Carles Casajuana: "What are the limits of the relationship that students and teachers can have?"

BarcelonaCarlos Casajuana (Sant Cugat del Vallès, 1954) is one of the most subtly ironic novelists on the contemporary Catalan literary scene. Whether revisiting emblematic episodes such as Josep Carner's last trip to Catalonia (Return, 2017), of thrillers in which the business and political worlds are gracefully intertwined (A minor scandal, 2011), or daring to raise a farce about corruption within Barcelona City Council (The Devil's Pomps, 2019), the writer and retired diplomat – he has been ambassador to Greece, Malaysia, Vietnam and the United Kingdom – has built a prestigious career rewarded with awards such as the Ramon Llull, which he received in 2009 thanks to The last man who spoke Catalan. In The war within the war (Proa, 2025) revives the characters of the two Barcelona writers from that novel. Miquel Rovira is finishing a novel about the Civil War. The other, Ramón Balaguer, makes a living teaching in a literary workshop. They end up reuniting after making their differences in literature, politics, and love evident.

A The war within the war, identity is fundamental, as it was already the case with The last man who spoke Catalan and The navel of the world (Columna, 2013), novels that create a triptych that can be read independently.

— I like to play with the idea of identity, with the clash between Catalan and Castilian culture here. The Catalan cultural world ignores Castilian: it pretends it doesn't exist. The Castilian world ignores it in a different way: Barcelona is seen as the capital of Castilian-language publishing, it keeps in mind the important writers who have worked there... The two cultures ignore each other. It's powerful, because the authors go to the same bars and publish articles in the same newspapers!

In the book, you add a third variable to this conflict: that of Chantal Grenier, a Montreal native with a degree in Hispanic Philology, who wants to write a thesis on "the foreign women who came to help the Republicans as part of the International Brigades."

— If you want to talk about Barcelona today, it is inevitable to think about the expats. 25% of the population is foreigners, so it's important for them to contribute their perspectives. The perspectives of the two writers and Chantal's allowed me to talk about current issues in Barcelona, ​​such as housing—one of the characters is about to be evicted from her home—and overcrowding.

The novel takes place between 2019 and 2020. The consequences of the independence process are more present than the pandemic.

— We Catalans have a tendency to wage war within war. Or so we see it. But the same thing happens everywhere: where there's a conflict, there's a conflict within the conflict. This is happening within Palestine, within the feminist movement, and among the Colombian guerrillas.

In The war within the war It is exemplified in the struggle between anarchists and communists during the Civil War that led to the events of May 1937.

— Apparently, there was more that united Stalinists and Trotskyists than divided them. Still, a dynamic developed that led them to a confrontation. And that confrontation determined the course of the war.

It makes one think of the clashes that have taken place within the independence movement in recent years.

— The divisions between the parties influenced the outcome of the Process. Some people will say the effect was minimal, while others will say that's why it ended the way it did.

And how did we end up?

— Right now, we're once again discussing the issues of fifteen years ago: the recognition of Catalonia, tax issues, the language issue... In Catalonia, we have a great art: we pretend to talk about one thing when in reality we're talking about another. During the Trial, there were many people who defended independence even though they knew it was impossible to cross that wall. It was, in part, a way of showing their rejection of the blockade following the Statute ruling. They surely did so in good faith and with good reason. But the result was that an enormous amount of energy was invested only to end up in the same place as before. This is no surprise, either, because the issue of sovereignty has been discussed for eight or ten centuries.

Is the current calm real or apparent?

— Unfortunately, there is still an idea of winners and losers that I don't think helps anyone.

A hot topic in the novel is Chantal's relationship with Ramón, her literary workshop teacher.

— What is the limit of the relationship between students and teachers? This is a question that J.M. Coetzee posed in the novel Misfortune [1999] and that, later on, in the wake of Me Too, many people have raised it globally. In The war within the warChantal, a doctoral student, is taking part in a creative writing workshop. The professor doesn't evaluate or grade anything she does. If something happens between them, he should be more understanding or tolerant. Even so, the relationship creates tension and problems.

Miquel thinks that Ramón is dedicated to hitting on the students, but in the novel it is she who does it.

— She tells him to go to the apartment, she bought him a very good whiskey... And, besides, she likes writers. She has photos next to Philip Roth and Paul Auster. Having just met one in Barcelona, he says: come on!

Chantal doesn't aspire to be a writer, but rather an editor, because it's more profitable.

— It's both true and false. The writer is at the heart of the publishing industry, and there are many editors who have a certain admiration for those who write.

And what are the two writers of the book looking for?

— They want to write a masterpiece. I recently read a piece by Gaziel about novels, in which he explains that he loves reading novels but hates "novels," which constitute 99% of published novels. Many authors try to write a masterpiece and never achieve it. Our craft is a lot like the stone carried by Sisyphus. We know the stone will fall again, but we also know we'll go find it and try to lift it back up. One of the driving forces of writing is constant frustration.