"Spain Outpaces Ireland in Historical Memory Matters"

John Banville is a man of two faces. On one side, there is the ironic, leisurely writer who crafts dazzling novels filled with musical rhythm and poetic imagery that revitalise classical myths. Then there is the other John Banville, who transforms into the author of unsettling and critical crime novels under the pseudonym Benjamin Black, though everyone knows who is behind it. With this second persona, the man who cultivates the noir genre, he is touring Spain to present 'The Drowned' (Alfaguara), a fiction set in rural Ireland. "In Ireland, we have the gift of forgetting too quickly. We allowed the Church to do terrible things to women, the young, children, and people in general," Banville asserts, arguing that the Irish are determined to look to the future without first settling accounts with the past. "Spain is doing quite a bit better than Ireland when it comes to historical memory."

A winner of the Booker and Princess of Asturias awards, Banville has Inspector Strafford investigating in this new instalment, enlisting the brilliant and perceptive Dr. Quirke for his inquiries. As the investigations progress, the past resonates strongly, a circumstance that threatens to change everyone's lives.

Banville enjoys a better literary reputation in Spain than in his own country, a paradox the writer attributes to the work of his editors. The novelist draws some parallels between the two nations, similarities that shape the collective sentiment. "When I arrived here in the 1960s, Spain was very Irish, except for the food, drink, and climate. Here, a dictator ruled; we had another. We share the very marked presence of the Catholic Church. In those days, Spain was a police state, and so was Ireland."

Banville abhors the history of the Catholic Church in his country, a circumstance that has caused him problems and a bad reputation among his compatriots. "I'm not Irish enough for the Irish." He recalls that, as a child, when he was about ten years old, he saw a pregnant woman. She was carrying two little ones, one by the hand and another in a pram. "The woman crossed paths with a priest and had to step off the pavement to let the clergyman pass. That surely wouldn't happen today."

And does he believe that women are more grounded in the world than men, who are often accused of immaturity? The writer recounts that back in 1967, when California was experiencing moments of hippy exaltation, he met his wife. Both were convinced that in a short time, everyone, regardless of gender, would dress the same and perform the same jobs. He was completely wrong. But it was in France that he truly became aware of the problem of inequality. "I was giving a talk at the university and ate in a room with thirteen men. I thought to myself: 'This is my idea of hell. If I had to stay here forever, it would be horrible.'"

There must be something about Irish writers when four of them (Yeats, Bernard Shaw, Beckett, and Seamus Heaney) have won the Nobel Prize in Literature, an award that, however, has always eluded Banville. He doesn't hold back, having said things that must have displeased the Swedish Academy, and he is certain that the distinction will continue to elude him. In any case, the disdain is mutual, as Banville has not read the latest prize winner, South Korean Han Kang. "I read little fiction."

'The Drowned' is the crime instalment with the greatest literary weight of the entire saga. The author retracts previous statements in which he announced his imminent literary retirement after publishing 'The Singularities' in 2023, something that crossed his mind following a personal trauma. "My wife passed away three years ago, and at that moment, I thought I didn't have much time left to visit the world of the dead, or at least that my brain was going to stop functioning, but it turns out it didn't. I've survived, and I have to continue."

He is now immersed in the task of writing his own autobiography, although it will still be a novel, as it includes a good portion of lies. Banville has little faith in autofiction. "I don't find it interesting to portray and write my real life. I know there are novelists who do, but to me, it seems extremely boring; I couldn't do it. Art is about inventing, and to make art, you have to imagine, because imagination is what makes things real."