Madrid, Mar 17 (EFE) .- Silence is a way of continuing the violence against the victims, the writer Edurne Portela assures Efe, who speaks in her new novel, “Closed Eyes”, of those silences inherited from the Civil War and how there are still many memories to unravel about that past.
Edurne Portela (Santurtzi, Vizcaya, 1974), novelist, essayist and doctor in Hispanic Literatures from the University of North Carolina (United States), gave voice to the silences about terrorism in her successful novel “Better absence”, she spoke of the gender violence in “Ways to be away”, and returns now with “Closed eyes”, also edited by Galaxia Gutenberg.
All the violence that Portela has dealt with previously are still present in this novel, but on this occasion memory enters and goes back to the years of the Civil War and, above all, the years after, “of silence”, a silence that becomes , precisely, in one of the ways of relating between the characters.
His novel takes place in an imagined place, called Pueblo Chico, which could be anywhere in the country: “Spain is full of towns like this, small towns with very small communities in which these stories of violence pass from generation to generation and it is a lot more difficult to forget and seek a coexistence when there has been that type of social disruption, “he explains.
Pedro, the elderly protagonist of this story, lives in that town, a repository of secrets surrounding the violence that has raged through the place for decades. And there comes Ariadna who will reveal her connection with the silenced history of the place.
“Silence revictimizes”, says Edurne Portela: “there is the first violence, that of murder, torture or disappearance, those violence that tear apart, and then there is silence”.
And silence “condemns the victim to be so permanently, because their damage is not recognized, not shared, their wound remains there but relegated to the background for those who do not want it to be seen or discussed. Silence is another way of violence or, at least, another way of continuing the violence against the victims, “the author maintains.
Edurne Portela acknowledges that a lot has been written about the Civil War and the Franco regime from history or from fiction, but she assures that “much remains to be discovered”, especially from the perspective of small family stories.
And it also remains to be seen how that past configures us, as it happens to Ariadna, says Portela.
“How many people are there in Spain who know that things happened in their family during the war but do not know exactly what, who do not know how their loved ones died? For many people that is still an outstanding debt and that is why the novel is a dialogue between present and past, which are joined. It is an exercise in inexhaustible memory. There are many memories to unravel about that past, “says the writer.
Edurne Portela considers that what should be talked about is “democratic memory”, which does not imply a confrontation because what is sought is “truth, justice and reparation.”
And he affirms that “if someone is offended because someone wants to know where their grandfather is buried, that is the one who has a real problem.” These people are the ones who “encourage hatred and division and those who do not respect fundamental democratic principles,” he stresses.
“I do not think that this should be taken as an attack or a provocation but as an exercise in democratic memory,” says the writer who adds: “If we are supposed to have passed that historical stage, we should be able to debate calmly and those who are They are the ones who are against following this process of democratic memory, make them uneasy. ”
His novel also tells how, when there is a conflict such as the civil war and the postwar period, there is always a “very directed” violence against women. “And the body of the woman in the end becomes that space where to settle many of the hatred and revenge”.
He also talks about other victims, children, and how brutal violence conditions a whole life and ensures that “children are the great forgotten because it is believed that they overcome everything, but it is the opposite.”
Carmen Naranjo
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