"I Had to Write to Survive the Pain"

Tomás González (Medellín, 1950) studied Philosophy before becoming a bartender at a Bogotá nightclub then called 'El goce pagano'. He resists talking about it: he carries a reputation as a shy and taciturn man who is reluctant to participate in the media masquerade. He believes his books should defend themselves. A little-known writer, even in his own country, he has nonetheless garnered praise from Nobel Prize-winning author Elfriede Jelinek, who considers him a "very pure writer, someone with the potential to become a classic of Latin American literature." Sexto Piso publishing house is reviving his work and has just released the novel with which he debuted in 1983, 'First There Was the Sea'. Before delivering it to the press in Colombia, he settled in Miami, where he worked various jobs, from printing assistant to bicycle tire assembler.

Among his books are notable novels like 'Before Forgetting' (1987), which won the Plaza y Janés Novel Prize, or 'Abraham Among Bandits' (2010), as well as the collection of stories 'The Thorny Beauty of the World' (2019) and the poetry collection 'Mangroves' (2019).

'First There Was the Sea' tells the story of a couple who decide to end their bohemian and chaotic life and start anew in a remote corner on the coast: a small house nestled between the seashore and the jungle. The novel was inspired by a real event, the murder of his brother Juan in Urabá. "Despite the anguish his death caused me, I realized that I had a story that was already complete and I had to write it, among other things to survive the pain," González says.

Although the novel delves into pains that sometimes seemed unbearable to him, González did not treat the matter as a journalistic fact. "I sensed that it was better not to try to make literary literature but to let the poetry of the events express itself with all its force where it was, that is, in the events themselves. But it is not journalistic work."

The text, filled with airs of tragedy, draws a struggle between life and death. With sober words, far from any verbal pyrotechnics, uncommon in a debut novelist, 'First There Was the Sea' describes the vicissitudes of a couple who in their flight from the city end up trapped by other chains imposed by nature itself. "The decision to live freely and simply was precisely opposed by the overwhelming nature of the place, lack of money, and their own nature. The novel tells that story without establishing general truths."

Although in the novel the author has escaped autobiographical traces, there are some features that link the lives of the characters with those of the men who inspired them. After two decades living in the U.S., González returned to Colombia to settle in a rural area, El Peñol, in Guatapé municipality (Antioquia), where he lives with his wife and his dog Mara.

There he remains aloof from the setups of major literary fairs. "My brother Juan and I were young during the sixties and seventies. When Juan died at 36, I was 27. Like many young people of that time, we were for humanity's return to a harmonious, natural life. I am still for it and try to achieve it in my life as much as possible."

The years since that distant 1983 when he entered the publishing arena have not changed his literature much. "I continue writing about the same inexhaustible topics. Death, birth, human primate's creative magic, and its disposition for exploration and adventure, where it so often leaves its skin."

In the novel, the overwhelming presence of the sea and unleashed rain conditions the couple's life. The landscape, once beautiful and idyllic, becomes inhospitable due to how they relate to their surroundings. "The sea has always symbolized eternity through movement. The sea itself is not eternal; movement is," concludes the writer.