It is a pleasure to talk today with one of the leading figures of Spanish-language literature produced in the United States. Born in Venezuela and with several novels already published in the thriller, suspense, and absurdist genres, we speak with Raquel Abend van Dalen.
This is an excerpt from a conversation on the Hablemos, escritoras podcast, hosted by Adriana Pacheco.
Adriana Pacheco: A Venezuelan writer, Raquel Abend van Dalen now lives in Houston, where she holds a PhD in creative writing from the University of Houston. Thank you for accepting this invitation, Raquel.
Raquel Abend van Dalen: Thank you very much for the invitation.
A.P.: So, you have a PhD degree in creative writing. Tell us about this step in your life.
R.A.V.D.: When I finished my master’s degree in creative writing in 2014, most of my classmates went straight into PhDs in Hispanic studies or Caribbean studies, literary studies. I didn’t do that, because most people told me, “When you apply, don’t say you’re a writer, let alone a journalist, they don’t like that.” It was like I had to censor myself all the time. I wouldn’t have been able to censor myself in that way, I thought it would have been appalling. So, when I discovered that there was a doctorate in Creative Writing, where the same priority is given to the creative as to the academic, I said, “This is perfect, this is the solution,” and it definitely has been. It’s been incredible, it’s been wonderful.
A.P.: How did you get into literature, Raquel?
R.A.V.D.: I confess that every time I’m asked that question, I answer something different. I already have many versions of how I came to literature. Many things have happened, but one of the essential parts of my life is that my maternal grandfather was a Dutch bookseller; he arrived in Venezuela in the fifties and set up a bookstore in Caracas called Las Mercedes. So, from a very young age, I was always surrounded by stories, books, even stationery. There was a section of pens, papers, notebooks, which also in some way gives materiality to writing. There was a lot, a lot, of magic in my house, a lot of fantasy. For me, being in an environment like this was essential. On the other hand, it’s true that from a very young age I took literature as a very serious job, a very concrete job, because my parents are both artists by profession. They have always considered art in a very rigorous, very disciplined way. Not a day goes by that they are not working, and I think I see literature the same way.
When I say the art in my house was very concrete and material, I mean their art paid for my braces, my school, the electricity. It wasn’t an abstract or idealized thing, it was beyond the art you find in museums. It was almost like the coins we lived on. So that gave me a perspective of literature as very work-related.
A.P.: How good, how wonderful to have that nourishment and rigor from your parents. Thinking about the doctorate, how do you believe the study of literary criticism contributes or not to the work of a writer?
R.A.V.D.: Before starting my doctorate, I would have told you it didn’t contribute anything because I had no idea. But now I realize that, for me, it has been fundamental to be able to read critically, to establish and think about links between literary and theoretical texts. The truth is that it has made my own writing work much more interesting, even for myself.
I feel that the work of writing has to be regenerated all the time, and the critical, theoretical perspective opened up a whole new world for me, which made me no longer able to see literature in the same way. I think that’s essential, and being surprised is essential, discovering is essential. So, in that sense, it has been very positive, and that is very necessary.
A.P.: Of course, and of course you have Cristina Rivera Garza at the helm of the program, along with all the material and the guest writers she curates. It’s a magnificent program.
R.A.V.D.: Yes, the program is magnificent, not only because of Cristina—who is obviously a wonderful writer and academic—but she has also been in charge of curating a very special program, bringing writers from different parts of Latin America, even the United States.
A.P.: Raquel, you live in the United States. How do you see the challenges faced by a Venezuelan writer living in the diaspora in this country?
R.A.V.D.: In my case, I had to come to the United States at the age of 22. The following year, my first collection of poems came out in Bogotá, and then I continued publishing with presses that publish books in Spanish in the United States, such as Sudaquia and Suburbano. In general, my books have come out outside of Venezuela, including Cuarto azul, which, although it came out with a Venezuelan publisher, Kalathos, was published in Madrid. This has meant that, in some way, I remain very little read in my own country, which in a way is a little painful for me because one obviously wants to be read in one’s own land. Another issue is that the economic situation in Venezuela means very few people can really buy books. For that same reason, I decided to publish my book of short stories, La señora Varsovia, for free for a month, and now it can be purchased on Amazon in paperback or Kindle, but it made me feel terribly ashamed to realize that, in general, Venezuelan readers who consume books, who like to read, cannot buy them.
A.P.: What you just said is so interesting. On the one hand, it is sad, and on the other hand, it is inspiring to hear of the ways people are looking to support readers and the work of writers. Raquel, throughout your work you shift between poetry and narrative. How is this happening?
R.A.V.D.: From the beginning, I think I was handling both genres because they were very different things. For me, narrative gives me a space for fiction and poetry gives me a space for reality. For example, many writers have diaries where they write their daily lives and record what they think. I would say that, for me, poetry is a space to think, to understand, to record, even to look at everything that happens to me with humor and irony. Sometimes I have even really digested the poems that may sound more dramatic before making them public. So it’s a very different relationship, and in poetry in general, mine is quite autobiographical, even though I’m not the character, it’s not a poetry of the self, but I do use my own life a lot. On the other hand, in the fiction I write, as you read in La señora Varsovia or Cuarto azul, I use the stories of others.
A.P.: I like that difference you make and how you are relating narrative to a space for fiction, and poetry to a space for reality. In Cuarto azul, for example, the premise is very interesting. But now let’s talk about the re-edition of another magnificent book, Andor.
R.A.V.D.: I started writing Andor at the age of nineteen. I was very young and had a very different idea of life than when I was able to republish the book. Let’s say that I was able to polish, not so much the prose, because I practically didn’t touch the prose, but certain concepts, certain ideologies. For example, in the first edition I remember there is a moment when the protagonist, Edgar, describes the women arriving at the party in their dresses and the men arriving in their suits. This distinction of genders and clothing didn’t sit well with me when I was able to republish the book. For me they were people, regardless of gender, and for me they were dressed as they wanted. So, in that sense, I changed things that clashed ideologically with the “I” of the reissue. The reedition also made the book visible again because it came out in Caracas in 2013.
A.P.: The beginning of the book has that very strong image of the oven, along with that image of going back to childhood at the moment of dying, going back to that womb. You can really grasp the symbolism and parallelism you use between a dark oven and the mother’s womb. Tell us more about this book.
R.A.V.D.: What you’re pointing out is interesting, because precisely at the end the mother is like a kind of ghost that is haunting the protagonist throughout the book, it’s what connects everything. This is a book that deals with life and death and the idealization of these concepts, and other concepts.
A.P.: Is Andor a purgatory?
R.A.V.D.: If you point to the Christian tradition of hell, yes. But, at the time of writing, I was thinking, “What could be worse than hell?” And, in my head, what was worse than hell, which we already see so much in religious and literary iconography, is to be trapped in a place that is nothing, where you don’t finish either dying or living. For me, that confinement was much more disturbing than that of hell itself. So I think that was my intention in writing about that hotel.
A.P.: Now let’s move on to your book of short stories, La señora Varsovia. At the beginning of the book you say, “This book is for those who don’t have a home because they are always in another house.” Tell us about this book.
R.A.V.D.: Well, this book came about because Gladys Mendís, from Los Poetas del 5, contacted me saying that she wanted to publish something of mine, but she asked me for poetry and at that time I didn’t have any manuscripts ready to publish. But I told her, “I have many stories on my computer that have been accumulating for years, and I’ve never published them.” I asked her if she would be interested in them and she said yes, I should start sending her material and we could compile the book together. It was a nice project that we completed during quarantine. So the dedication in this book is for the “unhoused” like me, which has to do with the fact that right now I am “unhoused,” I have no home and I have also moved at least eight times in the past nine years. That is to say that the home is carried within.
A.P.: You see this a lot in your work, but you also see the relationship and the figure of the mother. What do you think are your thematic lines?
R.A.V.D.: I think perhaps at certain times, in certain periods I have written consciously thinking about gender issues. It’s not something I’ve done all the time, but I have liked to think about the idea of the mother and what corresponds, according to a heteronormative society, to what a man or woman supposedly is. In my case, I have also associated it with sexuality because, in some way, I like to use literature to subvert certain roles. In La señora Varsovia you can see very well how there are these crossings all the time. I like to set certain traps so that if the reader has something in their head, already very settled, and begins to read a story and believes the narrator is a man, suddenly in the third paragraph they realize it is actually a woman who is narrating. Or, for example, one thinks the lovers who are narrating a story are a man and a woman only to suddenly realize they are actually two men. Or, for example, the relationship between a mature woman and a teenager is not that of mother and daughter, but there is an erotic bond there. I mean, I like to try all the time to bring about these types of situations that, as you say, are related to gender, especially now.
A.P.: Well, Raquel, many congratulations on your work. Thank you very much for this interview and we will look forward to what comes next from your pen.
R.A.V.D.: Adriana, thank you very much. It has been a great pleasure to talk with you.
Translated by Alice Banks
You can listen and read the complete interview in Spanish
on the Hablemos, escritoras website.
