Gabriela Exilart She says she is addicted to mate. In the car, on a trip, at home, the typical Argentine drink accompanies the author wherever she goes. Now, she receives Infobae Culture in a charming hotel in the San Telmo neighborhood, in Buenos Aires, and before starting the interview that omnipresence appears: “Do you want me to put down the mate and we’ll chat?” he asks. “I must have green blood,” he says and, without realizing it, Exilart has already entered the universe of his new novel, The children of the harvest.
The children of the harvest
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The book focuses on the “green gold” era in Misiones, where the fever for yerba mate It shaped lives and destinies. The novel, which is set between prosperity and oppression – and crueltywhich challenges almost a century later, has as its backdrop the Obera Massacrea tragic event that exposes the exploitation and abuse suffered by workers.
The plot follows characters like Blaz Meyer, an ambitious man who seeks to rise in a world of power and exploitation, but he will not be the same with Inha Kotsur, a young woman with a strong and passionate character. Reading the character of Inha is like reading about the personification of the jungle: humid, wild, irreverent and completely beautiful, whose life is affected by the decisions and tensions of the time. And much more, for the impossible love between them. “In almost all love stories there is one who loves more than the other,” says Exilart and breaks with the predictability of contemporary romantic novels.
Why is it an impossible love? Because Inha’s family prohibits that love, locks her up, distances her and forces her to marry another suitor. But that does not stop the ability to love, to care for the other, despite the distance. That is read in the new Exilart novel. And when the Oberá Massacre passes through them, their lives will not be the same.
The author of Secrets at dawn, The return of the dragonfly y The whisper of women continue, in The children of the harvesta trend in the books of the references of historical-romantic literature: innovate. If Viviana Rivero decided to imagine a dystopian future in her latest book, The suns of SantiagoExilart put the attention and narration on the male characters, who guide the narrative and wonder about identity, love, feelings and are willing to love in a different way.
Gabriela Exilart It also raises the issue of immigration of Eastern Europe from the beginning of the 20th century to Misiones, a land that promised new hope for those families. The writer from Mar del Plata writes a novel that addresses another current topic: foreigners. Where are the edges, the limits?
“Not all love stories end well”he says, and invites him to have a mate at the end of the interview.
―Con The children of the harvest drinking. SIt is the story of a man, different from your other works, whose protagonists were women. There was a predictability that changed with this book. Why did you make this decision?
―I like to explore different things in novels; Always repeating the same thing bores me. This time I wanted the protagonist, or at least one of them, to be a man. It was an intentional decision: Men can also talk about love and be the center of a novel. For this reason, the character constantly oscillates between the command of ‘you have to be strong, men don’t cry’ and a sensitivity and much deeper spirituality.
―Was it a challenge to build a man’s voice in the ’70s?
―Although he did not inherit the character directly from his father, he also incorporates that duality of ‘being strong, being a man, being macho.’ However, deep down, he is much more sensitive and permeable to many things, and in this novel I wanted to explore precisely that facet. Getting into the head of a man of that time was not easy. The characters who most mobilize this story are male.
―Did you hesitate to take that path?
“Yes, I thought about it, but I don’t want to fall into the stereotype of the romantic novel; I write novels, in general. The romantic novel has its axes, and one of them is the happy ending, at least in the modern romantic novel; On the other hand, the classic was pure tragedy. In this case, there was no happy ending, and also that unhappy ending opened the door to what came next. It was a conscious decision, because I have to be true to myself. I think the reader also needs something different that surprises them; as in life itself, which is not always rosy and where sometimes we have to accept things we don’t like and grow stronger from that.
―How would you define love in this novel?
―In this novel, love goes beyond the love of a couple; There is an unconditional love from someone—without giving away spoilers—that is even greater. In almost all love stories there is one who loves more than the other. In The children of the harvestthe character of Blas is a controversial character, because it is as if one sees two sides of the same coin, and one can fall in love with a person that everyone hates or hates. Life shows us that even despicable people have had loves, perhaps unhealthy ones. Hitlerfor example, was loved and hated, and there are cases of people who committed terrible crimes, and still someone loved them. love is inexplicable.
―In addition to the male characters that move the story, there are strong women: Inha. Reading about it is like finding a jungle made flesh.
“That’s what I wanted to do.” In the sex scenesI imagined something similar to a jaguar, like a caged tiger. That’s how I saw it, with an animality and a very fierce sensualitynothing modest. It is something that surpasses the character, that literally comes out of his body. Even her mother notices it in the first chapters, when she says that they would have to ‘hunt her down to get it off of her’. I already saw her full of passionespecially compared to her much calmer sister.
―The book focuses on the Oberá Massacre. Why did you choose this historical episode? What led you to focus on this geographical place?
―I wanted to write something set in the north of Argentina, in the red land of the missionary jungle. I was attracted to that scenario; seemed conducive to a story full of passion. The red earth, the heat and the jungle evoke a particular intensity. I am interested in the 20th century, so I began to investigate along those lines, as I did at the time with Touched. I found several events that I didn’t know about, and the Obera Massacre It caught my attention because of its particularity: it involved Eastern European immigrantssomething I didn’t know.
―You talk about immigrants, in an episode from the beginning of the 20th century, and in the book you read: “I have the feeling that we are on trial all the time. “That we, foreigners, must demonstrate that we are adaptable to national laws and customs that we can become Argentine citizens.” The question of foreigners is one of the great issues of the century. How relevant is the novel on this topic?
―Many of these issues are still valid, not only in terms of the adaptation and integration process of immigrants, who must always demonstrate that they can integrate. Unfortunately, there are many things that have not changed. Challenges for immigrants remain. Being a foreigner still means facing barriers to adapting and being accepted in the community in which they are inserted. Cultural adaptation is complex and, often, those who arrive never stop being “the Galician”, “the tano”, “the Russian” or “the Chinese”. Who is the foreigner? When does it stop being so? What defines someone as “Argentine”? Who is the foreigner? Where is the limit? This novel explores that question about identity, a theme very present in all my novels.
―The book shows the march in which hundreds of tobacco workers of European origin marched to Oberá to demand better prices for their products, they were attacked with bullets. You tell how it was created. In addition, you bring real characters into the book, some branded as communists. Why tell these struggles?
―I could have set the novel in that time and in that same event, without going into depth; that the characters meet, the massacre occurs and the fictional story continues without accompanying the entire process that came after: trials, summaries. I could not have mentioned it, but I think it is necessary to tell it. For me it is important that the novel and the characters go through this real process.
―Does it seem like a responsibility to include those historical elements and not leave them as context?
―It doesn’t seem responsible to me to set a novel in this context and not tell it. I could make that episode just the trigger and then water it down, but that wouldn’t give it depth. I always look for the historical event more than the romantic novel. I think about the setting, the place, the human passions, the virtues, the defects, the human miseries. Love runs through us as human beings throughout life, but it is not what drives me the most to write. There are novels that are more passionate than others, some end well, others do not, and in this case it is also a challenge that one of the stories does not end well. Life is like that, not all love stories end well.
―Cruelty is another issue that appears in the book, through the conditions and physical punishments, the insults and the treatment that the workers received in the weed fields. Did cruelty today take other forms?
-I think you are referring to episodes of cruelty such as whipping, not paying workers or taking them to the mountains to punish them. At one point, the commissioner calls India a ‘fucking Russian’. There are insults and physical abuse, and an exacerbation of cruelty to an extreme level. I want to believe that today in herbal establishments, or in any workplace, physical punishment does not exist. Maybe Now cruelty happens through other means, perhaps economic or psychological..
♦ He was born in Mar del Plata in 1970.
♦ She is a lawyer, university professor and coordinates writing workshops.
♦Among his works are Storms of the past, Jet brushstrokes, For the blood spilled, With the heart to the south, Napalpi. Caught in the wind, In the sand of Gijón, Secrets at dawn, The whisper of women, Drive y The flight of the dragonfly.
♦His books received numerous mentions and awards.
(Photos: Diego Barbatto)
