Alonso Cueto reveals the contents of the letter he received from Vargas Llosa after the publication of his first book

After the blue Hour, Whale Woman’s Whisper, Perricholi, midday demon there The passenger, Alonso Cueto He decided to share his most intimate texts. These are lines that were never meant to be published, but to remain on the pages where the Peruvian narrator poured out the worries, surprises and memories he stored up over the days.

in conversation with GlobeLiveMedia He gave details of his new literary work.

As you have done before, Cueto He reflects on his work as a writer, emphasizing that in the world of fiction “I can forget the other time which erodes me, dissolves me, brings me closer to death”. But the truth is writers never die, they just quit To write. His creations survive in the affection and admiration which, from time to time, arises among his most loyal readers.

Proof of this are the memories of the writer of José María Arguedas. The friendship that the author of deep rivers Keeping with his family led him to build memories like the one in which they hugged in the stands of a stadium after ‘Perico’ León saved a goal against Universitario de Deportes. “At that time, I didn’t know he was a writer. Only that he was a dear uncle,” wrote the author of great look.

In 1983, the battle of the pastfirst book of Alonso Cuetoa letter from one of his readers arrived in bookstores and at his home: Mario Vargas Llosa. For the Nobel Prize for Literature who two years earlier had just published The end of the world war the fledgling writer’s stories had been to his liking to reflect the passion with which he had passed through the early experiences of his adulthood.

“It has to do with my idea of ​​literature which he also has: it is important to live experiences in a very personal, deep and intense way in order to be able to turn this into fiction. To go beyond an exercise in style” , said the author of The years.

For this reason, he came to write lines which indicate that “one writes about what he did not know which tormented him. It is a muscular exercise, in which the main muscle is the imagination”.

One of the sources of happiness Alonso Cueto it was cinema He describes the seventh art as “a diary of memory that surprises us and brings us back”. Tapes like Chinatown are not only Faye Dunaway, Jack Nicholson and John Huston on screen, but also the days he first saw this tape, the same days his parents were alive and he was studying at the Faculty of Literature.

Recently, he marveled with The Fabelmans, The Triangle of Sadness and Tár, but especially with The Spirits of the Island. The simplicity of its plot, the economy of its story, the concentration and mystery of human relations and friendship have marked those who consider their friends an important factor for a bearable existence. Today, he says he has the friends he needs.

“Friends are made to have no obligations, to share the world and discuss it. We don’t have more or less friends. There is a prose of Julius Ramon Ribeyro who says that at a certain age you don’t make new friends and it’s as if the doors were closed. I’m not sure, it all depends on how attentive you are to the world. It’s a mystery like love,” the acclaimed writer pointed out.