What else would South American literature write about besides love, violence, and suffering?
A woman travels through the rainforests of South America in a wooden boat. (Photo/Visual China)
Author | L
On the day of the interview with writer Pilar Quintana, it was snowing heavily in Beijing. The night before, she attended a readers' meeting at the Wudaokou Page One bookstore and talked about her book "The Female Dog". The Chinese version of the book had just come out, and she was invited by the Colombian Embassy in China to come to China. Since she returned to her accommodation late, the interview was scheduled to take place at the hotel.
When I saw her for the first time, it was hard not to think of the writer Zhang Yueran's impression of her - "thin and small, walking fast" and "like a female chief". After putting her luggage away, she walked briskly to the hotel restaurant, which was our interview area. She ordered a Diet Coca-Cola — and every time she ordered a Coke, she emphasized, "Sugar-free!," and filled her plate with a handful of fruit. Before breakfast, she patted her abdomen and said several times: Chinese food is so delicious, every meal is very strong.
Before the formal interview, she chatted with her China editor. Incidentally, she mentions Ukraine, and she talks about her connection there. She said that when her book was taken by a Ukrainian publishing house, the agent told her in detail about the actual situation of the publishing house and asked her if she could provide the copyright for free, and she said, "Of course! ”
Until then, Quintana had seen the news that Colombian writers and journalists had been bombed and that countless nationals were suffering from the devastation of war and were depressed. Little did she know that the catastrophe would continue to this day. When describing the feelings of ordinary people, she uses the word "pain".
Colombian writer Pilar Tarkina. (Photo/provided by the interviewee)
The interview begins with her shifting her perspective back to Colombia, a jungle near the Pacific Ocean. It was the setting for her novel The Female Dog, and it was where she lived for many years. In that jungle, there are also people who suffer, and the heroine of the novel, Damaris, is one of them.
As a young man, Damaris longed to be a mother, but due to physical limitations, she could not ask for it. By chance, a comes into her life. In the story, companionship and exodus are the norm, and there are always discussions about animality, loneliness, violence and love – all of which are of Quintana's concern.
The first thing she noticed was the "animality" of the human body. At that time, she had just moved from the city to the jungle, "to reduce the cost of living and to make life simple". In her vision, she could live in harmony with nature and live at ease like a hippie. But in the midst of it, she often feels like a "conqueror with a machete", and when termites and snakes pose a threat to her house, she has to find a way to get rid of them.
There were moments when Quintana thought of an earlier group of people in the land. The indigenous Latin Americans who have lived here for generations were slaughtered by Spanish and American invaders, and colonization and wars became common here. In order to resist, "man must turn himself into a beast in a harsh environment" in order to fight against the vile. Taken together, Quintana says, "I have discovered a new humanity." As a writer, all she can do is write about it.
Putting pen to paper is not an easy task, and this is especially true for Quintana, who says: "I'm a slow person to process things, and it took me a long time to turn these thoughts into a novel." "When she lived in the jungle, she mostly wrote about cities. She wakes up late every day, writes until four or five o'clock, and then goes out for a walk. When she wanders around, she takes photographs of landscapes and insects. She posts them on her blog and continues back to her desk to face the world of words anew. After nearly 10 years in the jungle, "The Female Dog" was published, and she put what she wanted to express into the story.
During his visit to China, Quintana was interviewed by New Weekly, and the following is a transcript of the interview.
""
[Colombia] by Pilar Tarkina, translated by Chaohui Chen
New Classic Culture ∣ Nanhai Publishing Company 2023-11
"The experience of being a mother has exposed me to the deepest 'animal nature' in my heart"
New Weekly: Some of the material in "Female Dog" comes from your life, what drove you to write this story? When you wrote "Female Dog", what was your own life in and what was your state of mind at that time?
Quintana : I think Female Dog is an exploration of "animality". We always tend to think that man is different from animals, that man is superior, more civilized, and more rational. But I don't think so. Sometimes, when someone does something bad, they will use the word "non-human" to describe them, and that's the part of humanity that they don't like to see.
Before I had children, I used to write about desire, it was our instinct. But when I gave birth to a child, I had a new understanding, feeding, love for children, many behaviors and feelings are animalistic, and even in order to protect the child, I will make very drastic actions, which are irrational. So, I started to conceive this story when I was pregnant, and the experience of being a mother exposed me to the deepest "animality" of my heart.
New Weekly: "The Female Dog" takes place in the jungle, why did you place the story in such an environment?
Quintana : I meant to tell the story of a woman. She wanted to have children, but she couldn't. I would like to talk about this story, the struggle with nature, and the struggle between man and self. It's like Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, and I hope that the novel I wrote can be summed up as "The Woman and the Jungle, and the Sea".
As I was writing it, I was thinking about what kind of character I was going to create. If it's someone like me, when she realizes she can't get pregnant, she'll go back to the city, go to the doctor, and find out if the fertility problem is from her or her husband. She may have other options, such as adopting a child or undergoing fertility treatment. But I realized that my character had to be born in the jungle and that she had only nature by her side. Because it's not just a story about infertility, it's about systemic racism in our country. And this struggle can only take place in the jungle where there is no choice, and there is no money.
A still from the animated short film "Female Dog".
New Weekly: What do you think "jungle" means, and does it have some kind of metaphor?
Quintana : In addition to the meaning just mentioned, I would like to say that nature is good, but it is also bad. It gave us the sunshine and rain we needed, but it also brought earthquakes and hurricanes. I love writing about nature in books for two reasons. One of them is that it allows me to better shape the characters, and in nature, you will find that the feelings and reactions of the characters are very different. Also, I like to create worlds that readers haven't been to before, as if you travel and arrive at a new place, and everything is different. I want readers to feel that way when they read my work.
New Weekly: You also talked about a lot of people who live in the jungle, do they have some similar traits in that kind of living environment?
Quintana : Indigenous people know how to live in harmony with nature. In this regard, they are better than us. When you go there to live, you will see that they are very aggressive towards nature, they love nature themselves, but they also hurt nature. I think that people in the city tend to have preconceived ideas about their way of life, and sometimes even romanticize their lives and take the life they live as some kind of ideal.
But that's not the case. The indigenous and black people there lived in very difficult conditions, they were cut off from the rest of the country, there were no hospitals, no roads, no good schools. So, when you look at those places, you realize that their living conditions are very poor, and there are far fewer opportunities, but the government has forgotten about them.
A Colombian fisherman. (Photo/Unsplash)
"Love is unconditional?
New Weekly: In The Hen Dog, the leaves several times and returns several times, and she never chooses to disappear completely from Damaris's life. How do you think about this?
Quintana : I have had dogs in the jungle and as a person from the city, I want dogs to be free to live a good life. People in the jungle would keep the dogs on a leash, and I didn't want to do that, so I failed to raise dogs because they would run away into the jungle and never come back, becoming wild animals. I realized that if I wanted to have a dog with me, I had to try to dominate it. So in this novel, I want to talk about how a dog finds his freedom.
In addition, I also began to reflect on the relationship between mother and daughter. When you were young, you were with your mother, and there was an ideal relationship between mother and daughter. But when the daughter is a teenager, she rebels and begins to find her own path, but the mother does not like it, the mother-daughter relationship deteriorates, and the mother's identity will be broken.
We have always been told that a mother's love is unconditional, but I would love to explore through this book whether this love is really unconditional. I think the answer may not be yes. Some mothers just like to behave the way they want, and if their child doesn't do it, then she will punish him, or even hate him out of love.
New Weekly: In the process of writing, do you realize that there is something in common between the fate of female dogs and people living in the jungle?
Quintana : Yes, indeed. Sometimes readers ask me which character I am in Hen Dog. I say I'm every character because I created them. But I sometimes joke that I'm the dog because I think I'm the daughter who is looking for her own path.
Stills from "Female Dog".
New Weekly: In the novel, we can see that there are some identity comparisons between Damis and the, one wants to be a mother but can't, and the other is an irresponsible mother. What do you think about this, what does the mean to Damis, and what do you think is the most important connection between the two (or as you write about in your book, the bond)?
Quintana : It is true that the dog is not a good mother, it is a bad mother who abandons her children. But I think there's a lot going on that is ruining Damaris's relationship with it. For example, Damis is jealous of dogs because dogs can be mothers, but she can't. Faced with something she couldn't have, Damaris must have been very angry.
New Weekly: There is a passage in the book that impressed me deeply: when her husband went out and Damaris slept until the afternoon, she didn't cook that day, but lay down and watched TV dramas, news and reality TV shows - this will be a sense of relief to read. Are there similar moments in your life that lead to freedom?
Quintana : That's a good question. I love that she has her own space, where she feels free and happy, enjoying herself and enjoying life. I do have moments like that. But with kids, it gets hard because you can't even go to the bathroom on your own. Now, my kid is older and he goes to school, so I have my own time, but during that time I was working and I try to finish them as early as possible so I can go for a run. I feel like running is meditation for me, and I don't have to think about anything but myself. Of course, when I'm alone in bed when I'm traveling, I feel the same way.
Other than that, I like to watch movies, I don't go to the cinema anymore, my favorite thing is to stay at home and watch online movies. It's raining outside and I'm watching a movie with my loving husband and that's what I love most in the world. I also like vacations, but you can't do it all the time because travel is very expensive.
Stills from "Female Dog".
Understanding people's predicaments leads to more compassion and understanding
New Weekly: In "Female Dog", you show the plight of some low-level women, so do you consciously inject some feminist elements into your daily writing?
Quintana : I wanted to paint reality, to depict the fact that a woman struggles. It's inherently there, so it gives the book a feminist feel, and it provokes curiosity, exploration, and thought.
But my goal is not only that, there are stereotypes about these areas of the Pacific Coast, and I feel it is my responsibility to help people break those perceptions after living in them for a while. I write about poverty so that readers can understand how poverty affects people and where this poverty comes from. After knowing those histories, others may be able to have more empathy and understanding for them.
New Weekly: At the end of the novel, Damis kills the bitche, have you ever wondered what is the source of her violence?
Quintana : When I started writing this book, I was thinking about how far I was from being a murderer, why I was angry, sometimes murderous, but didn't do it, while others would kill others. I have met such a man, he is a good man, a good father, a good husband, a good citizen, a hardworking man, but he hacked his brother to death with a knife. I was so impressed by this story that I kept wondering how this guy could have done such an evil thing.
I think maybe it's because I have a certain amount of money, I can get psychotherapy, I can enjoy medical care, and I am not abandoned at a very young age like some people. These experiences, like some kind of privilege, are helping me to become a better person. But I still want to explore the darkness in the depths of human nature. In the book, I can write as much as I want, regardless of the consequences.
巴拉圭的母女俩。 （图/Unsplash）
New Weekly: We have seen similar themes in the novels of writers such as Márquez and Llosa, so in Latin America, are love, violence, and even distorted lives what writers often write about?
Quintana : In pre-Columbian times, it was indigenous, but then the colonizers came, they took power, and our history became a product of the European conquest of this land, which imposed their own culture on another. After that, some regions were violently suppressed and dictatorship, and only Cuba became a socialist country after liberation. In Colombia, where I live, there is also a 50-year-long war in which people are killing each other, and until recently, the two sides have not negotiated peace, but there has been no end to the violence. As writers, we need to explore these things.
New Weekly: After killing the, Damaris had the idea of "going to the mountains" and "disappearing into the scariest depths of the jungle", but at first, she was actually terrified of the jungle. Why this shift, and what do you think is happening?
Quintana : This is because she feels that she deserves to be punished for what she has done. Ever since she was a child, she felt guilty that little Nicholas had died, and she felt responsible for it. She has been trying to be a responsible and well-behaved person all her life, in order to prove to everyone that she is good.
Especially when she grew up, she did her best for the little Nicholas family, working for the family for free, making the homeowners impeccable. But the dog broke the curtain and ruined it all. Her inner sense of being a good person collapsed, and she could only do the worst we could think of to the dog. After killing the dog, she felt that she should be punished in the worst possible way, that is, in the terrible jungle. There, her suffering will be more protracted, and this is the deepest punishment she inflicted on herself.
This article was first published in the 651st issue of "New Weekly"
Original Title:
Writer Pilar Quintana: In the jungle, rediscovering the "animality" of man
Author丨L