Jaime Bayly—Where Two Worlds Meet

By Carlos Rodríguez Martorell -- Críticas, 12/15/2005

Bayly, a Peruvian TV icon and award-winning novelist, is known for his coming-of-age novels about homosexuals struggling in Lima’s conservative and machista high society. With his new work, Y de repente, un ángel (And Suddenly, an Angel), Bayly won the second place of the 2005 Premio Planeta, receiving close to $180,000 and an initial print run of 90,000 copies. His novel explores the unusual relationship between a wealthy, educated man and his poor, illiterate housecleaner, Mercedes. Bayly spoke to Críticas about the characters in this novel, his vision of Peru, and the much-talked about controversy surrounding this year’s Premio Planeta.

I’m neither optimistic about my country, nor about myself, nor about anything in general. But there are two hopeful ideas underlying the plot of this novel: that you can learn a lot from talking to the Mercedes who clean, cook, and care for the children of others; and that, when it involves dialog and mutual understanding, this encounter between two worlds can be mutually enriching.

You also examine Peru’s lower classes for the first time, mainly through Mercedes. You’ve said that you based her character on the illiterate woman who looks after your daughters. What else can you tell us about her?

When she was only a girl, Mercedes was sold by her mother. When I met her and she told me this, I immediately envisioned her as a great literary character and decided to pay her a modest homage. In real life, I wasn’t able to reunite Mercedes with her mother as she wanted, and, perhaps to avenge that frustration, I wrote this novel. Now, we can travel together to her secluded town in the Peruvian Andes and meet her mother in our imaginations. Mercedes was never important to anyone, but now she is the angel of my novel. She feels flattered, recognized. She has even received requests for interviews lately, which she has timidly and elegantly declined.

Critics seem to agree that the main character, Julián Beltrán, is the same type of alter ego you have used in previous works. But Beltrán is older than you, he has no children, and he appears to be strictly heterosexual. Were you looking for a different point of view with respect to your previous works? Beltrán is also a failed writer. You can’t possibly be identifying with him…right?

Julián never cleans his house, he is lazy, a hermit, and he makes love only on Mondays (always with his socks on). He coexists happily with spiders and ants. He hasn’t seen his father in years, and he doesn’t consider himself a great writer. In these terms, we are almost identical. But Julián has no children and has a girlfriend, and in the end, he seems to forgive his father. That is how we differ from one another.

“My best revenge is to publish novels that embarrass my father,” says Beltrán. Is revenge a good literary stimulus?

Yes, of course. Writing means nothing else than avenging the wounds, defeats, and torments that life has inflicted on you. Writing is revenge because it allows you to relive the past and to experience, in fiction, those things that reality took away from you. But writing is also redemption because it liberates you from your worst demons. You make amends for your wrongdoings and, in a way, after so much agony, you feel renewed.

You applied to the 2005 Premio Planeta with the pseudonym “El Intruso Sentimental” (The Sentimental Intruder). What does it mean? Why the notion of intruder?

A writer is almost always an intruder, someone who snoops, pries, and spies; someone who meddles in dangerous and forbidden places because that’s the only way to get valuable writing material. But a writer does not intrude to hurt; he/she is in fact wounded, confused, lost, melancholic…a sentimental intruder.

This is probably your funniest novel since Los últimos días de La Prensa (The Last Days of The Press). Did you turn back to humor in order to contrast with recent, more dramatic works like El huracán lleva tu nombre, or was this unplanned?

I agree: this is the funniest novel I’ve written, even more so than Los últimos días de La Prensa. Peru’s decadent atmosphere, and its crazy, grotesque, and delirious characters imposed this amusing tone on my writing. I had lots of fun writing this novel.

It’s been months now since Spanish writer Juan Marsé renounced his position as a judge of the Premio Planeta after denouncing the poor quality of the winning works. Since then, you have always defended Marsé, but the winner of the prize this year, María Pau Janer, cannot seem to forgive him. How has the controversy affected you and what do you think about Janer’s winning novel?

The controversy has been useful and convenient, as well as amusing. Juan is a great writer. He is my friend, and the fact that he didn’t like the novel at all doesn’t turn him into my enemy. I’m a young author and have lots to learn from a master like him. As for Mari Pau’s novel, I’ve really enjoyed it and think the jury made a sound choice. Her novel, without doubt, is better than mine.

Any idea where your next work will take you? Do you see yourself writing a new novel or launching another TV show?

I will continue to write. Maybe someday I’ll return to the small screen, but this is out of my control. Writing, instead, depends entirely on me, which is why I’m happier and feel more free when I write than when I work for TV.