It was the year of 1989 and the lawyer Juan David Morgan began to give shape to a project that had been spinning in his head for some time: writing the story of his father, Eduardo Morgan Álvarez, a very interesting life full of contrasts. His intention was to offer a story to his children and grandchildren so that they would know that family history and not die into oblivion. But before completing it, Morgan realized that he did not have all the necessary elements to complete it and decided to fill those gaps with some fiction “always maintaining the truth in the story in general but with characters that, although they could have been real, did not correspond with the reality of each one”. When finished, he sent the letter to some close friends so that they could give his opinion. They recommended him to publish it.
To date (1992) Morgan had limited himself to writing opinion articles and some essays, he had not considered writing a novel. Convinced, he decided to initially publish in Colombia the work called Fugitivos del paisaje under the pseudonym Jorge Thomas. With this novel he began the literary career of Juan David Morgan, to which a dozen works have been added to this day. Throughout this time, that original story had several editions, but no changes, until this year when, through the Alfaguara label, and after being out of print for more than 15 years, a reissue of Fugitivos del paisaje is presented, in this occasion, with a meticulous reissue that was presented at a discussion in Panama City and later in Boquete, Chiriquí.
“The story it contains is the original, but it is, I would say, greatly improved not only by me but by some observations made by the publishing house, and the edition itself is very good. It is a generous book that has a very nice cover and when you open it, it allows you to read it with ease, apart from the literary content.
How much was actually included in this review? Is it very different from the original story?
The one who read the first novel, if he read it many years ago, well maybe he will find it better written of course, but he will find the same story in general, it doesn’t change. On the contrary, I tried to stay as long as possible because I was not going to change the title. We stick with the same title because it’s the same story, enhanced and edited, with a couple of important additions and a prologue.
Do you consider that the original objective of this story, which now becomes a structured novel, was fulfilled?
The novel was intended, at first, for my children and my grandchildren. My children, and they were already over 20 when I wrote the novel, but my grandchildren were very young, so now what is happening is very curious. My grandchildren are reading the novel, but with great curiosity to know what is true and what is not true, which characters did exist, where they come from, and they ask me, they are stalking me (laughs); They want to have a meeting in which I sit down with them and tell them. What I have told them is to read the work like a novel, which I am going to tell you later. So yes, yes, it fulfills its purpose and now, better because I did have that little bug of goodness, I published it and I have written after that, 13 more novels and I am already writing better…
The landscape is, as has been commented in the conversation, one more character in the work. But the rural Chiriquí of the early 20th century is not the same as the one we live in today. What good memories do you have of rural Chiriquí of yesteryear and what do you like about Chiriquí today?
The story in Chiriquí is more focused on Boquete and on a farm near Boquete that some cousins still have. The landscape is so marked there and above all that landscape is guarded by the Barú Volcano. As a child, I would spend the summers at the farm of these cousins and the volcano could be seen at the bottom of the paddock, I thought when I was about 8 years old, that if I went out there, I would reach the volcano and when I got tired that I wouldn’t he could do more, the volcano was even further away and he returned frustrated. I told myself one day I’m going to climb it and, indeed, I not only climbed the volcano, but many other hills with my brother Eduardo, who unfortunately has already passed away. So the landscape has always been the same for me, both on the Boquete side and towards Bambito, only in Boquete has it been more preserved than in Cerro Punta due to the type of cultivation that is done there (…) it does not mean to say that we are not happy with such great progress, that David looks a bit messy as here in the capital; There are shopping centers, there are already roadblocks, but many Ticos come to buy, trade has grown, and we continue to be the province that produces the most, and this was confirmed in July of last year when the highway closures occurred. All of this satisfies, but I miss my friends, some of whom are gone, I miss my family.
The female characters are also very dominant, very strong, something that contrasts somewhat with the role of women at that time… this was highlighted by María del Carmen Deola, who participated in the conversation…
There are four female characters that are really important: the first, my paternal grandmother, who was Colombian and half Indian, who met my Welsh grandfather in Colombia because he was a mining engineer and operated a silver mine there. When the exploitation ended, they returned to Wales and that grandmother received the news that her husband who was now exploiting a silver mine in Indonesia had died in an accident and so she made the decision to return with all her children to Colombia. . Her eldest daughter, who is another important character, was called Zaita. That character is important because, being in the United States, she is the one who decides to buy a farm in Chiriquí that was fashionable. She is the one who decides that the family will go to Chiriquí. On the other hand, my mother, who is reflected in another character, a school teacher, finished studying in Panama but became a school teacher in Chiriquí. she there she marries my father who had received the suitability of lawyer. She makes many decisions within the novel. She is an important person, so she is. Women are important in the story. That caught her attention because it was written 30 years ago and now, yes, we all know that women have been empowered and not only that, but that they occupy very important positions in whatever activities they may be. I hadn’t thought about it until she [Deola] He said it, but it is true and yes and if there are characters whose character is reflected throughout the novel.
And they are true characters, right?
Yes they are true, but there is another grandmother that, what a pity that I got rid of her quickly [en la novela] with a disease; This never happened, however, I highlight my grandfather, a man I did not know, I did not know any of my grandparents, I knew my two grandmothers, but I turned that grandmother into a grandfather. [en la historia] because he had a very close relationship with me and then the novel needed him.
Are you satisfied with the work of this review as it is presented to the public?
I’m very happy. I think it’s a novel that whoever reads it will enjoy it a lot because, as I said, it’s an intimate novel, but it’s an intimacy that can be said. There are intimacies that are untouchable, but this is a common intimacy: the intimacy of family love, brotherly love, the intimacy of relationships between husband and wife and between father and son, between siblings, between friends… it is something that is shared and something and that I had absolutely no regrets, no resentment in saying it. Because I understood when I wrote it and especially when I accepted that it was going to be published, which was something, one could say, they were one of those intimacies that are easy to communicate and also easy to accept and that it will be easy for the reader to feel also reflected in the novel.
And these intimacies are also accompanied by a quantity of historical information that is also real…
Almost accidentally and due to the needs of the story, because my father lived throughout the 20th century, he was born in 1902 and died in 1988, there are 86 years in which many things happened that I included because it was important. Thus I was touching part of the history of the province is the establishment of the Chiriquí Land Company as a colonialist company; the boat trips before the road was finally built, the downpours, the tremors, the railway, the arrival of the gringos [a Chiriquí] in ’18… they stayed there for two years and one of my aunts married one of these gringos… everything, that’s reflected in the novel, we continue with the war, with aviation, and that’s where the treaty continues in ‘ 28 that in the end, was rejected by Panama… we reached the relationship with the Americans, which was a very difficult relationship, especially when there were cases that occurred in the country that affected an American… later in Panama City, the tram, I had I had to learn the route to be able to take the passengers in history where I wanted to take them. I had to read a lot for that, research. All of this is reflected in the novel and it gradually becomes the history of the 20th century in Panama. And it is told without further ado without much interest in telling a story but simply in telling how the characters were being conditioned by the story they were living.
Has this publication made you reconsider some upcoming projects?
I have a personal problem as a writer and it happens to me, perhaps more than with my novels, with my newspaper column or my essays. When I read, for example, Fugitives from the Landscape I think that I was a better writer before than now, because now I am a more cerebral writer. Before, I was more spontaneous if you will, more sentimental, especially my articles, that is, I was naive. What happened? that I worked in a law firm, which conditions one. I had to get rid of the habit of writing as a lawyer, the lawyer has to convince a judge and he has to reason everything. The writer doesn’t. On the contrary, he has to write so that the reader can reason. And one of the first people who read me told me, you are not writing as a writer but as a lawyer, and I have put judgments in almost all my novels, both historical and crime novels, because I am a lawyer and that part is easy for me… All this is conditioning me and I would say yes, that perhaps from the grammatical and literary point of view I write, of course better now than when I started writing, but from the point of view of what I would like to read, I would like to read more Like what I wrote at the beginning. I like what I wrote in Fugitives from the Landscape more than what I wrote in The Death of Daniel, my latest crime novel, which is something much more thoughtful and more cerebral. Today I do not write anything without first having written the plot. I always know where I’m going. I have to do it like this, I believe in structure, I believe that literature requires much more discipline than talent.
Going forward, what new projects are planned?
I have to write a historical novel, I just finished publishing La cabeza de Balboa, which is a very historical novel. I had also previously published The Death of Daniel, which is a crime novel, and I published the Biographical Profile of Fernando Eleta, all in a pandemic. all this in pandemic. Now I would have to write a historical novel and I’m working on it. I am turning around a subject that can be universal. In other words, it is related to Panama, but even if it is, it has to be universal. For example, independence, the railroad, Morgan, are related to Panama… discovering the South Sea is universal, attacking Panama is universal, building the railroad, the Panama Canal are universal themes. Very local topics can be interesting, but they would not leave this space. I don’t want to say it yet because I haven’t decided, but I’ll probably start writing it in about three or four months. I’m finishing researching, it’s very interesting, it’s very interesting.
