Writing to the Music of Cuba | A Conversation with Karla Suárez
Interviews
By Christina MacSweeney
Born in Havana in 1969, Karla Suárez is the author of a “symphony” of novels and many short stories. Her work has been translated into various languages and adapted for the stage. In addition, she’s an engineer and talented musician. Havana Year Zero (Charco Press, 2021), Suárez’s first novel to be translated into English, offers an intriguing plotline involving the race to find the missing proof of the real identity of the inventor of the telephone. Along the way, and with a great deal of humor and acuity, Suárez gives a depiction and analysis of Cuban society in 1993, the year when there was “Zero Transport. Zero Meat. Zero Hope.”
It was a great pleasure to translate this work: to live for a while in the Cuba of 1993, immerse myself in the novel’s intricate plot, and get to know its fascinating characters. I’m certain many readers are going to share that pleasure.
Christina MacSweeney: Karla, many thanks for agreeing to do this interview. One of the aspects that I love in Havana Year Zero is the way you fuse science and storytelling. You studied engineering in Cuba. How did you make the transition from that career to the arts? What does being an author mean to you?
Karla Suárez: As a child, I had three passions that have stayed with me for my whole life: math, music, and writing. I began writing poems and short stories that my mother then corrected; she taught literature. As I liked music, I studied classical guitar in the conservatoire. But I never imagined either literature or music as career options. I thought my future was to be a scientist, and that’s why I studied electronic engineering. At college, I continued writing, singing, and even completed my thesis at the Laboratorio Nacional de Música Electroacústico, where I developed software for working with music archives. And, during those years, I met other people of my own age who were also writing. We started attending tertulias where everyone read one of their own texts. I published work in a few magazines and entered some competitions. Singing was still important to me, but writing was increasingly taking up more inner space. I was working as an engineer, but the call of literature was stronger. Writing’s an incurable disease. One day I realized that it was the air I breathe. Then I knew there was no choice: I was a writer. And I still am.
CM: It seems to me that, in addition to being a novelist, you are also a social historian. In Havana Year Zero, you return to a difficult period in Cuba’s history from the viewpoint of those living through it, and, in El hijo del héroe (The Hero’s Son) you examine the aftereffects of Cuba’s intervention in the Angolan War of Independence. How does your sense of history influence your writing? Do you feel a responsibility to address certain issues?
KS: The four novels I’ve published so far make up a project I like to call my “Havana Symphony.” Obviously, each of them addresses a different topic, but the backdrop of them all is Havana and the history of the country where I was born and grew up. Taken as a whole, they cover the seventies, eighties, and nineties of the last century. Those novels are: Silencios (Silences), which is centered on the family; La viajera (The Traveler) deals with emigration; Habana año cero (Havana Year Zero) is set during the “special period,” with all its shortages; and El hijo del héroe (The Hero’s Son) covers the fifteen years in which Cubans participated in the Angolan War.
Although each of these novels has its own protagonists and storyline, they subtly echo one another. For example, secondary characters who appear in one novel then reappear in another, overlapping scenes, and, in particular, a backpack used in the Angolan War that moves from one novel to the next, from one character to another. For me, in relation to the things it contains, that backpack sums it all up: the war, the shortages, travel, and the family. As I said, the relationships between the novels are subtle. Readers might not even be aware of them, but they are important to me because, in some way, I’m trying to reconstruct the time when I was living in Cuba. Returning to that country, observing it from different angles in order to attempt to understand it or, at least, organize the chronology a little. History has been leaving its mark on the lives of Cubans for many years. My characters have their personal conflicts, but the shadow of history is always there in the background.
CM: Since leaving Cuba, you’ve lived in a number of European countries, learned several different languages. Have these experiences changed your writing?
KS: Everything we experience influences us in some way, as people and as authors. I came to Europe almost twenty years ago. I first lived in Rome, then in Paris, and I’ve been in Lisbon for a number of years now. I’ve also spent short periods in other cities. The people I’ve met, the situations I’ve experienced, the places that I’ve lived in, that I’ve smelled, the streets I’ve walked down—all these things generate stories. And there’s an interesting point here: almost all my novels were written in Europe but, as I said earlier, my “Havana Symphony” is mainly set in Cuba. There’s no doubt that if I’d written those novels in Havana, they would have been different because I need both temporal and physical distance to write. Particularly when I want to address topics that affect me directly, as happens in those four novels. None of them relate my personal story, but I could easily be one of the characters in that symphony.
CM: Yes, I can absolutely see the need for that distance. But it often feels as though people have certain stereotypical expectations of Cuban literature, depending on their views of the country’s political situation. Do you think this affects the reception of your work? Would you define yourself as a writer in exile or one who no longer lives permanently in her country of birth?
KS: I simply define myself as a writer. Many Cuban authors have been forced into exile, and I feel that is terribly unjust. But my departure was voluntary. And so I can’t define myself as a writer in exile.
In terms of stereotypes, I do believe they have an effect, particularly in relation to Cuba. For instance, some years ago it was relatively easy for Cuban writers to publish their work abroad because many publishing houses sought them out. Cuba was “fashionable” then. Of course, the nationality of the author isn’t the only reason why books are published: content is more important. Publishers were looking for novels that spoke about Cuba, recounted its reality through certain basic ingredients: politics and sex, for example. It’s almost impossible to write about Cuba without mentioning politics; everything on the island is political. But I don’t think it should be the only ingredient in a novel.
Both good and bad novels were published during those years. Later, fashions changed. Very few publishers were looking for Cuban authors then because, as they said, no one was interested in the country any longer. In my own case, for instance, it took ten years to find a publisher in Spain, and many other authors I know had the same experience. Stereotypes cause those swings, but there are always many things to talk about in relation to Cuba, and you can talk about them in different ways. At the moment, the country is going through a totally new situation. It is experiencing a socio-politico-economic crisis that has never occurred before. And what’s new is the way people are reacting to it. The younger generation are demanding rights and are determined to get them. The demonstrations in July this year marked a turning point in Cuba. These times will provide a great deal of material for writers in the future.
CM: Returning to Havana Year Zero, one of the themes it takes up is the relationship between the sexes. Julia is a finely drawn, complex character; I’m not sure I would call her a feminist, but she is determined (sometimes ruthlessly so) not to be exploited by the men around her. How do you perceive Julia, and to what extent do you think her actions and reactions are determined by the society in which she lives?
KS: That novel is very ironic, and Julia is a character I had a lot of fun with. She has a degree in math but isn’t working in her dream job, and she finds that frustrating. In addition, she’s fed up of all the difficulties of life in Havana in 1993; she doesn’t even have her own bedroom and has to sleep on the couch in the living room of the family apartment. And that’s Julia’s life at the beginning of the novel—until she finds herself at the center of an intrigue and becomes involved with three men. She has widely different relationships with each of them. Julia is a romantic: she often cries, feels blue, and believes she’s being manipulated. But, as you rightly note, she’s very determined. Many of her actions and reactions can initially be seen as the product of the society she lives in. Nevertheless, at times she’s capable of calculating with mathematical precision. She looks at a problem, analyzes it, and seeks a solution. Any solution. Julia is, in fact, a kind of reflection of the society. In the Cuba of 1993, one nation came to an end and another was born. Some people lost their innocence and woke from the apparent romanticism they were living in to become different. Julia is transformed; her romanticism has its limits.
CM: You mentioned your love of music earlier, and that you’re a classical guitarist. What music do the characters in Havana Year Zero dance to?
KS: As music has always been a part of my life, it’s also present in my literature. I like to feel I know the music my characters listen to or what’s playing in a particular scene. That deepens my understanding of their personalities, one I can then pass on to readers. Life has sounds, literature tells stories, talks about life. While I’m writing my novels, I produce a playlist that I listen to all the time to “feel” and “see” what I then have to write. In Havana Year Zero, I included the work of a number of singer-songwriters: Santiago Feliú, Gerado Alfonso, Silvio Rodríguez, Frank Delagado, Polito Ibañez, and Carlos Varela are all there. Pino Daniele corresponds to the character of the Italian journalist. And there’s music by the bands Extreme and Counting Crows. Julia really likes Roberto Carlos, and there are two scenes in which Beny Moré and Omar Portuondo provide the soundtrack to Julia’s unhappiness. And of course there’s Rachmaninoff’s brilliant Piano Concerto No. 2.
CM: I can see parallels here: I tried to find songs by many of the musicians you mention and played them while I was translating Havana Year Zero. Returning to writing: how would you describe the contemporary literary scene in Cuba? Which writers do you think we should be reading and translating?
KS: In general, it’s always worth reading our traditionally great authors: Alejo Carpentier, Virgilio Piñera, Guillermo Cabrera Infante, and Lidia Cabrera. Nowadays, many Cubans are writing in different parts of the world. I’m not exactly sure which have been translated into English. But, although lists are never complete, I can mention a few authors who I feel are doing valuable work: Mirta Yañez and María Elena Llana, for instance, are two writers I like a lot. In my generation, there’s Ena Lucía Portela, Ana Lidia Vega Serova, Amir Valle, and Ronaldo Menendez, to mention just a few. If they aren’t already translated, they should be. And then there are the younger writers. For example, a few months ago Granta’s list of outstanding Spanish-language writers under thirty-nine included three Cubans: Dainerys Machado Vento, Carlos Manuel Álvarez, and Eudris Planche Savón. I’ve read them, thought them interesting, and imagine they will now be published in English. Oh, and I’d also recommend reading Wendy Guerra and Leonardo Padura.
CM. Could you give us a preview of what you’re working on now?
KS: I’m one of those authors who don’t like to talk about their work in progress, but I can tell you that I’ve begun a new symphony. In this case it has to do with the arts. It will also consist of four novels. The backdrop will be different artistic manifestations and what they are capable of doing to us: saving us, sinking us, obsessing or transforming us. That will be the focus, but, of course, the stories will also center around personal human conflicts.
CM: That sounds amazing, Karla. I can’t wait to read the first part of the new symphony. And what are you reading now?
KS: On the day I’m doing this interview, I’m rereading the novel Esther en alguna parte (Esther Somewhere) by Eliseo Alberto Diego (another author well worth reading). I coordinate the Cervantes Institute book club in Lisbon, where we read Latin American writing; this is our book of the month. I’m mentioning it here because Eliseo Alberto Diego is an author I love very much. He died a few years ago but left a magnificent body of work.
Christina MacSweeney is an award-winning translator, working with such authors as Valeria Luiselli, Daniel Saldaña París, Elvira Navarro, Verónica Gerber Bicecci, Julián Herbert, Jazmina Barrera and Karla Suárez. She has also contributed to many anthologies of Latin American Literature and has published shorter translations, articles and interviews on a wide variety of platforms.
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