Guzmán Robador | Alicante (EFE) , should “transmit” in his work a message that “raises the critical spirit” in society, “he does it for one sector or another”.
Cillóniz, who has lived in Spain since 1974, the year in which he left his country for political reasons, has made these reflections in an interview with EFE at his home in the Alicante town of San Vicente del Raspeig on the occasion of his participation this Tuesday in an event organized by the Center for Latin American Literary Studies Mario Benedetti (CeMaB) at the University of Alicante.
“Spain does not consider me a Spanish poet”, but “a Peruvian poet”, which is “an error” because “the homeland of a writer is the language”, said Cillóniz (Lima, 1944), who has assured that this does not happen, for example, in France “when an anthology of French poetry is made”, which also includes authors linked to the culture of that country regardless of their place of origin.
Peruvian Young Poet Award (1970), Extraordinary Ibero-American Poetry Award (1985), César Vallejo Award (1999) and Peruvian National Literature Award (2019), the work of Cillóniz, graduate in Romance Philology and Modern and Contemporary History , has been translated into English, French, Italian and Arabic.
“Republic of Barbarians”
He has recently published his latest book, “República de bárbaros”, which contains two collections of poems: “Donkeys on the backs of donkeys”, which deals with the bloody riots that began last December in Peru, and “Cámara oscura”, which recounts a vision of the Ukrainian war.
He has remarked that the Russian invasion of the Slavic country constitutes a “violation” of international law. “Each people must create their destiny and the sovereignty of each nation must be respected,” defended Cillóniz, who suspects that Putin has taken “a leap forward” with his resolution to unleash this armed conflict because “it looked bad politically.”
Regarding the events that have arisen in Peru, the poet has indicated that there is a component of the “economic and social depression” of the Andean population, a problem that has been dragging on for a long time in a country where “there is no redistribution of wealth ”, despite the fact that it has “recently had enormous economic growth”, with “an average of 7%”, a percentage that has reached 13% in some years, he pointed out.
political civil war
According to Cillóniz, the protests have also taken place in a context that he has defined as a “political civil war” between the ‘Fujimoristas’ and their detractors, a confrontation that has divided the country and that has worsened after the former president’s failed self-coup. Pedro Castillo on December 7 (he won his opponent, Keiko Fujimori, in the 2021 elections).
Democracy is not taking hold in some Latin American countries due to “the lack of gear, coordination between the economy, society and politics”, according to this poet marked by exile, who shows his resounding opposition to neoliberalism – “I do not recommend it nor to Sweden”, he says- and also to the armed struggle.
The main Spanish literary references of this professor of Language and Literature, now retired, start with the poetry of the Ballads and the Cancionero, the Coplas, by Manrique, and the Cantar del Mío Cid, going through Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Góngora, Quevedo and Calderon de la Barca. Of the most contemporary, he has cited Antonio Machado, Juan Ramón Jiménez and the Generation of ’27, especially Federico García Lorca.
essays
Cillóniz expounds in his essays on the poetics of César Vallejo, one of the most representative Peruvian writers, who finds similarities between this author with his work “Spain, take this chalice away from me” and the García Lorca of “Poeta en Nueva York” to the coincide both in an attitude of social denunciation.
“I am in favor of social justice and a redistribution of wealth, not of charity”, has stated this poet, who currently resides with his wife in Alicante after having lived in Madrid, Chipiona (Cádiz) and Ceuta.
That, he has clarified, is not Marxism or communism, “it is in the gospels. What happens is that the church has become Catholic, but not Christian ”, she has sentenced. EFE