Vila-Matas’s fictional journalism: they asked him to translate an interview; Since he didn’t know English, he made it up.

Enrique Vila-Matas was twenty years old when he started working at Fotogramas, the historic film criticism magazine, and had been in the editorial office for just fifteen days when he was commissioned to translate an interview with Marlon Brando that had just been purchased. The new journalist, unfamiliar with the iconic actor’s language, began typing at the same time he invented one of his first characters: his version of the protagonist of “A Streetcar Named Desire.”

Without thinking about it, that would be the beginning of what fifty-six years later would be called “Eight Invented Interviews,” a book that brings together what, thanks to the passage of time, we could qualify as “journalistic pranks.” Today Vila-Matas is a recognized, award-winning writer, harassed by the men and women of the press who overwhelmed him with questions that he, perhaps for the peace of mind of his interviewees, preferred to invent.

—Would you have wanted me to invent this conversation?

If they invented it well it would be wonderful, but if they make me talk nonsense…

-Has passed?

Only the second. They think that in interviews I have to say stupid things that I would never say.

“Or they make you pass off as someone who is not like at the inauguration of the Buenos Aires Book Fair in which the head of the city government said that along with José Saramago and Fernando Pessoa you are one of the greatest exponents of Portuguese literature.

(Laughs) I saw it and I thought I should put it on my Twitter. It has always been said that he was the most Argentine of the Spanish writers and then that he was the most Portuguese.

-Why the label?

Because I am not a writer who belongs only to the place where he writes, where I am is my territory. Second, because I have closely followed Argentine and Portuguese literature, as well as Peruvian literature. My gaze is that of a reader of everything there is, I am open to all scriptures.

―Going back to your interviews, which Marlon Brando do you prefer, the one you invented or the real one?

Mine because I made him human, without realizing it I turned him into a less mythical being, even though in the second interview he is so unfriendly.

“Did you admire him?”

Not necessarily. He was a Hollywood myth that was marked by the image that his production company wanted to project. In the two interviews with me, however, he appears crazy, unfriendly, funny, reactionary and progressive.

―Is it the interview you remember most fondly?

The one I remember best is that of Anthony Burgess because I admired his work and because he allowed him to come to meet us with the interview already done. He was happy about it and invited me to have a whiskey during the half hour he had set aside for my interview.

-What did you talk about?

We didn’t talk because I told him I had to go. I had to return to the newsroom and type up the interview before eight in the afternoon. I didn’t know how to use the machine easily and I was afraid that I would be fired for it. In Brando’s interview I make him say that he hated hippies and it’s funny because I didn’t hate them, I was a hippie. I created a novel character with contradictions. My mind was that of a storyteller who believed a lot in fiction.

―What other scenarios forced you to make decisions that you would question today?

It happened to me as a sports writer for El País. After the games I had twenty minutes to send my report and that time I wrote about a Real Madrid match against Barcelona in which Luís Figo was playing. At halftime I wrote the first part and drank too much while waiting for the second half to end. I started writing and by the time I got to the last sentence I was already completely drunk and I don’t know how I finished the article. The text is published with a sentence that said: “And Figo seemed high (drugged) when he left the field.” He left like that and no one noticed anything.

―It has been a miracle that I have not had problems as a journalist.

In Diario 16 he wrote a weekly column. The newspaper stopped paying its collaborators and I once wrote: “I don’t know what I’m doing here in this newspaper where no one reads me and, furthermore, they don’t pay me.” No one corrected the article and it was sent to the printer. There I found that no one read me, not even those who made and bought the newspaper.

―Now there are many who read it and there is no shortage of journalists who pursue it. What questions do we cultural journalists usually repeat that exhaust us more and more?

It’s about how much biographical there is in his novel. I chose to say 32%. Another question, which I would also always ask, is where the book comes from or why. When they do it to me I feel like they are accusing me as if to say, why did you think of writing this book that now I have to interview you? The question is great because we really don’t know where they come from and if we say something it is because the answer comes from deep within.

―So, what is the origin of “Montevideo”, your latest novel?

It dates back to the last century when a friend said that Adolfo Bioy Casares and Julio Cortázar wrote a similar story in 1954 that took place in a hotel in Montevideo. The moment I found out about this is the origin of the book. Therefore, where ideas come from connects with where inspiration comes from. How is it possible that I’m writing for two hours, I’m missing one thing and suddenly the word that connects everything appears to me. It always comes from outside, as if someone blew it. There is no person with a trumpet who tells you, it comes out of you, it comes out of thinking so much and the funny thing is that words emerge that I know, but that I had never thought about.

―You may not speak like that, but the character you have created does.

Yes and there is something magical about it. Picasso said that inspiration came only through work. If you have been involved in this for two hours, you are delving into yourself and something may appear that is inside you, like so many things that we carry inside, and we do not know that they exist and we will never know.

―And it takes a small amount of torment to reach the state in which the writing will flow.

The moment I am writing a fragment, let alone the book, it acquires meaning. It’s strange about meaning because you can write novels that lead to nothing, but sometimes you find out by writing. When I work on a column, I start writing and at the end I have the first part left over. Writing I have found the true theme. Since it is a short text, I remove that part and mount it again.

―As a journalist, have you ever felt embarrassed about a question you asked?

I have asked strange questions, but no shame.

“How strange?”

At the time of Fotogramas I had to interview a Spanish film actress. I was asking the questions and found everything very bland. In the end, since I really liked her, I dared to say to her, “Have you fallen in love with me?” She said “no way” and that was the last question. He was a journalist who sometimes got out of line.

—Do you usually go to movie theaters?

No, not anymore. I watch movies at home.

-Don’t the premieres attract your attention?

Yes, they catch my attention, but they all last three hours and are very long.

-But there are long films that capture you and the duration is the least important.

But they can catch me at home.

―What was the last three-hour film you liked?

It wasn’t three hours, but I loved Wim Wenders’s “Perfect Days.” I was very excited. I found the character who has a dark past to be very beautiful, I’m not saying it’s good or bad. It reminded me of John Wayne’s character in “Desert Centaurs,” which, for me, is John Ford’s best film.

―In “Perfect Days” he drew attention to the sobriety in everything around him, even the covers of the books he read were so simple.

It was his world, he read a book every night, listened to music on cassettes, which is something those of my generation had. I know characters like that here in Barcelona, ​​they remain faithful to things from one era and have no interest in expanding it.

―Unlike you who have social networks, do you enjoy Twitter?

It’s like when I used to smoke a cigarette. When writing, with the excuse of entertaining myself, I smoked and then continued writing. Now it’s fun for me to post a tweet because there are a number of people who follow me and it’s a way to instantly publish a news story about you that no newspaper will publish. Sometimes he received awards outside Spain such as the Medici. It was a very important award, a friend said it was as if he had won the Champions League. I didn’t have coverage, something that doesn’t happen in your countries where those who have a prize abroad are cultivated more. The award was as if Nadal had won Roland Garros. This is part of the public relations that each author has.

“In Diario 16 I wrote a weekly column. The newspaper stopped paying its collaborators and I once wrote: “I don’t know what I’m doing here in this newspaper where no one reads me and, furthermore, they don’t pay me.” No one corrected the article. and they sent it to the printer. There I found that no one read me, not even those who made and bought the newspaper.”

Enrique Vila-Matas

-Do you like to be interviewed?

This morning yes.

―Are there things about the life of a writer that you don’t like?

Like which ones do you think?

―Like the time between one book and another.

Those are great moments because the total freedom appears to think about something else, to find something that entertains and calms me. You get rid of a very long job that is increasingly more complicated.

-Because it says?

Because I have become more complex than before. Somehow I know more things, I have more experience and I see things when writing that I didn’t before. Before, I wasn’t afraid that my books would fail and I wrote with fewer problems. If I liked it well and if I didn’t feel the same.

―How do you measure the success of your work?

Because of the echo it has over time. This can be seen in ten or twenty years, not after fifteen days. You know which books are better than others.

-Which one turned out best?

I think “Abridged history of portable literature”, “Baterbly and company”, “Montano’s evil”, “Doctor Pasavento”, “Paris never ends”, “Kassel does not invite logic” and “Montevideo”.

—And the one that brought the least satisfaction?

The third one I wrote, “South of the Eyelids.” I have always said that it is my worst book because it copied Nabokov. A genius appears that is not mine and it is curious because the book is about the writer’s learning.

-Are you aware that you already have your own voice?

For better or worse I have my own style. It’s very clear. I am recognized immediately and anyone who wants to imitate me never turns out well.

―In your approach to technology and your work as a writer, have you flirted with artificial intelligence?

Yes, but I can’t answer you more because I’m working on something about it. There was a proposal for him to interview me on GPT chat and I thought the idea was wonderful, I thought it would lead him to despair and suicide in front of the public, but it fell through. They told me that the chat was stupid, he repeated things and got angry if you didn’t understand him. The newspaper Le Monde has used it for an interview and has verified its limitations. They have told him: “I spend all day thinking and dreaming about naked rats. What do you think about this?” Then the chat says he is not authorized to talk about sexual perversions because the word naked takes him to another world.

―As a new form of self-censorship

The one that is censored is the chat.

—Have you ever censored yourself?

Of course. One could go too far, but I think about the consequences.

-Will we ever read those texts?

No, I no longer have them so they don’t complicate my life. All writers always censor themselves; Furthermore, then everything changes and over time it may be that one thing was wrong.

-How do you expect us to read it in half a century?

I don’t know, but I would like to know, although I can already see it a little. I notice the presence of many young readers and I think it is a sign that other authors do not share it as much. In many cases, their admiration comes from parents. In the families where it is read there is an intelligent inheritance that allows literature to be maintained, it reaches unlikely characters like C. Tangana and ToteKing, who is very cultured and intelligent, but who are rap singers.

—Do you hear them?

Especially ToteKing. C. Tangana said that he asked his father what he was reading and he told him “Vila-Matas, but you can’t read to him because he is very negative.” Which I am not.