions and make some things up. challenge to find a style that have to be very self-critical, emble as a radio again that will When you are working with the works with what you want to say. while relying on the first people function but in your own way. story of a real person you have to But I am also interested in how who read it and who tell you How defensive do you get ask at what point you stop being plot gets developed, so I will end what works well. I also think it is when your work’s translated? loyal and start being unfaithful a chapter with a cliffhanger but about pure intuition. There are I try to be very open-minded to that life you are portraying. 10 • CATALONIATODAY • April 2016 CATALAN CONNECTIONS MARCELA TOPOR [email protected] Redemption from evil ou’ve just released the dealers... Yfilm, The Evil that Men Ramon Térmens It allows us to talk about the li- Do, shot in English. Each Wednesday at 7.10 pm, El Punt Avui TV airs mits of violence. I have never Yes, it’s my first film in Eng- the series of interviews, Catalan Connections. seen so much violence before in lish. It happens at the border be- Marcela Topor talked to Ramon Térmens, director my life. On TV, all the news tween Mexico and the US, we of the film The Evil that Men Do. about the refugees, terrorism in shot in Martorelles, a small vil- Paris, it’s terrible. And straight lage near Barcelona. The team after we watch the sports news. I was Catalan but the script was in feel we need to reflect and react. English and in the cast we had Otherwise, what comes next? English-speaking actors such as This is what my film wants to re- Andrew Tarbet or Daniel Far- flect on: “Do we have a limit or aldo, who is from Los Angeles. not?” Are we condemned as a You were born in Lleida, species and just have to wait for where exactly? our final hour, just like my char- From a very tiny village, Bell- acters in the film? munt de Segarra, there are only Is there any space for re- 50 people. In my family there are demption? seven of us. I love going back Yes, this was my idea, al- there for Christmas and as often though it is not easy to empa- as I can. thise with such bad characters. I How did you switch from can’t imagine anything worse Philosophy to film? than cutting people into pieces Actually, I started Economics Ramon Térmens during the interview on El Punt Avui TV. / ARCHIVE as a job. But as the film goes on and I studied that for two years, you can see that there is place for but I was unhappy, so I went redemption, even for these bad back home and told my parents I with good expectations. quote from Shakes- people. wanted to do something else, You described the peare’s Julius Caesar. Which festivals are you and I started Philosophy and film as a moral narco- How come? going to take the film to? after two years started film thriller. Each act we do, and any We started in Montreal and we studies, in parallel. It was good, Yes, it’s not just about narcos evil act that we do, has conse- found a very enthusiastic audi- because the two degrees had a and shooting people, it’s about quences, violence generates ence and a good response. Next, connection: every film has an violence and the limit of cruelty. more violence. We are respon- we are going to Chicago in April ideology, and it’s all about the We are surrounded by too much sible for our acts. In the film, vi- to the Latino film festival, and human condition. I’ve made five violence: on TV, in the olence cannot be justified with then to festivals in Catalonia films so far, and they are not just news...The film is about a drug the excuse of obeying orders.

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