He was 14 years old the day EL PAÍS took to the streets, on May 4, 1976. Political parties were still illegal, but the young Cercas was not yet concerned enough with politics to read the press. That newspaper quickly became a successful phenomenon. He connected with thousands of readers who wanted to shake off the dandruff of Francoism and, as he said, he was born without the original sin of the dictatorship. Since he was only able to go out on the streets after Franco’s death, he was spared the embarrassing exercise of covering his obituary with praise.
Half a century later, Cercas has written a book about that diary that has so influenced his life as a reader and writer, published by Random House and presented this Sunday in Matadero, Madrid, in a conversation with . “This book,” Cercas revealed, “was Jan’s idea. ‘If I write it,’ I told him, ‘I already know what it will be titled: The newspaper of democracy“It is not laudatory,” the writer pointed out, “it is merely descriptive, a fact. EL PAÍS was born almost two months before. Democracy is being created and contributes decisively to it. The guy literally plays on 23-F, he’s the only one who goes out on the street. “After today’s, it is the most important cover in its history.”
Cercas confessed that he is still moved by remembering where, despite assuming that the coup will triumph, he expresses his commitment to the Constitution. A day that marked the identity of the newspaper forever. “It is the reference newspaper in our country and the Spanish newspaper that exists outside of Spain. The writer Juan Villoro says to know what is happening in Mexico you have to read EL PAÍS,” he highlighted. And that also has a price. “There are two details that demonstrate the importance of the newspaper: one is the hostility and the other is the number of legends it awakens. It is something that also happens with the Vatican,” he joked. “They have come to call us Miguel Yuste’s group,” Jan Martínez Ahrens added sarcastically.
The author of Anatomy of a moment He became a regular reader of the newspaper in college. He was hooked by that mix between the Prussian rigor of its informative pages and the anarchist tone of firms like Francisco Umbral. The diary looked like himself. A culture-hungry man who dreamed of being a writer but who also devoured nights, beer and rock and roll. The book is not the history of EL PAÍS, although some moments are reflected on, but the testimony of an inveterate reader, who ended up fulfilling the dream of being a writer and columnist.
In the book he says that Soldiers of Salamisthe novel that made him an international phenomenon, owes much of its literary air to the columns that he began to write in the pages of Catalonia at the invitation of Agustí Fancelli. Shortly after that book came out, even before it became a bomb thanks to the then person in charge of The Weekly CountryÁlex Martínez Roig, invited Cercas to write two bimonthly columns. The writer named the section . His political articles years later on the process They focused part of the conversation on Matadero, in which Cercas praised the pluralism of the newspaper’s Opinion pages during that crisis, “the most serious experienced in Spain since 23-F.”
“Do you think that this independence movement can re-emerge again with a PP and Vox government?” asked Jan Martínez Ahrens. “I can’t answer that, it’s a difficult question. The process It was accompanied by very favorable factors such as the general economic crisis. The euro was about to go to hell. Brexit happened, there were factors that favored what happened. The problem is not resolved because successive Spanish Governments do not have a project to solve it. Now we have put a poultice on it, but it is not a solution,” the writer reflected before pointing out a way out. “There is a solution and it consists of moving from an autonomist mentality to a federalist one, we also need that in Europe. But what governments do is put patches,” he criticized.
Among the confidences he shared with the public at the closing ceremony of the EL PAÍS 50 Years Festival, the writer confessed politically: “If I voted with my gut, I would vote for Buenaventura Durruti. But I vote with my head. I am a bloody social democrat, which is the most boring thing there is.” “I aspire to a Norway with sun and tapas,” he said to the laughter of the audience.
The director of EL PAÍS closed the dialogue with the same question that Cercas asks at the end of the book: “What can we do to continue being the newspaper of democracy?” “If I had an answer, I would ask to be appointed director of EL PAÍS. I think we must redouble the bet made 50 years ago. It is obvious that we live in a crisis of democracy in the world, the answer to that is to provide ourselves with more democracy. Another bet from then was Europe, the newspaper presents itself as pro-European from day one. Today that bet must be redoubled and go to a federal Europe. Either we are going to that or we are not going anywhere. Europe is the only reasonable utopia that we Europeans have built. And the most important thing about the newspaper’s commitment is to tell things as they are.
