David Uclés: "No matter how much harm they do to me, my freedom comes first."

BarcelonaJust two years ago, David Uclés (Úbeda, 1990) led a nomadic life, outside the formal workforce. He spent his summers playing the accordion in front of the Santiago de Compostela Cathedral, and with what he earned during those months he got by for the rest of the year. "If I'm short of money, I paint a picture and sell it," he said. he said shortly after publishing The peninsula of empty houses (Siruela, 2024), when that novel about the Civil War was beginning to become a phenomenon thanks to word of mouth and the author's charisma, who speaks as readily about his literary idols as about the housing crisis or the beret he's worn for almost two decades.

After selling 300,000 copies of that book—his third—and winning the Nadal Prize with The City of Dead Lights (Destino, Catalan translation by Núria Garcia Caldés) and having been at the center of several controversies, Uclés no longer inspires the same unanimity as he did a few months ago. He has provoked several waves of criticism, often merciless, on social media, received a great deal of backlash from commentators and pundits—especially those of a conservative bent—and, in recent days, has had to read the first scathing reviews of his new novel.

The City of Dead Lights It begins with the apocalyptic vision that, from Manhattan, he has Carlos Ruiz Zafón Shortly before her death. From then on, the action moves to Barcelona in the early 1940s. Instigated by the veteran writer Dolors Monserdà in an unlikely clandestine celebration of the Jocs Florals, Carmen Laforet He writes verses that, as if cast by a spell, plunge Barcelona into "an eternal night, a night of time." The change summons all cities simultaneously—those of the past, present, and future—and invites a gallery of a hundred personalities, including Gaudí, Picasso, and Vargas Llosa, to return the light to the Catalan capital. RosalíaWoody Allen and Montserrat Roig

This novel wouldn't exist if you hadn't been awarded a Montserrat Roig grant for creative writing, which allowed you to live in Barcelona for half a year in 2022. What was your relationship with the city up until then?

— I had only been there once, taking advantage of the fact that my maternal aunt and uncle live here. In the summer of 2015, while playing music in the streets of Santiago de Compostela, I met a very kind guy who invited me to go to France with him in his van. On the way back from that trip, I stayed a couple of days in Barcelona.

At that time you hadn't yet published any books. By 2022, however, you had already released The lion's lick (Complutense Editions, 2019) and Emilio and October (Two Whiskers, 2021). What did you think of the city?

— I found it very beautiful. My initial fascination was architectural. Unlike Madrid, a city built from the Neoclassical period to the present day, in Barcelona the imprint of history is very present. You can sense the passage of many cultures. It is currently a cosmopolitan place and, moreover, the capital of a region with its own language.

The reader who is not Catalan will be surprised to find names like Juli Vallmitjana, Pompeu Gener, Dolors Monserdà...

— Thanks to the professor Josep MurgadesThrough him, who was still teaching at the University of Barcelona at the time, I was able to meet many of the authors who appear in the novel. Some hadn't been translated at all, and I read them in Catalan. Others had been translated, but little is known outside of Catalonia because the Franco regime had made sure to suppress them. Both he and another good friend, the playwright Josep Maria Miró, recommended books to me. At the same time, I would go to the Ona bookstore and ask them to introduce me to authors I didn't know. It was as soon as I arrived in Mercè Rodoreda.

The day you received the Christmas award You dedicated it to Mercè Rodoreda, Montserrat Roig and Carmen Laforet because they had been very important to you.

— Rodoreda has become my favorite writer. She is much more than the author of The diamond square. One of my favorite novels of his is Death and SpringI have now written the prologue to a new edition of the Spanish translation, which Club Editor will publish shortly. I hope it will help to relaunch Rodoreda's work in Spain. She deserves it.

I get the impression that in the book you've tried to represent all the Barcelonas since the beginning of the 20th century: the modernist Barcelona, ​​the Barcelona of the underbelly of society, the Barcelona of the Civil War and the post-war period, the Barcelona of the Olympic Games... Barcelona during the Latin American boom It appears through Carmen Balcells, Gabriel García Márquez and Mario Vargas Llosa, who wants to have surgery to put his heart on the right and be more conservative.

— It's a way of pointing to the political shift he later took, when he positioned himself in favor of liberalism and criticized communism. A writer friend recently told me on the phone that if Mario had read the novel, he would have laughed at this remark.

Were you being critical of him at this point in the heart surgery?

— I don't think so; it was a way of showcasing his ideas. He was proud.

In that same setting where Vargas Llosa appears, the Hospital de la Santa Cruz, the poet is found in another section. Jaime Gil de Biedma, to those who have been diagnosed with the AIDS virus.

— AIDS appears through various iconic figures associated with Barcelona, ​​such as Freddie Mercury and Magic Johnson, but also primarily through two authors, Jaime Gil de Biedma and Julio Cortázar. It's not explained much that the author of Hopscotch He died of AIDS. He had mentioned her in Cristina Peri Rossi by letter, but it's information we tend to overlook. My next novel will deal with it: I want to write about the stigma of having AIDS. People who contracted it in the 1980s were treated very badly.

You are from another generation. You were born in 1990 in Úbeda.

— The LGBTQ+ community still gets tested often to make sure we haven't been infected. My straight friends get tested to confirm they're not pregnant. Gay men are very aware of sexually transmitted infections.

In a recent interview, you explained that as a child you were subjected to all sorts of abuse for being gay. Now you're criticized for your opinions, for whether or not you attend a conference on the Spanish Civil War, and even for wearing a beret.

— When I was a child, I was insulted for being effeminate. At 16, I decided to start wearing a cap, and shortly after, a beret, which only made things worse. No matter how much they hurt me, my freedom comes first. In a country like ours, they criticize everything I do: it's worth it to say what I feel.

Do you still think that? As a result of declining to participate in a conference where you were scheduled to share a round table with José María AznarThe former PP president and Iván Espinosa de los Monteros, one of the founders of Vox, have received very harsh criticism. You've even managed to make Arturo Pérez-Reverte, one of the organizers of the conference, seethe with rage.

— I couldn't participate in a session like that. Perhaps I shouldn't have explained it on social media, as I ended up doing. The thing is, I'd been seeing messages for a few days from people wondering: what are Uclés or Paco Cerdá doing at these conferences? And they were right. I didn't agree with the motto. 1936: The war we all lostAnd I didn't feel comfortable in a session with those guests either. The only reason I didn't cancel my participation earlier was because I've had an event every day for months.

When did you post The peninsula of empty houses You tried to explain the pain suffered by people on both sides.

— All those who died during the Civil War, regardless of which side they were on, are victims, and it is necessary to honor them. If, on the other hand, we talk about political strategy and who provoked the conflict, there were winners and losers.

Are some wounds from the war still open?

— Historical memory is necessary to remember what happened and to prevent manipulation. I am certain that the Civil War did not end until 1975. Pérez Reverte perhaps believes it ended in 1939.

Last Sunday, Ana Iris Simón dedicated an opinion column to you The Country where he defined you as "the fascist of the anti-fascists." If there is a struggle shared by many characters in The City of Dead Lights It is against fascism.

— When Barcelona goes dark in the novel, it's the early 1940s, but the merging of timelines extends the story to 2026 and even projects into the future. This darkness makes me think of at least three issues connected to our present. The first is fascism: if you look at many Western countries that were once symbols of democracy, they are now plagued by far-right politicians. The second is gentrification and mass tourism, from which Barcelona is not exempt. Thirdly, there is a darkness that affects us all, and that is the darkness of the human condition: we will all end up dead, locked in a coffin, one day or another.

You've written an apocalyptic novel with a sense of humor. Do you think that here, unlike The peninsula of empty housesAre you closer to surrealism than to magical realism?

— Maybe so. The City of Dead Lights It's a very dreamlike book. A choral story. A mosaic. A fragile thing. A baroque altarpiece. All of this allows me to paint a crazy and chaotic picture of the city, while the strange phenomena that occur within the novel are perfectly explained. I'm passionate about the avant-garde because it links classical and contemporary art. In many avant-garde works, the idea takes precedence over technique.

Avant-garde movements often have an irreverent content. In your case, the fusion of various periods allows you to bring Ana María Moix together with Rosalía or Jean Genet and Terenci Moix have an adventure.

— I found it easier to explain a connection between Jean Genet and Terenci Moix than between Jordi Savall and Núria Espert, who also appear in the book. I was thrilled to learn about the marginalized Barcelona of the 1920s thanks to Diary of a Thiefby Jean Genet. Moix was also an important discovery, and I think that if we had ever met we would have understood each other well.

In the chapter featuring Genet and Moix, there is talk of a urinal that was at the end of the Rambla and that had been destroyed on several occasions.

— Public restrooms were once a haven of freedom and a place where the gay community could empower itself. Now it may seem that there isn't as much need for such spaces, at least in a city like Barcelona. There are countries like Morocco where encounters between men are still so frowned upon that they must hide in saunas.

Since you posted The peninsula of empty houses You haven't stopped participating in book promotion events and reading clubs. Can you write it down?

— No. I haven't written anything for two years. I've finished, revised, and edited it. The City of Dead LightsTo write again, I need to isolate myself. This summer I'm going to a Central European country where nobody knows me and I'll get started.

Are you being affected by the negative reviews that have been coming out about this new novel?

— Until now, criticism had helped me and guided me regarding what I was doing well or future paths I could pursue. It's thrown me off that a few criticisms have come out right after the controversy with Arturo Pérez-Reverte. I think that with The City of Dead Lights I'll have to rely on what the readers tell me or on the reviews. Goodreads.

Doesn't all this commotion discourage you?

— I was able to write The peninsula of empty houses For fifteen years I didn't speak to a single soul. If I took the plunge once, I know I'll dare to do it again.