These have been hectic days for the novelist, essayist, playwright, theater director, columnist and screenwriter Hugo Hiriart, an all-terrain man who likes to wear a shirt and suspenders, winner of several of the great prizes awarded in Mexico for creation, and who on April 28 celebrated 80 years of life.
The previous week, Hiriart traveled to Jalisco as one of the guests at the launch of the activities of Guadalajara, World Book Capital, and was the protagonist of the first part of the program. In a matter of three days he integrated at least four conversations with colleagues and for the UdeG and ITESO universities.
At the close of the protocol ceremony for the inauguration of the capital, the writer Martín Solares, who is the coordinator of the program, approached the microphone and broke the protocol with the following statements: “we would have to ask maestro Hiriart if he wants to come up and say a couple of words. You have to have that detail because he is one of the great creators in our country, I hope everyone takes advantage of reading him this year”. But the author declined the offer and preferred to keep a low profile at the ceremony, although he could not avoid the abundant applause of those present.
It was precisely on his birthday that the Mexican Academy of Language, in which he has held chair XVIII since 2014, paid him a tribute in which friends and colleagues such as Adolfo Castañón, Diego Valadés, Silvia Molina, Rodrigo Martínez Baracs and Lilian Weinberg.
There, Hiriart joked and dressed with a serious face: “I have never celebrated a birthday in my life, never, and I reach 80 years old and then this thing falls on me like a curse (…) if you see an animal, a kitten, a dog, immediately realizes that they have a placidity that other animals do not have. I am like this, with the placidity of a cat, waiting to see what time they call me. And I’m happy.”
The enigmatic art of enduring
Perhaps it was not the call he expected, but Hiriart agrees to attend El Economista to talk, on the occasion of his anniversary, about his concern for transcendence, the administration of culture and all the work of his authorship that awaits its premiere.
He begins by saying that he was never interested in writing texts that responded to the circumstances of the moment, because they turn out to be among the most volatile. “I have long realized that if you write articles and essays on current affairs, on something that is happening right now, those are the ones that age the fastest. It is not convenient to write about that if what you want is for a work to last a little longer. But the truth is, I don’t think the things I’ve done will last, I’d be surprised. I sell few books and maybe I do have some readers, but I doubt that many”.
Perhaps obsessed by the above, in 2010 Hiriart presented the essay El arte de perdurar, edited by Almadía, where, with the sharpness that characterizes him, he questions the reasons why the work of some authors, despite their great talent, does not reached the great showcase of popularity against the massive work of others. And he throws a couple of questions:
“Why Al filo del agua, a novel prodigy (by Agustín Yáñez), did not have the same public that Juan Rulfo did? I have also wondered why Alfonso Reyes, whom I read as an extraordinary teacher, is totally forgotten in front of Jorge Luis Borges, his disciple?
It evokes that it was Reyes who, during his stay in Buenos Aires as Mexico’s first ambassador to Argentina, instructed the young man to polish and clarify his writing. “Only then did the great teacher of the language appear, who was Borges. See what avatars. The teacher is read by very few people and, on the other hand, Borges is a celebrity”.
“A disdain for culture”
In another order of ideas, he is asked what he thinks about Guadalajara being the capital and the hardly noticeable presence of the federal government. The teacher limits himself to answering that “there is a disdain for culture in this government and a total distance. It is a very rare thing for a leftist government, when in general the left is the owner of the culture, where the strongest cultural channels tend to be. I don’t know what to make of them, but there’s something broken there.”
He confesses that he has saved several unpublished novels, practically complete, although he rules out seeing them published. “An author publishes what he thinks is good and if something stays there (saved), it doesn’t stay as good.”
Instead, he confirms that he is working on a four-handed play, of which he prefers not to give details, but anticipates: “I want to finish it and, if possible, put it together myself, before leaving here.”
Hugo Hiriart’s acknowledgments
- Xavier Villaurrutia Award for the novel Galaor (1972)
- Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation Fellow (1984)
- Ariel Award for Best Medium Length Film for Xochimilco, history of a landscape (1990)
- Juan Ruiz de Alarcón National Playwright Award for a career in theater (1999)
- National Prize for Science and Arts in Linguistics and Literature (2009)
- Mazatlán Prize for Literature for the essay The Art of Enduring (2011)
- Sinaloa Letters Award (2015)
Other notable titles:
- Dissertation on Cobwebs (1980)
- Gofa Notebooks (1981)
- Amber (1990)
- The Destruction of All Things (1992)
- The Big Water (2002)
- The alligator tower and Rosete is pronounced (2008)