Santiago Roncagliolo: on winning the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2011

In the busy hub of Foyle’s cafe, I meet the winner of this year’s Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, Santiago Roncagliolo. In spite of the building publicity surrounding the Prize over the past few weeks, it is unlikely that any of the other cafe goers would think twice to look at Roncagliolo. A Peruvian-born writer, he moved to Spain ten years ago and his political thriller Abril Rojo (Red April) was awarded the prestigious Spanish literary prize the Premio Alfaguara de Novela in 2006. However, until last Thursday, he has remained, relatively unknown elsewhere in Europe. Now at the age of just 36, he has triumphed once again and has become the youngest ever recipient of the IFFP for Red April.

Yet in spite of his success, Roncagliolo is refreshingly humble about his achievements. ‘It’s amazing what has happened,’ he says. ‘I always thought that I was not from the world of writers. For me, writers are really academic people and being Latin American is like having a huge weight on your shoulders. There is such a strong tradition of great writers who are the kind of people that are candidates for presidents and are involved in political issues. That’s just not me, so when I started, I just thought, well I’ll do the best I can and now here I am.’

Although Roncagliolo may not have followed a similar path to other great Latin American novelists, his own experiences and interests have given him plenty of inspiration for his novels. ‘I wanted to write a thriller. In fact, I had in mind stories, not necessarily novels, but graphic novels, like From Hell by Alan Moore, like scenes based on the infamous Jack the Ripper and scenes from 19th Century British society. I discovered not just something, but the past, violence and war. I realised that the landscape itself of my story was very political and that I could use the political background to make the story stronger.’

Indeed, this is not the first time he has written a politically-oriented work. In 2007, he wrote a biography of Abimael Gúzman, the imprisoned leader of notorious Maiost terrorist organisation the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) which callously killed thousands of people during the 1980s and 1990s. Roncagliolo’s father was a political advisor and during his childhood the family was forced to leave Peru temporarily. Roncagliolo himself went on to become a political analyst and an employee at the Human Rights Commission. Therefore although he was not a politician or directly involved in politics like many other Latin American writers, his background made the move into political writing felt extremely ‘natural,’ he says. 

To his surprise, his novel about Abimael Gúzman was a resounding success In Peru. 'I didn’t expect such a great reaction in the country, but it was amazing. It is such a very sensitive issue. 70,000 people were killed and disappeared during this period and after something like that, people do not talk, they just stay quiet. However, suddenly, people were beginning to talk again.’

However, for Roncagliolo, Red April derives much of its inspiration from themes other than politics. The novel takes place in the year 2000, in the aftermath of two decades of guerrilla war and counter-terrorism and a serial killer is on the loose during the Semana Santa (Holy Week). Yet the setting itself is by no means coincidental. Ayacucho is famed for its ten-day celebrations of Holy Week and has deep-seated religious, spiritual and superstitious traditions. The city’s name is derived from Quechuan aya (death) and kuchu (corner) and Roncagliolo was fascinated by Ayacucho’s ceremonial rituals and traditions. ‘What I love about Semana Santa is the element of ceremony. Besides being powerful, it brings together the separate rituals and traditions of the Christians and Indians and provides a very intense atmosphere.’

In one scene, luckless protagonist Félix Chacaltana is at his mother’s home. Chacaltana is speaking to her and lays out her clothes on the bed, but only a few sentences later does the reader realise that his mother has in fact been dead for several years. This act of laying out her clothes is more than just an attempt to keep the memories of his mother alive but points to an important aspect of Ayacuchan culture, says Roncagliolo. ‘In Ayacucho, there is a tradition that when somebody dies, you keep their clothes for one night as it is believed that something from them, some part of their spirit, still remains. Semana Santa is a kind of perpetual vigil and the culture of death surrounding this city means that it is always around, death itself is always present. This was the setting in which I wanted to set my novel.’

Roncagliolo’s strong fascination for popular culture also provided much inspiration for the novel. Asides from graphic novels, his experience writing soap operas and his interest in horror films and dramas inspired him to write a novel about a serial killer. ‘I love popular culture and I decided to write a fictional story about a serial killer. We know horror films are not real and if I hadn’t written a fictional story, I think the horror would have been too much. By making it fiction, I make the horror easier to read and this also says something about the nature of society itself. I think putting this violence in fiction made it almost more real and more horrible.’

Although the novel is a work of fiction, Roncagliolo’s research was based largely historical facts and on his previous experience as a human rights worker where he interviewed hundreds of terrorists in prison. He was also careful to carry out further research to support his descriptions and even consulted a forensic scientist to find out whether his victims’ injuries were plausible. ‘There were two small problems,’ he says. ‘It seems I got a little bit confused with the position of the liver and the kidneys,’ he laughs. ‘And the second thing was that there was a victim who had been drained of blood. And he said that the body couldn’t be purple, as I’d written it, due to the coagulation of blood, but that it should be white. But the corpse was so good purple that I actually left it as it was!’ (laughs again).

Of course, the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize is a £10,000 prize jointly shared between the writer and the translator. The novel was translated by legendary US translator Edith Grossman who has translated some of the very best names in Spanish-literary fiction. Roncagliolo’s admiration for her is clear: ‘I knew much more about Edith Grossman than she knew about me. She translated Don Quijote after all! When I knew she was going to translate the novel I was so happy. I remember once when I was in a bookshop in San Francisco and I found a book that said in huge letters across the front cover, ‘THE NEW TRANSLATION OF EDITH GROSSMAN’ and then in tiny letters at the bottom of the page, ‘written by Gabriel García Márquez,’ he laughs. ‘She is so well-known and it has been an honour to work with her.’

He tries not to let Grossman’s fame worry him, however, and instead focuses on highlighting the particular merits of the translation. ‘I’m especially happy with the way that she translated the legal reports. The language is so complicated and in many countries they think that it’s the way that Chacaltana speaks, but it’s actually the way that the State speaks. She adapts her style all the time in the novel for the different passages. She really conveys all of the little nuances and these reveal the cultural differences, which are a very important aspect of the book as a whole.’

Red April has been translated into 15 languages and beat off stiff competition this year from previous IFFP winners such as Orhan Pamuk and Per Petterson. Although only 36-years-old, his novel has been compared to Lituma en los Andes (Death in the Andes) by Peruvian Nobel Literature Prize laureate Mario Vargas Llosa. He was also recently included in Granta magazine’s list of the best Spanish language novelists under forty.

The IFFP’s decision to award this year’s prize to Roncagliolo firmly establishes his reputation in international literary circles and highlights that the future potential of Latin American fiction. Roncagliolo doesn’t seem to be letting fame get to him though and feels quite overwhelmed by the whole thing: ‘I am very happy to have won, but I was already honoured to be on the longlist, to be considered in the same league as such amazing writers. Edith Grossman took a risk with me on this novel as I am unknown, but I’m very happy that she took that risk.’

Red April by Santiago Roncagliolo, translated by Edith Grossman, is published by Atlantic Books

By Ruth Collins