Alberto Olmos

GRANTA 113: THE BEST OF YOUNG SPANISH-LANGUAGE NOVELISTS

Alberto Olmos’ excerpt ‘Eva and Diego’ reminds me of this episode in a letter written from Turgenev to his life-long love, Pauline Viardot, during the Revolution of 1848. Under the title ‘Exact Narrative of What I Saw on Monday, Paris, May 15, 1948’, Turgenev recounted the events of the day. Toward the end of the letter, he wrote: ‘I was also struck by the way the hot-chocolate and cigar vendors moved around the ranks of the crowd. Greedy, pleased, unconcerned, they had the look of fisherman hauling in a heavily laden net.’

Greedy, pleased, unconcerned — these adjectives could also be applied to history, that monster who moves with its own egocentric pace, robbing us when are the least prepared, like the innocent women and children caught by the bombing in Olmos’ excerpt. Yet still we have hope, not because any one of us could become invisible to history, or undefeatable, but because we will always have the vendors at the Place de la Concorde and the shop assistant holding up an ipod; and more importantly, the writers who keep these moments for us. — Yiyun Li, Best Young American Novelist 2007

Each of the Best of Young Spanish-Language Novelists answered a questionnaire on their influences and the role of the writer in public life. Here are Olmos’ answers:

Name the five writers you most admire at the moment (any period, language or genre).

Homer, Denis Diderot, Henry Fielding, William Faulkner and Thomas Bernhard

Have you published literary criticism?

Yes, on certain websites such as Literaturas or the now defunct revistateina.com.

Which languages do you read in?

In Spanish and, much less often, in English.

Do you have your own web page?

For the last six years I’ve kept a blog called Hikikomori.

Is your fiction your sole source of income? If not, what else do you live off?

Journalism and teaching, mainly.

Should writers play a role in public life beyond the publication of their work? If so, in what way?

I think that the publication of their work should be writers’ only influence on public life, since their talent and skills lie in writing, and not in politics, juggling, drag acts or ballroom dancing.