A published book is always a mystery. How
did it come to be? It is nearly impossible to retrace the steps of its
production, much less to predict its destiny. An author needs readers to interpret
what her work means, that is, what it means to them. Readers use different methods,
but the writer can only try to remember how her book came to be. Like most
memories that of the origin of a book is fuzzy. I remember standing before a
road sign, at a crossroad of route PR 3, in the South of Puerto Rico, between
the towns of Guayama and Salinas. I remember that later that day I wrote in my
facebook page more or less the following words: “This is where my next book begins.
I will write a book about my travels along this road.”
I spent three years writing PR 3 Aguirre. Then the catastrophic hurricane
happened and the writing was cut short. I have not written much about the
hurricane, although it is mentioned in some chapters of the book. I have not
written much about the hurricane, perhaps because to me writing about pain,
emptiness, and helplessness requires a certain distance. Moreover there have
been almost forty books and anthologies published, and a number of film documentaries
and academic conferences about the storm. There was little I could add to those
writings of the disaster. In my
estimation writing, more than reading, has become a passion in Puerto Rico.
There seem to be more ardent writers than disciplined and devoted readers.
There is also an impressive number of small presses founded in the last decade.
The awesome, overflowing production must be, in part, a natural reaction to a
sense of loss and fear, and the hurricane coupled with the debt and the
collapse of the colonial model of governance is still an invitation to write
your way out of a chaotic and depressing reality. The world of the most
vulnerable persons, fragile as it has always been, suddenly fell entirely, and
the urban and rural landscapes, with their almost miraculous little houses,
were laid bare. Increasingly, economic activity depends on the informal sector,
on government transfers, and a consolidated narco-economy.
In contrast with material losses, writing
has multiplied and exceeded the boundaries of the academic sector, where
writers traditionally made their living as university professors. The act of
writing and publishing literary works has been, over the last decade, an open
space, notably in the context of
workshops and creative writing programs. Before, canonical authors were those
included in the reading lists of university courses. However, the present
openness has not turned its back on history. On the contrary, it has welcomed
translations of classic, forgotten authors. Poems by José de Diego and José
Gautier Benítez have been translated into English. Also remarkable is the
interest in formidable women writers such as Marigloria Palma, translated by
Carina del Valle Schorske. The recovery
projects, the current interest in tradition, are, perhaps, also related to
catastrophic events.
Maybe writing has become a means of getting
over the death of a lost world, a grieving ritual. Moreover, it is also a way
of acknowledging the sustained effects of environmental disaster in the
Caribbean region. Creating a literary archive seeks to fill the immense gap
left by material loss and the destruction of physical references that sustain
the memories of a community, while pointing out, in some cases, methods of
response and survival. It is a key to remembering the thousands of persons left
to die by negligence of the State and the colonial power. Writers have
undertaken this task before. We may never recover the names and histories of
the dead, but an obituary is always possible. Let´s remember The Puerto Rican Obituary written by
Pedro Pietri. However it may be, I propose that, grief should not give way to
the apathy of victimization and impotence, but to a strong sense of self worth
and independence.
My book,
PR 3 Aguirre did not turn out to be a travel journal or a chronicle.
Instead, I found myself attracted to one of the road’s landmarks: a company
town and sugar cane refinery called Aguirre. The reception of the published
book was unexpected. In all of its presentations there were full houses, and
people sharing their own personal memories of the sector. Evidently Aguirre is one
of those sites that generate a sense of place and a flow of memories. Perhaps
it could be described as a contact zone, as defined by Mary Louise Pratt, “a
place of colonial encounters, the space in which peoples geographically and
historically separated come into contact with each other and establish ongoing
relations, usually involving conditions of coercion, radical inequality, and
intractable conflict.” (Clifford, Routes, 192)
Aguirre was a sugar production company town
during most of the 20th century. Even before the hurricane of 2017,
a good part of its housing stock and industrial buildings were fragile, or in
ruins. The partly abandoned company town is a source of local legends and ghost
stories, and it lures a number of visitors attracted by the macabre charms of what
has been called “ruin pornography” or fascination with decay. To my mind the
ruins are a record of the collapse of the colonial arrangement, whereby the
territory is judicially defined as “foreign in a domestic sense, and belonging
to, but not part of the United States.” Such nonsensical language sought to
define a relationship at odds with the values of a democratic state. The theater
of the absurd includes characters, among them a Puerto Rican intermediary class
of managers and politicians. This is the way we are supposed to end, as a
picturesque, closed, silenced, former company town in the process of becoming a
ghost town. But in spite of its decay, Aguirre and its periphery are the home
of communities where people live and dream about present duties and possible
futures. (To be continued.)
