Manuel Francisco Reina is a spanish author, born in Jerez de la Frontera, Cádiz. His new book is “Los Amores Oscuros,” a story about Lorca’s lover never told. With him we had the chance to talk in Spain where he lives. Manuel Francisco is the author of titles as “Los Santos Varones,” “La Coartada de Antínoo” and “La mirada del Sol.” In his much versatile legacy we find poems, theater, and this phenomenal novel “Los Amores Oscuros” an amazing adventure that embrace the last love of Federico Garcia Lorca.
P: Why did you decide to write a book about Lorca’s loves?
R: I have always admired and read Lorca, but I never thought about the idea of writing about him, further than some articles, as I have done in the Spanish press for so long. Then, this story and an exciting and unknown material came to my hands. I believe that every single story searches for its own shape. At the beginning, I started the investigation with the idea of writing an essay. Immediately, I figured out that the emotion even today, 76 years later, the few direct witnesses treasured, and others interposed by confidences to third parties of these memories, was impossible to transmit with the academic asepsis of the essay. Then, I realized that there were some suitable narrative models able to capture that emotion. The “nonfiction novel” or “new journalism”, invented by Capote in his In Cold Blood, and continued by masters like García Márquez with No One Writes to the Colonel or Chronicle of a Death Foretold, or Vargas Llosa with his The War of the End of the World, or the prematurely disappeared and friend of mine, Dulce Chacón in The Sleeping Voice, allow the narrative creation of a historical investigation, journalistic or literary in the shape of a novel.
P: How did this story reach your hands?
R: It came to me towards the end of 2010, thanks to a doctor friend of mine, whose family were friends with the family of García Lorca and the family of Ramírez de Lucas, the story of that exceptional man. We had coincided a few times at the diary awards ceremony, where during different years, we had both collaborated in the cultural sections. We also met at some acts at the Ateneo of Madrid, a place she had felt attached to since the days of her relationship with Lorca. Another colleague praised me on the way I focused some letters to Pilar Paz Pasamar from Juan Ramón Jiménez, that I had published, who he had met. Who could just imagine the story behind his curious gaze and his experience? How to imagine that man as the last love of Federico García Lorca? I must say that, just as the his confidant in the novel, at first I did not want to believe it, but later, I remembered that I had read his name in Agustín Penón, and also that Gibson mentioned him too, so I followed that lead until confirming the whole story.
P: Who is Lorca? Tell us about the protagonists of your novel.
R: I think there are three essential protagonists in the novel: Federico García Lorca, his unknown lover until now, Juan Ramírez de Lucas, and the history of Spain, with all his rich scenery and population from the 30’s to our days.
It seems difficult to say something about Lorca that has not been told yet and, however, as I found out, it is not true. In fact I believe that there is more to discover about his life and his work than is already known and written until now. It is evident that Federico García Lorca is, after Cervantes, the most important and universal Spanish writer. Also the power of attraction that he exerts all over the world, like a magnet, is a fact that has been already confirmed by his friends in politics, letters and arts of his time: “where Federico appeared, the world stopped. Everything was Federico” claimed the poet Luis Rosales, his great disciple and his confident until he died. I believe that, for a long time, his literary values, huge and undeniable, brilliant; have been enhanced, but not so much his ability of dedication to his couples, friends, or social and politic causes, a phenomenon scientist’s call “emotional intelligence”.
Juan Ramirez de Lucas is a great discovery; an example of dignity and silent suffering, of intellectual and loving loyalty in life, and after death. He is one of the pieces that lacked in the final puzzle of Lorca’s tragedy; he provided quite a lot light to some of the lapses in Lorca’s biography, work and some truths believed as absolute up until this moment. To begin with, why didn’t Federico flee the country? Many friends advised him to, as he was such an important and marked symbol. Also, one of his last writings, and one of the greatest on the intensity of love, his Sonnets of Dark Love, ergo, the playfulness of the title of my book, are not dedicated to the person that it has been said. In the unpublished romance that has appeared among Ramirez de Lucas’ belongings, dated on May, the 1st of 1935, at the back of a bill issued to Juan at the Academy of Madrid where he was. Those preserved at the Lorca Foundation are from the fall of 1935 in Valencia, so it’s not the only coincidence. Also, “vibró por mi noche oscura” (“It trembled for my dark night”) which is the obvious embryo of the title and a repeated cause in some of the sonnets and some complete verses from the beginning of the collections matched. Since that first “Sonnet of the Garland of Roses” where he says “entre lo que me quieres y lo que te quiero” (“between your love and mine”), coincidental with the “tanto me quiere y le quiero/ que mis ojos se llevó” (“so he loves me and so I do/ that he took away my eyes”). In addition, I came to know, that Lorca wanted Juan to accompany him to the premiere of Yerma in Valencia, and also that he wrote the first sonnets of the writings on paper belonging to the Hotel Victoria, papers that are conserved by the Lorca Foundation. Ramirez de Lucas could not attend because he had to do some teaching practices in Cuenca, and Lorca sent him, as a present, a dove, as I tell in my narration. There are two more sonnets that include this fact. One that starts by saying “Este pichón del Turia que te mando” (“This young dove I send you from Turia”), and the one titled “El poeta pregunta a su amor por la Ciudad Encantada de Cuenca” (“The poet asks his beloved about the Enchanted City of Cuenca”). Ramírez de Lucas himself would write, many years later, the biographic and sentimental importance of Cuenca in his life, as he says in some articles at Estafeta Literaria or ABC. I know that there are some people who take hold of Rodríguez Rapún thesis as the addressee, and I respect these hypotheses, each one elaborates their theories with the material that he or she has, respectably. Nevertheless, notice that, for Juan, who knew and lived with Federico and Rapún during so many moments, he did not represent a problem. He had more doubts about the nature of the relationship that Federico had with Martínez Nadal or, even more, with Eduardo Rodríguez Valdivieso. He tried to get more information about that last one, even after Federico died, from common friends like Juan de Loxa, with the circumlocution about the dates when he was with Eduardo. But, despite the logical jealousy and doubts of a man in love, the facts and the documents are obstinate, and Lorca himself asks him in that last letter dated on July, the 18th of 1936, the year of the rebellion of Franco’s troops and Saint Federico, to give him “soon news” in order to be able to fulfill their plans: go together to Mexico.
The last and also essential character, as I said, is the history of Spain since the 30’s to our days, which is fascinating. I am particularly a lover of the women from that period of time. In the book dedicates much importance to the Lyceum Club, quite unknown still nowadays, that gathered some very important women in Madrid during the Republic, especially Pura Ucelay. Also her daughter, Margarita Ucelay, who ended up going into exile to the United States and being an important teacher at the University of Columbia, where she took and saved many of Lorca’s texts. Above everything, I dedicate these women the role that they were corresponded; he role of weavers in the same society that was defended by Lorca, of freedoms and universality, of culture and social justice. They were always their great accomplices, due to the acceptance of both limitation and discrimination. The proof is that it was not possible to talk about them nor even Lorca in Spain for so many decades and that quite a lot of them are still unfairly forgotten, in spite of the fact that they were essential in our culture. Please, notice that we go on about the Institución Libre de Enseñanza (Free Learning Institution), but not a lot on La Cívica (The Civic), which is where these women carried out significant teaching and pedagogical work. With names like María de Maeztu, María Lejárraga, María Zambrano, Maruja Mallo, Zenobia Camprubí, Clara Campoamor, María Teresa León, María Moliner and so many women unfairly forgotten. Pura Ucelay was not only an essential and accomplice to Federico, she confronted the dictator Primo de Rivera himself to save “Amor de Don Perlimplín con Belisa en su jardín” (“The love of Don Perlimplín and Belisa in the Garden”) from censoring, whose version was saved because her daughter, Margarita Ucelay, still alive, took it with herself to the United States, besides being a great director and theatre producer, the first one in charge of “El Español”, close to Valle Inclán too. She performed some of Lorca’s works for the first time, and also Valle’s. She also produced an important staging of the Spanish classics in those 30’s. But, above everything, she was a guard of freedom and the reputation of her beloved friend Lorca, and as an accomplice of that love that she contributed to the happenings in the “Lyceum Club Femenino” rooms and her theatrical circle Anfistora, where she introduced Ramírez de Lucas and Federico. She sheltered them at her own house which still exists, in Libertad Street, a perfect name for a street with a house full of free and valuable people.
P: Why was the story unknown until now?
R: It was unknown due to three essential issues. The first one, Juan Ramírez de Lucas’ trauma after the loss of Federico, his first love and such a decisive one, that branded him for life, and whose death, because of the matter of paternal permission never conceded to him and the delay of the departure to Mexico, he felt responsible. The second reason was the familiar opposition to revelation of this story, during a moment when the law and the dictatorial system imposed death, as in Lorca’s case, jail or exile, like in other cases: Retana, Miguel de Molina, etc. Also, the “ley de vagos y maleantes” (The Vagrancy Act) wasn’t put into effect until 1978. In fact, Juan’s mother made him promise not to reveal his story while she was alive, but she died a relatively short time before her son, at the age of 104. Finally, Juan rebuilt his sentimental life at the beginning of the 80’s; fifty years after Lorca’s death, which is when he came to be happy again. He postponed revealing and wiping the slate clean about the whole story until the death came up creeping up, which was when he specified his desire to make the story public during his last hours.
P: What does writing mean to you?
R: Everything. It is like breathing. It is my life. I think that I could not continue living without writing, without contemplating myself in other’s lives, without learning from them and, at the same time, giving back so much knowledge, so much life, so much passion, effort, fear and expectations to the others, to the readers. I think that this lonely act of writing is somewhat of a castaway, a person who throws his message in a bottle to the sea, waiting for someone to receive it.
P: You have written more than twenty books, how would you describe yourself as a writer?
R: I think that I am a multi-tasking person. That is what one of my masters, Fernando Quiñones, said, disciple and friend of Jorge Luis Borges. I started with poetry and theatre and, later, I diversified into the writing of novels, essays, documentary scripts and songs. I think the Greeks were right: everything is poetry, “poiesis”, they said, and it means “creation”, and each story, each thought looks for its mold, its shape: poem, theatre, novel…
P: Tell us a bit about your career.
R: I do not know if I am ready for an autobiography yet. I think that this is the most difficult question to answer. I have never imitated anybody, nor even pretended to be like anybody, although I have had wonderful masters like Rafael Alberti, Antonio Hernández, José Hierro, Fernando Quiñones, Pilar Paz Pasamar… from who I have learnt so much and do not want to disappoint. Rubén Darío said: “bienaventurados mis imitadores porque ellos heredarán todos mis defectos” (“blessed my imitators because they will inherit all my imperfections”). He was right. One must look for his own voice and identity. There are some people that need a whole life to create a character of themselves and do not succeed. In my case, I have not needed to. Andalucian, son of a bullfighter, lover of the culture and the flamenco, I have always sided for what I considered fair and I have paid for it. Life has also rewarded me with other things. They say that I started talking before walking, with 9 months of life, so I was in some way, even if it is not in fashion to say it, predestined. Writing for me was something consubstantial to my nature, just like being tall or dark-haired. I started winning literature awards at the age of 13 and also publishing, and, at the age of 38, Lorca’s age when he was killed, by the way, I have published more than 40 books. I feel more comfortable amongst the older writers than with those of my generation, it happened to me with Alberti, generational mate of Lorca, and with the rest of authors I mentioned before, than with my mates, with the exception of a few. I feel even more comfortable with the Latin-Americans García Márquez, Nélida Piñón, etc., than with the Spanish. The writer Fernando Baeza says that I am one of them, but I think it is a too much of a huge praise for me that I just repeat because it is not mine although it is referred to my person.
P: What are your next projects?
R: I always work on several things at the same time. Lorca’s world, tangentially, and his bullfighting and music friends, will be, perhaps, the center of my next book. You never know. Maybe something exiting comes to your life, like that material of the last lover of Lorca, and it will make you forget the preconceived ideas. In April the opening performance of a theatrical play of Los Amores oscuros as its nucleus will take place, and I am really happy about that.
P: This page is dedicated to Spanish promotion. How do you see Spanish literature at the moments?
R: I find it a bit lost, to be honest. I think that there are too many groups that have turned literature and its compromise into a way of life mixed up with politics and commercial interests, and that does not help, but contributes to impoverish and denigrate literature. There are too many writers more interested in other superficial things than in actually doing their writings, and trying to make them good. The lists of the best sellers of the year in the cultural supplements become an exchange of buddies and some prevarications, and that is not serious. I think that the real gold mine, the new blood, and, at the same time, the weight of language and culture, of the Spanish literature, is in America. The strength of Latin-Americans writers and of the Hispanics that live in the States and Canada seems to me purer and more vivifying than the confused voices of the Spanish intellectual scene. It happened after the Spanish Civil War, with the exile or the death, or repression of the highest Spanish creators that fled to Mexico, Argentina, Venezuela or the United States. Now there is a similar moment of confusion and dispersion because of the economic crisis.
P: Your favorite writers?
R: I have so many. From the Greco-Latins Catulo or Ovidio, to Dante, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Góngora, Lope de Vega, Lord Byron, Keats, William Blake, Goethe, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Scott Fitzgerald, Antonio y Manuel Machado, Rubén Darío, Juan Ramón Jimenez, Lorca, Alberti, Cernuda, Luis Rosales, Lezama Lima, Marguerite Yourcernar, Gabriela Mistral, Manuel Mújica Laínez, Gabriel García Márquez, Fernando Báez, William Ospina, Nélida Piñón, Fernando Vallejo, Antonio Hernández… it’s a never ending list.
