Jeanette Winterson: "Today's capitalism leads many children to self-harm and suicide"

BarcelonaThe brain of Jeanette Winterson (Manchester, 1959) is so privileged that he is able to connect the stories of Arabian Nights with the dangers of artificial intelligence, the importance of libraries, and a still-valid lesson from psychoanalysis. "Without imagination there is no future," he argues from one of the rooms at the Open University of Catalonia, shortly before receiving his doctorate. honorary cause throughout his career—everything we have built and all the solutions to overcome obstacles have come from the imagination. The most important thing we can offer young people is the superpower of imagination.” We must “protect, honor, and respect” it, just as Aladi does with the lamp a magical creature she finds inside a cave, which is the starting point of the author's new book.Written on the body (1994) and Why be happy when you could be something normal? (2011).

Translated by Joana Castells Savall and edited in Periscope, An Aladdin and two lamps He uses the well-known collection of Eastern stories to reflect on how creativity is essential to facing an increasingly unequal and regressive world. "Those stories interest me because they are very different from ours, where the hero's journey has predominated," he says. Arabian Nights"It matters not so much who you are, but how encountering others changes your life." In the book, all the characters—kings, viziers, fishermen, and even furious genies—want to hear the stories that others are willing to tell them. "How many lives have been wasted because they've been trapped in a story they don't belong to?" he asked. "The story of poverty. The story of immigration. The story of a child who doesn't feel loved by their mother." Sigmund Freud He was very intelligent when he went beyond the idea that history is fixed and cannot be changed. Psychoanalysis allows us to become aware of our relationship with events and traumas. It is a first step toward liberation.

Two options: literature or crime

Winterson, who comes from a working-class family in the north of England, was destined to replicate the biography of her adoptive parents. The discovery of the Accrington Public Library It allowed her to discover the thousands of treasures in book form that existed and begin a literary journey that, since the mid-1980s, has established her as one of Britain's most daring and unpredictable writers. "I was a smart child, but without the hours I spent in that library and the books I borrowed, I wouldn't be here," she admits. "I probably would have turned to crime if I'd stayed with the biological mother who gave me up for adoption. I would have teamed up with my two half-brothers to run a post office. If I had taken charge of my family, we would have been successful criminals, surely, and I would be rich now."

Despite the tenacious optimism she has carried since childhood, Winterson has a very critical view of the world today. "The Taliban continue to suppress the voices of women in Afghanistan: they are capable of torturing and killing anyone to control the narrative," she says. "Trump also silences voices that don't suit his purposes." Regarding the censorship of certain titles in American libraries, she added that we must stop questioning the content of these books: "The oppressors are afraid of the intimate dialogue we can establish. That's why they break it down." She also had critical words about artificial intelligence, which she studied in depth in the essay. 12 bytes. How to live and love in the future (Lumen, 2021). "It's a great opportunity for humanity, but it's in the worst hands," he says. "What's happening affects us all, and we must act urgently. Standing on the sidelines makes no sense. Today's capitalism is driving many children to self-harm and suicide. We can't let this continue. Six thousand years of evolution being thrown away because of four Silicon Valley bros. They may not care about other people's lives, but we do."