Source: Cuidad Equis 06/25/2015 . 12:54 PM
Eduardo Halfon : The joys of the traveler
Eduardo Halfon, a Guatemalèan writes a hilarious and lucid journey to Israel in “ Monastary”. There he analyses the religious intolerance in global times. The novel is part of a larger saga, which has distinguished the author as a world-renowned writer.
Up to what extent is your work a literary project?
It’s a project which I’m not too aware of, its been developing under me. It started in 2008, when I wrote “ The Polish Boxer”(Pre-textos). A book containing 6 short stories spun together by Eduardo Halfon who is very similar to me. The narrative thread of that book is about the history of my grandpa in relation to Auschwitz, a tattoo and a boxer. Two years later, in 2010 a tale from the “Polish Boxer” returns as a short novel, La Pirueta. Monastery is another story from “The Polish Boxer”” Fumata Blanca. The next book, Signor Hoffman is in the same universe, so thats 4 books so far, constructed , related , and narrated by the same person who is searching for something, and travels a lot . All the books the are a trip, to Israel, Serbia, Poland,. They are short books but are related, close to each other, some answer questions to other books. And what’s been happening, odd but fascinating, is that every country has been translating them differently. In the United States “The Polish Boxer” the book includes La Pirueta, Monastery, and Signor Hoffman. In Japan the four are in the same book. Italy, Germany, France, each country is different. What I have been doing without knowing is writing a single book. All of them are part of a bigger project “ The Polish Boxer”. This volume is the hub, the center, the nucleolus that everything revolves around.
To what extent is are the chronicles a trip? To what degree do you differ from the narrator?
It always begins with me. That’s how I write. It begins with something intimate, the trip to Israel, my grandfather’s tattoo, and my relationship with my father. But I am not enough. I need fiction in order to say what I want to say, which is to give the reader an emotional journey. The other Eduardo, who isn’t me but is similar to me, has my beard but smokes, I don’t smoke, he is more adventurous, fearless, he tells the taxi driver he wants to kill Arabics. I would never do that, I am shy, and a coward you could say. The personal elements are not the point of my book, not my sisters wedding or my relation with my brother. The personal elements are my fears, sensitivity, my childhood, that’s where I get personal with my trips and habits. But obviously everything is about me. My books are a collection of short stories from the same narrator. They are episodes of the life of the same person, related in the same voice, tone, the same man, and from there they can be arranged differently.