Francesc Serés: "Perhaps my son will never speak Catalan, perhaps he will never read me, and that's okay."

BarcelonaThe birth of Francesc Serés's (Saidí, Baix Cinca, 1972) first child is the central theme of his new non-fiction book. The first year (Bow). If to The inner world The writer, who once gazed from Berlin across Europe to connect three wars, now takes on a more existential and, at the same time, domestic tone, from his new home in Graz, Austria: Why do we have children? And what kind of world will we leave them? Through the everyday testimonies of those around him, Serés weaves a chronicle that touches on the major themes that permeate our world: identity, family, progress, the far right, and hope.

His previous book already signaled a change: he went from being a Catalan writer to a writer based in Central Europe. In this one, there is another transformation: he is a father.

— Perhaps it's the most important change, isn't it? But I'm not explaining the change behind closed doors, but rather the change outside. The child is an absent protagonist, a lure that evokes something in the people who see us or are with us.

It's not a book about fatherhood.

— It's not even intentional: what could I possibly say? There's no message for the son here, no wish or doctrine. You don't even know what he looks like. I think it makes sense to write a story that isn't naive or shameless about the anxieties and expectations of contemporary fatherhood, especially when you shift the focus to a place that isn't exactly your own country, and you look at the social and economic changes... Yes, a new era is arriving, but not just a change, not just for me, a change in the accelerated pace of recent years, the pandemic, all these wars, artificial intelligence, which is the first invention that hasn't been celebrated because everyone uses it but everyone is afraid of it.

From a literary standpoint, it's a continuation of the previous book, but here it explores more of the ordinary, smaller, and more routine life that comes with having a child. For example, people one encounters daily on walks in the park appear as characters.

— I think the great Copernican shift in literature in recent years is that everyday life is our raw material. The epic narratives in which to situate grand universal themes are over, but the truth is, everything happens within us: variety, diversity, and depth are found in others. The truck driver who ends up explaining that he regrets the life he built working and that now he wears hair clips and makeup, if you look closely, opens a path to talk about capitalist theory, about how we're exploited, and why we don't have time for our children. Why won't I have as much time as I'd like to spend with my son? Because I have to work. Many generations have grown up placing supreme ethical value on work, and I admire young people who don't. I admire them and I envy them. Should we commit to a company that will ultimately discard us? What does commitment even mean? This neoliberal discourse... I don't know, it's going to blow everything up, but I think it's fine. The social contract is not always fulfilled for them either: I work, I do my part, and yet I still cannot access housing.

It's one of the ideas that appears in the book. Hans, a German literature professor, tells you: "My students don't have dreams." And you wonder if they boomers They are responsible.

— The phrase strikes me so deeply that I'm trying to expand on it. What if a generation has dreamed so much that it's swallowed up the dreams of others? He wants to offer scholarships, but nobody applies. Why don't students want to go anywhere? Because they have everything at their fingertips. They've already been to these places, they've already had the experience. In the '80s and '90s, we did want to travel because we were discovering the world. Now it's already been discovered.

When you have a child, do you see the world with new eyes?

— There's a small exception, and that's that those of us who have been teachers have lived like a parent in a mirror. You want the best for them, because if you dedicate yourself to it, it's for that reason, because you have the will to help and you have a social affection for them. It's like a prelude that doesn't make you a stranger to the children; you see them grow. And, on the other hand, there's something very Christian about it, which is that this restlessness has become incarnate, and this flesh can suffer. And this is what you don't want. You don't bring people into the world to be part of the dark side, but of the light, joyful, happy side. But not in a naive, unconscious way, but a conscious, constructive joy, a joy of progress, like what we had in other decades. It's clear that from a personal point of view, it does bring you joy and a desire to play, but no one is unaware of the state of the world. I want joy, but if it's not widespread and shared, if it's not social, if the rest is a wasteland, what good is it?

We arrive at the book's central question.

— I recall the question a grandfather asks a gynecologist: "Why do we have children?" And I also recall the answer a midwife gives me: "To expand love." As a possible answer, it is irrefutable.

Florian's character leads him to question what it means to be an older father. Is he living a life he never imagined he would?

— I don't dwell on "What ifs" much. Things just happen. What I have considered many times is that if we were to become parents at 20 or 25, which is the biologically appropriate age, we could say we weren't aware, that we hadn't reflected on the state of the world, or that it was just an impulse. But these other 25 years have allowed you to accumulate an awareness of how things work. You can't plead ignorance. You can't say you didn't know.

Sometimes it's hard to imagine doing anything more important than raising your children. Jonas tells him, "It's impossible to regret spending so much time with your son. You only have one time in life." Is this an idea that paralyzes the writer?

— I've thought this before: in life, you only have time. What kind of time can you buy with money? I've also thought a lot that if I stopped writing, nothing would really happen. It's not that I'm thinking of stopping, but I've already written a lot. I've written many books, too. And I can continue writing the newspapers as I do. The challenge of trying to write something that resonates with a culture is motivating, but that motivation might fade one day. You can never say never. There are other things in life that are equally creative or that can fulfill you.

Like every immigrant, are you afraid that your son will lose his world?

— No. Nothing. I speak to him in Catalan, but I don't know what his relationship will be with my language. Perhaps his reference languages ​​are Russian [from his mother] and German [from school]. Perhaps he understands Catalan but won't speak it, perhaps he'll never read me, and that's okay. As long as there's an awareness of where you come from, then you choose. We don't know what might happen. I can't impose a bond on Saidí. He can cultivate himself, learn, and respect himself. Many people don't have the world of the four elderly couples; many people have a particular world of two parents who are from another country. What will be left of nation-states in twenty years? Will it make sense to talk about national identities? Who knows if large multinationals will be more powerful than states? I don't know if he'll identify with Austria; perhaps he'd prefer to be Russian. And this is also dynamic, depending on how you navigate life.

Where is your home now?

— You have to build a home wherever they are. The thing is, my village doesn't exist anymore either. Saidi is nothing like it used to be. It's changed completely. The people are totally different. It's complicated because this also challenges many things that are valuable to many people, to me too. But you wouldn't have been able to control the migratory forces from Saidi; we would all go live wherever we could. One thing doesn't negate the other.

Does having a child bring things full circle?

— Yes. It's been 25 years since my first book. The wombs of the earth (Column, 2000). We'll see what happens with the following books; I think the next one isn't ready yet, but later we'll think about what to do and how to do it.