- hace 18 minutos
La escritora argentina, autora de Cadáver exquisito, habló sobre la reedición de 19 garras y un pájaro oscuro, liBazterricacribió hace 10 años y que aborda temas transversales de su obra literaria como el patriarcado, la violencia cotidiana y el capitalismo.
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00:06And well, Agustina, to begin with, I want us to talk, or rather, on this occasion I would like you to
00:11We talked about the book of stories 19 Claws and a Dark Bird and Good to Enter
00:17So, I want to ask you about the origin of these stories, where they come from, and what they tell us.
00:22Tell us a little about the origin of this book and then we can continue exploring the topics you cover.
00:29In this collection of short stories, these stories were actually written before the exquisite corpse.
00:37because I published this book under a different title, the title before the fierce encounter, in 2016 in a
00:45It was a very small publishing house in Argentina, but then we decided to reissue them in 2020 under the title 19
00:54claws and a dark bird, so for me this book is super important because here is the seed of
01:01Everything that came after and what will come, let's say here for example, there are humorous stories that both in
01:09to fit exquisitely, that here it is, to fit exquisitely, like in the unworthy, my other novel, there is no humor, but
01:16The novel that will be published next May is another dystopia, but it has
01:21humor
01:21Let's say later, here are stories that have a poetic prose, like in the undignified ones, there are stories that
01:30They're super with you guys, they call you tough, like, exquisite, so frankly, here they are, they're all there
01:38My obsessions and readers can trace my beginnings, which would be here, and well, how I'm doing
01:47As I continue writing, there are several stories in which I feel you explore in some way
01:54in this way, that vulnerability of women or those scenarios in which women are exposed to the
02:01Male violence, yes, harassment, abuse, and many of these occur even in everyday life, right?
02:11There are some who talk about this harassment on the subway and public transport, but I would like to know
02:18We talked about your exploration of that vulnerability and these scenarios
02:25so uncomfortable and so annoying that they face more often than they should, well, no
02:32that
02:32It should be done, but I address these issues because of the scenarios women face daily.
02:39I am a woman and I am Latin American, and despite having many privileges, the reality is that I
02:46Anything could happen anywhere at any time, and age doesn't matter.
02:49The social class here, in fact, a few weeks ago, if I'm not mistaken, in Colombia a woman was raped.
02:57She was over 70 years old and they killed her, so your age and social class don't matter, it literally can...
03:04Anything can happen anywhere, and in fact I can tell you there's a story here called
03:09Roberto, which is a very, very short story, a story told by a little girl in the first person, who says
03:15which has a rabbit between its legs and is also a story about abuse; I only wrote it when I was 19
03:22years and at that time I wasn't very aware because what I'm writing was an exercise in detail but
03:29Later, over the years, I understood that I wrote it because of this helplessness I felt about leaving school.
03:35in uniform and that there were men who yelled all sorts of things at me in the street and I felt like they didn't have the
03:40There are no tools to do something about it, so there's the helplessness and feeling vulnerable as well.
03:48It happened to me when I was much younger than I am now, I think I was 18 or 19 years old, but you have to think, don't
03:5618 years old
03:57not now with social media, but 18 years after leaving a German convent school, so I was very mature
04:04I was on a train writing a poem, super inspired, which I don't believe in, but oh well.
04:10I was like connected and in front of me a man was masturbating, you don't think someone did something, I...
04:19I had to get up, I had to leave, that person chased me and I sat down next to a lady and
04:24there
04:24Better, but I mean, these are anecdotes from my life that didn't escalate, but all of them
04:32days
04:32All the time there are rapes, abuses, femicides happening, and the worst part is that it's so...
04:41It's become normalized that people downplay it or focus on the victim and not the perpetrator.
04:49I find it terrible that I have to explain that rape and murder are wrong. Well, on the other hand, I also think
04:57What it does is an exploration of paternal figures, of course also of this other side of himself.
05:03those male figures, and of course it's not about saying you're demonizing men, but also
05:11I'd like us to talk about how that treatment and creation of those characters came about; there's a story in
05:16One particular thing that caught my attention was that it seemed like a contemporary Greek tragedy in which the
05:24The daughter ends up murdering her father, but she does it because he abused her, and again, although she...
05:30Violence in these stories is not explicit, as the narrative hints at what is happening.
05:36This happens to these characters, and well, let's also talk about that treatment and that creation.
05:42of those male characters and especially of those father figures that are in this good book
05:48Look, I need to clarify that I don't believe—I'm obviously a feminist, but I don't believe that everyone...
05:54The men's world isn't full of healthy, good-hearted men, but there is indeed a kind of structure.
06:01general violence where many men abuse and get away with it, let's say there are no consequences and it happens
06:10These abuses occur a lot within the family environment, and there is also a lot of complicity, sometimes not always.
06:19The mothers' own relatives who ignore or directly justify the couple of
06:30Those violations, then I was also interested in exploring that; in fact, I'm listening to a podcast.
06:40It's called True Crime with Marta Caballero, who is Spanish, and just yesterday I heard about a case
06:46in
06:47Canada, a few years ago, a very well-known gynecologist, much loved by the community, passed away in a small town.
06:53A very small man raped a patient, injected her with something, she could feel everything but couldn't...
07:00He moved her, no one in the village believed her, and she did everything to get him caught.
07:10to this
07:10She went to a gynecologist, but nobody believed her, and in fact, she was harassed so much in the town that she had to leave.
07:15years later
07:17This gynecologist's stepdaughter accused her stepfather of rape, and that's when everything came to light.
07:26Then it came to light because the mother believed her; there are mothers who don't believe their children.
07:32The theme of violence is not in the stories, and I think that has to do with what you're saying.
07:37also and it is the
07:38reality, not reality itself, is violent, it is aggressive, but I insist on the story, on the stories.
07:45It's not explicit, and I'd also like us to address this topic of how interested you are.
07:53and how you have explored and how you have also seen, of course, your relationship as a human being with the
08:02violence that we encounter daily in the everyday life of our most frequented spaces
08:10Because patriarchy seeps in through two parts: it seeps into language, it seeps into the way
08:17Even in science, to be given in Spain, this year—I don't know if a study came out this year on the
08:25menopause
08:27And the patients were male, that's patriarchy, because there's no truth to the fact that they're doing a study of the
08:35Penopancy, which mainly affects women, is also being studied in men; there are more studies on it.
08:42Male pattern baldness, which is related to menopause, and regarding the stories, there is one story that seems to...
08:49Her name is Anita, and the happiness seems very banal because it's a man who believes his girlfriend is
08:55a
08:55alien and then you can read it and laugh and say look what this person creates but in
09:00reality
09:00I thought about it in this sense, about these men who treat their partners like trophy women.
09:10that they have them to show them off and that they are not really interested in getting to know them as individuals and where not
09:16There is a peer relationship, but it is an unequal relationship because the male has some kind of power and
09:22This woman is displayed like a trophy, so I see violence everywhere.
09:30Look, I have an example that seems trivial but it isn't. A few years ago I was invited to a fair
09:37in
09:37Washington and the Argentine embassy invited me there, you're not going to know the embassy in Washington and me
09:46They showed a room with all the photos of the ambassadors, all men except for one woman, where
09:53There was a picture of the woman behind a sculpture, so I said, "Why do I have that mindset?"
10:01from seeing the crack, from seeing the thread, from seeing not me because there's a picture of the only woman
10:06is behind a
10:07We didn't notice the sculpture, but it's obvious they were hiding it, not just keeping quiet about it.
10:14It was unintentional, but Diona, it's really, really shocking that nobody noticed that detail, and so
10:21tea
10:21I could give a million and a half examples: at fairs, at writers' booths, I don't know, I forgot.
10:30in
10:30Mexico, all Mexican writers at a publisher's stand, all men, I'm going to say no
10:37You can put only Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, for example, I mean, no, then well, it gets filtered.
10:46in
10:46Everywhere, including in the city, there's a book called Feminist City that talks about how...
10:52Cities are designed for men, and I also think that we often take for granted what is already known.
10:58It becomes a landscape in everyday life, not in the routine, and let's say in that path we have come along.
11:04We were talking, so I wanted to ask you specifically about a phrase that's at the beginning of one of the
11:10Tales of the horrible and everyday imperfection, like that relationship you also have with your
11:17routine with daily life and if you consider it, as you mention it or as the author mentions it
11:25he
11:25owner of the phrase, uh yes, that everyday life is, uh yes, imperfect and horrible, well for me, let's say, I don't
11:37I am a person who thinks the world is lost and I don't believe in humanity, and I believe that
11:41everything is
11:41It's awful, and I also see a positive side. I don't see a positive side. A lot of people are fighting for
11:47other
11:47People who help animals, not just those who try to do good, let's say, for me, the definition of
11:55Success isn't about how many followers you have, how many awards you've won, or whatever.
12:01See if you left the world better than you found it, basically by doing whatever you do.
12:11In that sense, well, I don't have a completely dark view, but I do think that, uh, what I
12:17destroys
12:19How violence is justified and normalized, and as I said, you see it every day, right?
12:26I don't know
12:26I'll give you another example that seems silly but isn't: the issue of catcalling women in the street.
12:32saying to
12:32I love being complimented, and I don't know why these feminists are so obsessed with compliments.
12:37and actually
12:37It has to do with the fact that many of those compliments aren't calm or kind; they're super aggressive.
12:46I've been told horrible things in Buenos Aires, and you really feel like you've been violated in some way.
12:55to the
12:56The reverse doesn't generally happen, and I think about patriarchy when people say patriarchy doesn't exist.
13:03No
13:03Because there are people who deny it too, there is concrete data, there are more than 100 countries in this world where
13:10Child marriage is legal, but it's not 50-year-old women marrying 9-year-old children.
13:1850-year-old men marrying 9-year-old girls, and well, I could go on and on, but there are millions of them.
13:25Millions of data points like that in Latin America. I researched this because last year I gave a
13:31Conference in Chile on this: 11 women are killed every day in femicides, meaning there are 11 new femicide perpetrators.
13:40I say that every day, it seems horrible to me, I wouldn't want to overlook it, I heard you talking these days in
13:49Caracol Radio was talking about exquisite corpse and you mentioned the topic of savage capitalism these days.
13:57In Europe, there are protests in many countries: Spain, France, Greece, Portugal, even Belgium.
14:06The reasons for housing, education, and cost of living are different, and we see how this savage capitalism...
14:12You mention it because it's increasingly intruding into everyday life, and I would like to know that
14:20We could also talk a little about what you were pointing out, and how there's a kind of...
14:26of
14:27erosion in the face of the logic of capitalism in different parts of the world, well, let's see, I think that
14:34The history of humanity is not an arrow that goes straight to, uh, total human rights, no
14:42but it is pendulum-like and circular, with setbacks and explosions, and then it calms down again.
14:52Or ways of thinking that we thought were completely outdated are being imposed, and not
15:02So, well, it seems to me that this is about not oppressing people, not oppressing them, even if it's just for a moment
15:09Where there's an explosion, we need to see what happens with all of this, if there will really be a real change.
15:14Because, for example, in Argentina, when I traveled here to Colombia on the 15th, there was a general protest in
15:21the street because my law doesn't stop the president of my country, unfortunately, is the president who doesn't comply with
15:28The university funding law that was approved in Congress, that is, it's an approved law, and he didn't
15:35pay
15:35What public universities have to pay... I studied at a public university, I wouldn't be...
15:42Sitting here talking to you, otherwise I'd continue at the public university, so I'm going to defend the
15:46Public university and public education to the death because it also allows for social advancement and is
15:53fundamental, and at least Argentina is a country that stands out for its public education and health.
16:00The issue with these struggles is also that capitalism does that, therefore...
16:09What I find so savage and perverse is that you also get worn down because it's one fight after another.
16:15One right after another they take away one right after another after another, so it's a time where it wears you down, you know what?
16:21that
16:21It's becoming my law, it's slowly destroying everything, and people are coming out to fight, but oh well.
16:29There are things
16:29What rights have they taken from us? I think we have to resist from wherever we can. In my case, I...
16:37I resist through literature, through books, through talking about that. I'll go with one last question, and well, I think that
16:46which you have most likely already discussed in other contexts at different times, but this
16:52Why resort to animals, nature, or the moon? What is the reason for this? What is its influence?
17:01that you
17:01Why did it lead to, or why have you always wanted to resort to this type of, well yes, natural elements for,
17:11your
17:11stories because we are nature, we are animals, we are not separate, that is, what it does
17:20Capitalism is about creating a separation, a decision precisely so that we consider ourselves
17:27superior beings, which we clearly are not, because the only superior beings in any case in this
17:32The planet is like bees; without bees we're pretty much lost if we disappear tomorrow.
17:39Nothing is happening on the planet, but the system makes us believe that we are superior and that therefore we can
17:47use, abuse, extract, pollute, destroy, and what happened before capitalism is that there was
17:57a connection, a respect with nature, that was lost, and now what we have is...
18:03a
18:03shameful and unnecessary accumulation, in addition to this senseless consumption.
18:13So, because of all that, why am I interested in this? Thinking about how there are people who really don't know what a... is.
18:20animal
18:20I mean, not where we come from, what we are, and how we think we are different from animals, really, no
18:28We're not so different.
18:30And to finish, I would like us to talk about death because I believe death is also present throughout
18:36of
18:37Well, of these stories, and not only violent death, there is also one
18:44Can you correct me on the name of a story I think is called Teacher Versus Nietzsche, in which the man
18:50then he dies
18:52almost suddenly after or in the middle of a Boca Juniors match, and well, I wouldn't want anything.
18:59I would like to ask you, in order to end this relationship you have with death and also the exploration you do of
19:04From this point on, in your stories and tales
19:07Well, because it's about human beings, I'm going to state the obvious, but really, I mean, we don't know where it comes from.
19:14we come
19:14We don't know where we're going; the only certainty we have in this life is that we're going to die.
19:20As far as I know, no one is immortal at the moment, and I think it would be horrible to be immortal, wouldn't it?
19:27as
19:27There is a story by a contemporary Russian woman named Anas Star and Bonet who has a book that is
19:37call a
19:39It's a difficult age, but there's a story about an immortal character that's incredible; I highly recommend it.
19:47So, well, I'm interested in exploring death in different places, not because obviously there's a kind of fear.
19:54There's this thing, like, "What is this? When will it be my turn?" Because that's also true: you never know when it's going to be your turn.
19:59in
20:00in general, and I also explore a type of symbolic death, as in the story "The Slowness of the Place," which is
20:09the
20:09death the little death not the little the death of orgasm
20:15So, well, they are like these universal themes that are so often addressed by art and literature.
20:23Because they are infinite. Well, Agustina, thank you very much for accepting this.
20:29Thank you for being here at the event, and thank you to everyone who joined us.
20:35I hope you enjoyed this interview, and of course, I invite you to continue following us.
20:41I hope they keep reading Agustina Basterrica, and well, Agustina, I hope things continue to go very well for you with your...
20:47books and see you next time, thank you
20:51bye
20:52bye
20:53bye
20:53bye
20:53bye
20:54bye
20:54bye
20:54bye
20:55bye
20:55bye
20:56bye
20:56bye
20:56bye bye
20:58Thank you.
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