Марио Варгас Льоса

Я научился читать в пятилетнем возрасте — моим наставником был брат Юстиниан из школы де Ласаля в боливийском городе Кочабамба. И это самое важное, что случилось со мной в жизни. Сегодня, почти через семьдесят лет, я отлично помню то волшебство, с которым слова с книжных страниц превращались в образы, обогащая мою жизнь и ломая барьеры времени и пространства. Вместе с капитаном Немо я преодолел двадцать тысяч лье под водой, плечом к плечу с д’Артаньяном, Атосом, Портосом и Арамисом противостоял интриганам, замышлявшим недоброе против королевы во времена хитроумного Ришелье, перевоплотившись в Жана Вальжана, брел по парижским катакомбам с бесчувственным телом Мариуса на спине…

Чтение превратило мечты в жизнь, а жизнь в мечты: целая литературная вселенная оказалась на расстоянии вытянутой руки от мальчишки, которым я тогда был. Мать рассказывала, что первые мои «пробы пера» представляли собой продолжение прочитанных мною книг, потому что мне было жалко расставаться с героями или не нравилась концовка. Пожалуй, этим же, сам того не сознавая, я занимался всю жизнь: продолжал во времени — по мере взросления и старения — те истории, что наполнили мое детство восторгом и приключениями.

Как бы я хотел, чтобы здесь, сегодня, присутствовали моя мать — женщина, которую трогали до слез стихи Амадо Нерво и Пабло Неруды, — и дедушка Педро с огромным носом и сверкающей лысиной, так хваливший мои стихи, и дядя Лучо, столь энергично призывавший меня отдаться телом и душой писательскому ремеслу, хотя в то время и в том месте литература весьма скудно вознаграждала своих служителей. Всю жизнь рядом со мной были такие люди — люди, любившие и ободрявшие меня, в минуты сомнения заражавшие меня своей верой. Благодаря ими, конечно, собственному упрямству да толике везения я мог посвящать почти все свое время страсти, пороку, чуду писательства, созданию параллельной жизни, где мы можем найти убежище от бед, жизни, превращающей невероятное в естественное и естественное в невероятное, разгоняющей хаос, преобразующей уродство в красоту, продлевающей минуту до вечности, преодолевающей саму смерть.

Писать — дело непростое. Когда воображаемые истории превращались в слова, замысел рассыпался на бумаге, идеи и образы тускнели. Как вновь вдохнуть в них жизнь? К счастью, рядом всегда были мастера, наставники, примеры для подражания. Флобер научил меня тому, что талант — это железная дисциплина и долготерпение. Фолкнер — тому, что форма (стиль и структура) способна возвысить и обогатить сюжет. Марторель, Сервантес, Диккенс, Бальзак, Толстой, Конрад, Томас Манн — тому, что масштаб и размах в романе не менее важны, чем отточенность стиля и четкая проработка сюжетных линий. Сартр — тому, что слова — это дела, что роман, пьеса или рассказ в определенные моменты и при благоприятных обстоятельствах способны изменить ход истории. Камю и Оруэлл — тому, что литература, лишенная нравственности, бесчеловечна, а Мальро — что героизм и эпос в наши дни возможны точно так же, как во времена аргонавтов, «Одиссеи» и «Илиады».

Если бы в этом выступлении мне нужно было назвать всех писателей, которым я чем-то обязан — многим или малым, — их тени погрузили бы нас во тьму. Им нет числа. Они не только поделились со мной секретами мастерства рассказчика, но и побудили меня исследовать человека во всей его бездонной глубине, восхищаться его подвигами и ужасаться его жестокости. Они были моими лучшими друзьями, из их книг я понял, что и в самых худших ситуациях всегда есть надежда, а жить стоит хотя бы потому, что, не живя, мы не могли бы читать и придумывать истории.

Временами я задумывался: не солипсистская ли роскошь писательское ремесло в таких странах, как моя, где и читателей не так уж много, где столько людей бедны и неграмотны, где столько несправедливости, где культура — это привилегия единиц. Эти сомнения, однако, не смогли сбить меня с пути: я продолжал писать даже в те времена, когда большую часть времени приходилось тратить на то, чтобы заработать на жизнь. Думаю, я поступил правильно, ведь если бы для того, чтобы литература расцвела, обществу надо было сначала достичь высокого уровня культуры, свободы, благосостояния и справедливости, ее просто бы не существовало. Но благодаря литературе, благодаря сознанию, которое она порождает, стремлениям и желаниям, которые она вдохновляет, и разочарованию в действительности, которое мы испытываем, возвращаясь из путешествия в прекрасное царство фантазии, цивилизация сегодня не так жестока, как в те времена, когда сказители только начали очеловечивать жизнь своими выдумками. Без хороших книг, которые мы прочли, мы были бы хуже, чем мы есть, — большими конформистами, менее беспокойными, более послушными, а духа сомнения — этого локомотива прогресса — не существовало бы вовсе. Чтение, как и писательство, — это протест против неполноты жизни. Когда в плодах воображения мы ищем то, чего не хватает в жизни, мы говорим, не произнося этого вслух и даже не сознавая, что жизнь, как она есть, не утоляет нашей жажды абсолютного — основы человеческого существования — и она должна быть лучше. Мы даем волю фантазии, чтобы как-то прожить те многие жизни, которые нам хотелось бы иметь, когда в нашем распоряжении лишь одна.

Без воображения мы меньше осознавали бы значение свободы для того, чтобы существование было сносным, и то, в какой ад превращается жизнь, когда ее топчет ногами тиран, идеология или религия. Пусть те, кто сомневается, что литература не просто погружает нас в мечту о красоте и счастье, но и предупреждает нас об опасности любых форм угнетения, зададутся вопросом: почему все режимы, стремящиеся контролировать поведение граждан от колыбели до могилы, настолько ее боятся, что вводят репрессивную цензуру, и так настороженно следят за независимыми писателями? Они делают это потому, что осознают, как опасно позволять воображению вольно бродить по страницам книг, понимают, какой крамолой становятся «выдумки», когда читатель сравнивает выраженную в них — и сделавшую их возможными — свободу с обскурантизмом и страхом, что ждут его в реальном мире. Выдумывая свои истории, писатель — хочет он этого, или нет, понимает или нет — распространяет недовольство: ведь он показывает, что мир несовершенен, а жизнь, рожденная фантазией, богаче повседневности. Если этот факт укореняется в сознании и восприятии граждан, ими становится труднее манипулировать, они с меньшей готовностью принимают ложь жандармов и тюремщиков, уверяющих, что за решеткой живется лучше и спокойнее.

Хорошая литература строит мосты между народами и, заставляя нас радоваться, горевать или удивляться, объединяет нас, несмотря на барьеры языков, убеждений, привычек, обычаев и предрассудков. Когда большой белый кит уносит с собой в пучину капитана Ахава, в сердцах читателей поселяется один и тот же страх, независимо от того, живут ли они в Токио, Лиме или Тимбукту. Когда Эмма Бовари глотает мышьяк, Анна Каренина бросается под поезд, Жюльен Сорель поднимается на эшафот, когда горожанин Хуан Дальманн из борхесовского «Юга» выходит из таверны в пампе на улицу, где его ждет бандит с ножом, когда мы понимаем, что все жители Комалы (родной деревни Педро Парамо) мертвы, читатель — верит ли он в Будду, Конфуция, Христа или Аллаха, или считает себя агностиком, носит ли он пиджак с галстуком, бурнус, кимоно или пончо — содрогается одинаково. Литература рождает братство в многообразии, стирает границы между людьми, созданные невежеством, идеологиями, религиями, языками и глупостью.

У каждого времени свои кошмары. Наше время — это эпоха фанатиков, террористов-смертников: породы, пришедшей из далекой древности, убежденной, что убивая, они попадают в рай, что кровь невинных смывает оскорбление, нанесенное племени, исправляет несправедливость и заменяет ложную веру истинной. Каждый день по всему миру бессчетное число людей становится жертвами тех, кто считает себя обладателями истины в последней инстанции. Когда рухнули тоталитарные империи, мы верили, что теперь в нашей жизни воцарятся гармоничное сосуществование, мир, плюрализм и права человека, что Холокост, геноцид, агрессия и истребительные войны остались в прошлом. Но этого не случилось. Пышным цветом расцвели новые формы варварства, вдохновляемые фанатизмом, а распространение оружия массового поражения не дает нам забыть о том, что любая горстка безумных «искупителей» может однажды спровоцировать ядерный катаклизм. Мы должны сорвать их планы, противостоять им, победить их. Их немного, хотя эхо их преступлений разносится по всей планете, а внушаемые ими кошмары наполняют нас ужасом. Мы не должны позволить себя запугать тем, кто хочет отнять у нас свободу, которую мы обретали на протяжении всей истории цивилизации. Нам надо защитить либеральную демократию: при всем своем несовершенстве она по-прежнему воплощает в себе политический плюрализм, сосуществование, терпимость, права человека, уважение к критике, законность, свободные выборы, сменяемость власти — все то, что выводит нас из дикости и приближает к той прекрасной, идеальной жизни, что рисует литература, жизни, которой нам не суждено достичь и которую мы можем заслужить, лишь придумывая ее, перенося на бумагу, читая о ней. Противостоя убийцам-фанатикам, мы защищаем наше право на мечту и воплощение мечты в реальность.

В молодости, как и многие писатели моего поколения, я был марксистом и верил, что социализм покончит с эксплуатацией и социальной несправедливостью, усиливавшейся тогда у меня на родине, в Латинской Америке и во всем «третьем мире». Для меня процесс разочарования в этатизме и коллективизме, превращения в либерала и демократа, каковым я являюсь — стараюсь быть, — был долгим и трудным. Он проходил постепенно под влиянием таких эпизодов, как превращение революционной власти на Кубе, к которой я поначалу относился с энтузиазмом, в копию вертикальной советской модели; рассказы диссидентов, которым удалось избежать колючей проволоки лагерей; вторжение стран Варшавского договора в Чехословакию; а также под влиянием таких мыслителей, как Раймон Арон, Жан-Франсуа Ревель, Исайя Берлин и Карл Поппер, благодаря которым я изменил отношение к демократической культуре и открытому обществу. Эти мастера подавали пример дальновидности и гражданского мужества в те времена, когда западная интеллигенция в результате легкомыслия или конъюнктурности, казалось, полностью поддалась чарам советского социализма или, что еще хуже, влиянию кровавого шабаша китайской «культурной революции».

Ребенком я мечтал когда-нибудь оказаться в Париже, потому что, очарованный французской литературой, был убежден: если я буду жить там, дышать тем же воздухом, что и Бальзак, Стендаль, Бодлер, Пруст, это поможет мне стать настоящим писателем, а оставшись в Перу, я так и буду «литератором по выходным». И действительно, Франции и французской культуре я обязан неоценимыми уроками: например, что литература — это не только вдохновение, но в такой же степени дисциплина, труд, упорство. Я жил там, когда были еще живы и творили Сартр и Камю, во времена Ионеско, Беккета, Батая и Чорана, драматургии Брехта и фильмов Ингмара Бергмана, Национального народного театра Жана Вилара и «Одеона» Жан-Луи Барро, «новой волны» и «нового романа», блестящих выступлений Андре Мальро и, пожалуй, самого грандиозного зрелища тогдашней Европы — пресс-конференций и речей «громовержца» генерала де Голля.

Но больше всего, пожалуй, я благодарен Франции за то, что она помогла мне открыть для себя Латинскую Америку. Там я понял, что Перу — это часть гигантского сообщества, объединенного историей, географией, общими социально-политическими проблемами, определенным образом жизни и великолепным языком, на котором оно говорит и пишет. В те самые годы это сообщество рождало новую, мощную литературу. Во Франции я прочел Борхеса, Октавио Паса, Кортасара, Гарсиа Маркеса, Фуэнтеса, Кабреру Инфанте, Рульфо, Онетти, Карпентьера, Эдвардса, Доносо и многих других. Их произведения обновили испаноязычную литературу, и благодаря им Европа и многие другие регионы мира узнали, что Латинская Америка — это не только перевороты, опереточные диктаторы, бородатые партизаны, маракасы, мамбо и ча-ча-ча, но и идеи, художественные формы, образы, не только экзотические, но и говорящие на общечеловеческом языке.

С тех времен и до сегодняшнего дня Латинская Америка — не без сбоев и ошибок — прошла немалый путь, хотя, как говорится в одном из стихотворений Сесара Вальехо, «братья, еще так много предстоит сделать». У нас стало гораздо меньше диктаторских режимов — если не считать клоунских популистских псевдодемократических систем, как в Боливии и Никарагуа, они сохранились только на Кубе и в Венесуэле, объявившей себя ее преемницей. Однако в остальных странах континента демократия работоспособна, пользуется поддержкой народа, и впервые в нашей истории в Бразилии, Чили, Уругвае, Перу, Колумбии, Доминиканской Республике, Мексике, практически во всей Центральной Америке и правые, и левые привержены законности, свободе критики, выборности и сменяемости власти. Это верный путь, и, если Латинская Америка не свернет с него, будет бороться с ползучей заразой коррупции и продолжит интеграцию с внешним миром, она наконец превратится из «континента будущего» в континент настоящего.

Я никогда не чувствовал себя чужаком в Европе — да и собственно нигде. Везде, где я жил — в Париже, Лондоне, Барселоне, Мадриде, Берлине, Вашингтоне, Нью-Йорке, Бразилии, Доминиканской Республике, — я ощущал себя как дома. Я всегда находил «логово», чтобы спокойно жить, работать, узнавать что-то новое, мечтать, находил друзей, книги и сюжеты. Мне не кажется, что непреднамеренное превращение в «гражданина мира» как-то ослабило мои «корни», мою связь с родиной — ведь перуанские впечатления по-прежнему питают меня как писателя и всегда появляются в моих книгах, даже если их действие происходит далеко от Перу. Думаю, напротив, долгая жизнь за пределами страны, где я родился, лишь укрепила эту связь, позволяет яснее ее видеть и рождает ностальгию, способную отделить главное от второстепенного, поддерживающую живость воспоминаний. Родину любишь не по обязанности: как и любая другая любовь, это спонтанный зов сердца вроде того, что объединяет возлюбленных, родителей и детей, или друзей.

Перу всегда во мне, потому что там я родился, вырос, сформировался, пережил тот опыт детства и юности, что определил мою личность, мое призвание, там я любил, ненавидел, радовался, страдал и мечтал. То, что происходит там, волнует, трогает или возмущает меня больше, чем все, что случается где-либо еще. Здесь нет моей воли, моего желания — это просто так и есть. Некоторые соотечественники обвиняли меня в предательстве, и я чуть не лишился гражданства, после того как в период последней диктатуры призвал демократические страны мира ввести дипломатические и экономические санкции против режима — за что я выступал в отношении любых диктатур любых мастей — Пиночета, Кастро, талибов в Афганистане, имамов в Иране, апартеида в ЮАР или армейских сатрапов в Бирме, которая теперь зовется Мьянмой. И я снова поступлю так же завтра, если — да не допустят этого судьба и перуанцы — моя страна снова станет жертвой переворота, который погубит нашу хрупкую демократию. Это был не поспешный, эмоциональный поступок обиженного человека, как полагали некоторые писаки, привыкшие мерить других собственной мелочной меркой. Я исходил из убежденности, что диктатура — это абсолютное зло для любой страны, источник жестокости и коррупции, что она наносит глубокие раны, которые очень долго не заживают, отравляет будущее нации, создает пагубные привычки, сохраняющиеся на целые поколения вперед и тормозящие возрождение демократии. Поэтому с диктаторскими режимами надо без колебаний вести борьбу всеми имеющимися у нас средствами, включая экономические санкции. Прискорбно, что правительства демократических государств, вместо того чтобы подать пример другим, встав плечом к плечу с теми, кто, как организация «Дамы в белом» на Кубе, венесуэльская оппозиция, Аун Сан Су Чжи или Лю Сяобо, смело противостоят диктатурам в своих странах, часто начинают расшаркиваться перед их мучителями. Эти мужественные люди, борясь за свою свободу, борются и за нашу.

Мой соотечественник Хосе Мария Аргедас назвал Перу страной «смешения всех кровей». Лучшего определения не найти. Мы именно таковы, и именно это живет внутри любого перуанца, хочет он того или нет: совокупность традиций, рас и верований, состоящая из четырех основных частей. Я с гордостью ощущаю себя наследником доиспанских культур из Наска и Паракаса, создавших ткани и одеяния из перьев, керамику мочика и инков, хранящуюся в лучших музеях мира, построивших Мачу-Пикчу, Чиму, Чан-Чан, Куэлап, Сипан, гробницы в Эль-Брухо, Эль-Моль и Ла-Луна, и испанцев, что вместе с седлами, шпагами и лошадьми принесли в Перу Грецию, Рим, иудео-христианскую традицию, Ренессанс, Сервантеса, Кеведо, Гонгору и чеканный язык Кастилии, смягченный Андами. А вместе с Испанией к нам пришла и Африка с ее силой, ее музыкой и ее кипучим воображением, еще больше обогатив многообразие Перу. Стоит копнуть чуть глубже, и мы поймем, что Перу, как «Алеф» Борхеса, — это весь мир в миниатюре. Какая потрясающая честь для страны — не иметь идентичности, потому что в ней слились все идентичности!

Конечно, завоевание Америки — как и любое завоевание — было жестоким и кровавым, и эта жестокость, несомненно, заслуживает критики. Но при этом мы часто забываем то, чего забывать не следует: люди, виновные в этих грабежах и преступлениях, — наши собственные прадеды и прапрадеды, испанцы, приплывшие в Америку и воспринявшие американский образ жизни, а не те их соотечественники, что остались на родине. Чтобы такая критика была справедливой, она должна быть самокритикой. Ведь двести лет назад, когда мы обрели независимость от Испании, те, кто пришел к власти в бывших колониях, не освободили индейцев, не исправили прежнюю несправедливость, а продолжали их эксплуатировать с такой же алчностью и свирепостью, как иноземные завоеватели, а в некоторых странах даже полностью или частично истребили коренное население. Скажем со всей прямотой: в течение двухсот лет освобождение индейцев было нашей и только нашей обязанностью, и мы ее не выполнили. Этот вопрос по-прежнему не решен по всей Латинской Америке — стыд и позор для нас всех, без исключения.

Испанию я люблю не меньше, чем Перу, и мой долг ей столь же велик, как и моя благодарность. Если бы не Испания, я никогда не стоял бы на этой трибуне, никогда не стал бы известным литератором, и возможно, как многие мои менее везучие коллеги, оставался бы в той сумеречной зоне, где бродят писатели, которым не улыбнулась фортуна, которые не получают премии, чьи книги не издают и не читают и чей талант — слабое утешение! — возможно, когда-нибудь откроют для себя потомки. Все мои книги были изданы в Испании, там я получил отчасти незаслуженное признание, а друзья — Карлос Барраль, Кармен Бальсельс и многие, многие другие — заботились о том, чтобы мои истории нашли своих читателей. Кроме того, Испания дала мне второе гражданство в тот момент, когда я мог потерять первое. Я никогда не считал чем-то неестественным то, что я, перуанец, имею испанский паспорт, поскольку всегда рассматривал Испанию и Перу как две стороны одной монеты, и не только в отношении моей скромной персоны, но и в таких основополагающих вопросах, как история, язык и культура.

Из многих лет, что я прожил на испанской земле, мне ярче всего запомнились те пять, которые я провел в горячо любимой Барселоне в начале 70х. Франкистская диктатура еще оставалась у власти, еще стреляла в людей, но к тому времени это была мумия в истлевших лохмотьях — она уже не могла, как раньше, контролировать общество, особенно в области культуры. В возведенной ею стене появлялись трещины и бреши, которые не в состоянии были залатать цензоры, и через них испанское общество впитывало новые идеи, книги, философские течения, художественные ценности и формы, прежде запрещенные как крамола. Ни один город не воспользовался этим началом либерализации больше и лучше, чем Барселона, и ни один не пережил такого идейного и творческого подъема. Барселона стала культурной столицей Испании: именно там надо было находиться, чтобы вдохнуть разлитое в воздухе ожидание свободы. В каком-то смысле она стала также культурной столицей Латинской Америки: многие художники, писатели, издатели и артисты из латиноамериканских стран либо обосновались в Барселоне, либо часто туда приезжали: именно там в наши времена надо было жить, если вы хотели быть писателем, поэтом, художником или композитором. Для меня это были незабываемые годы товарищества, дружбы, новых сюжетов, плодотворного труда. Подобно Парижу, Барселона была «Вавилонской башней», космополитичным общечеловеческим городом, где жизнь и работа вдохновляли и где, впервые со времен Гражданской войны, сложилось братство испанских и латиноамериканских писателей, осознавших свою принадлежность к одной традиции, объединенных общим делом и уверенностью: конец диктатуры близится, и в демократической Испании культура будет играть главную роль.

Хотя не все ожидания полностью оправдались, переход Испании от диктатуры к демократии — один из образцовых для нашей эпохи примеров того, что, когда торжествуют здравый смысл и разум, а политические противники оставляют распри ради общего блага, результат может быть таким же чудесным, как на страницах романа в стиле «магического реализма». Путь Испании от авторитаризма к свободе, от отсталости к процветанию, от экономических контрастов и неравенства, свойственных «третьему миру», к «обществу среднего класса», ее интеграция в Европу и быстрое восприятие демократической культуры поразили весь мир и ускорили модернизацию страны. Для меня было крайне волнующе и поучительно наблюдать за всем этим вблизи, а порой и изнутри. Я горячо надеюсь, что национализм — грозный недуг современного мира, да и самой Испании — не разрушит эту прекрасную сказку.

Я презираю национализм во всех его формах — провинциальную идеологию (скорее даже религию), близорукую и узколобую. Национализм сокращает интеллектуальные горизонты и таит в себе этнические и расовые предрассудки, ведь он провозглашает в качестве высшей ценности, нравственной и онтологической привилегии, такое совершенно случайное обстоятельство, как место рождения. Наряду с религией, национализм был причиной самых страшных кровопролитий в истории — таких как две мировые войны или нынешняя бойня на Ближнем Востоке. Именно национализм больше всего способствовал «балканизации» Латинской Америки, залитой кровью в бессмысленных битвах и спорах, растрачивающей астрономические средства на закупку оружия вместо строительства школ, библиотек и больниц.

Не следует смешивать зашоренный национализм и неприятие «чужаков», сеющее семена насилия, с патриотизмом — прекрасным благородным чувством любви к земле, где мы родились, где жили наши предки, где возникли наши первые мечты, к знакомому ландшафту природы, к любимым и событиям, превращающимся в указатели памяти и защиту от одиночества. Отечество — это не флаги, гимны и непререкаемые речи о безупречных героях, а горстка мест и людей, населяющих и окрашивающих меланхолией наши воспоминания, согревающих нас теплым ощущением того, что, где бы мы ни были, у нас всегда есть дом, куда можно вернуться.

Перу для меня — это Арекипа, где я родился, но никогда не жил, город, который я узнал из ностальгических воспоминаний матери, дедушки с бабушкой, тетушек, ведь весь мой семейный клан, как и положено настоящим арекипеньос, носил Белый город с собой в своих бесконечных скитаниях. Это Пьюра, город посреди пустыни с мескитовыми деревьями и многострадальными осликами, которых во времена моей молодости пьюранцы с грустноватым изяществом называли “вторые ноги”, где я узнал, что детей не приносят аисты, а делают парочки, занимаясь ужасными вещами, которые церковь считает смертным грехом. Это школа Сан-Мигель и театр “Варьете”, где я впервые увидел на сцене написанную мной коротенькую пьесу. Это угол улиц Диего Ферре и Колумба в районе Мирафлорес в Лиме — мы называли его “счастливым кварталом”, — где я сменил короткие штаны на брюки, выкурил первую сигарету, научился танцевать, влюбляться и открывать сердце девушкам. Это пыльная, пульсирующая энергией редакция газеты “LaCrónica”, где в шестнадцать лет я впервые заступил на пост с оружием — профессией журналиста, которая, наряду с литературой, стала моим ремеслом на всю жизнь, и, вместе с книгами, позволила мне жить полнее, лучше узнать мир, встречаться с мужчинами и женщинами из всех стран и всех классов, прекрасными, хорошими, плохими и ужасными людьми. Это Военная академия имени Леонсио Прадо, где я узнал, что Перу — не маленькая “крепость” среднего класса, где я жил до сих пор в затворничестве и безопасности, а громадная, древняя, озлобленная страна, где царит неравенство, страна, сотрясаемая со всех сторон социальными бурями. Это подпольные ячейки организации “Кахиде”, где мы — горстка студентов Университета Сан-Маркос — готовили мировую революцию. И еще Перу — это мои друзья по Движению за свободу, с которыми мы три года, среди терактов, отключений электричества и политических убийств, защищали демократию и культуру свободы.

Перу — это Патрисия, моя кузина со вздернутым носиком и неукротимым нравом, на которой мне посчастливилось жениться сорок пять лет назад: она до сих пор терпит мои мании, неврозы и вспышки раздражения, помогающие мне писать. Без нее моя жизнь уже давно распалась бы в яростном вихре, а Альваро, Гонсало, Моргана и шестеро внуков, продлевающие нашу жизнь и придающие ей радость, не появились бы на свет. Она делает все и все делает хорошо. Она решает проблемы, управляет хозяйством, наводит порядок среди хаоса, отгоняет журналистов и назойливых людей, защищает мое время, принимает решения о встречах и поездках, пакует и распаковывает чемоданы, она столь великодушна, что даже упреки превращает в величайший комплимент: “Марио, ты только писать и умеешь!”

Но вернемся к литературе. Райское детство для меня не книжный миф, а реальность, в которой я жил и которой наслаждался в большом семейном доме с тремя верандами в Кочабамбе, где вместе с двоюродными братьями и школьными друзьями я разыгрывал приключения Тарзана и героев Сальгари, и в префектуре Пьюра, где на чердаках гнездились летучие мыши — безмолвные тени, наполнявшие звездные ночи этой жаркой земли ощущением тайны. В те годы писательство было игрой, которой восхищалась моя семья, очаровательным занятием, дарившим мне аплодисменты, мне — внуку, племяннику, безотцовщине, ведь мой папа умер и отправился на небеса. Он был высоким красивым мужчиной в военно-морской форме, и его фото стояли у меня на ночном столике: перед сном я молился этим снимкам, а потом целовал их. Как-то утром в Пьюре — от этого я, кажется, до сих пор не оправился — мать призналась мне, что этот сеньор на самом деле жив. И в тот самый день мы должны были отправиться в Лиму жить вместе с ним. Мне было одиннадцать, и с этого момента все изменилось. Я утратил невинность и познал одиночество, власть, взрослую жизнь, страх. Моим спасением были книги, хорошие книги, я укрывался в мирах, где жизнь была прекрасна, насыщенна, где одно приключение следовало за другим, где я снова обретал свободу и счастье. И еще я писал — втайне, словно предаваясь некоему неописуемому пороку, запретной страсти. Литература перестала быть игрой. Она превратилась в способ противостоять обстоятельствам, протест, бунт, избавление от нестерпимого, смысл жизни. С тех пор и по сей день всякий раз, когда я впадал в уныние и подавленность, оказывался на грани отчаяния, я окунался с головой в свой труд рассказчика, и он давал мне свет в конце тоннеля, становился той доской, на которой потерпевший кораблекрушение доплывает до берега.

Хотя это труднейшее дело, доводящее до кровавого пота, и заставляющее временами — как любого писателя — чувствовать себя на грани паралича, засухи воображения, ничто не давало мне такого наслаждения, как месяцы и годы кропотливого «строительства» истории с самых неопределенных истоков, с кладовой образов из прошлого, которые превращались в беспокойство, энтузиазм, грезы наяву и прорастали в проект, в решение попытаться сделать из взбаламученного облака фантомов связный рассказ. «Писательство — это образ жизни», — сказал Флобер. Да, именно образ жизни, жизни с иллюзиями, радостью, огнем, искрами, что рассыпаются у вас в голове, погоней за неуловимыми словами, которые нужно приручить, жизнь, в которой вы крадетесь по огромному миру, словно охотник за желанной добычей, чтобы насытить нарождающуюся мысль и укротить неутолимый аппетит каждой истории, которая, подрастая, желает пожрать все остальные. Когда еще только чувствуешь головокружение, вынашивая роман, и потом, когда он обретает форму и словно начинает жить своей жизнью: персонажи уже движутся, действуют, думают, чувствуют, требуют к себе уважения и внимания, и им больше невозможно навязывать поступки, или лишать их свободы воли, не убив их, не лишив историю убедительной силы, — эти ощущения и сегодня продолжают зачаровывать меня, как в первый раз. Они настолько яркие и ошеломляющие, словно ты занимаешься любовью с прекрасной женщиной днями, неделями, месяцами напролет.

Говоря о литературе, я уделил очень много внимания роману и очень мало — драматургии, еще одной из ее главных форм. Это, конечно, крайне несправедливо. Драма — моя первая любовь, с тех самых пор, когда в юности я увидел в Театре Сегуры в Лиме «Смерть коммивояжера» Артура Миллера, спектакль, переполнивший меня эмоциями, после которого я лихорадочно начал писать пьесу об инках. Если бы в Лиме 50-х было театральное движение, я стал бы драматургом, а не романистом. Но его не было, и это все больше подталкивало меня к повествовательным формам. Тем не менее моя любовь к театру не угасла: она дремала, свернувшись калачиком в тени романов, напоминая о себе соблазном и ностальгией всякий раз, когда я видел потрясший меня спектакль. В конце 70-х не дававшая мне покоя память о столетней двоюродной бабке Мамаэ, в последние годы жизни прервавшей любую связь с окружающей реальностью, чтобы найти убежище в воспоминаниях и фантазиях, подтолкнула меня к тому, чтобы написать эту историю. И я сразу же почувствовал, что это должна быть история для театра, что только на сцене можно будет передать яркость и блеск чередующихся грез. Я писал эту пьесу с робким волнением новичка и испытал такое наслаждение, увидев ее на сцене с Нормой Алеандро в главной роли, что с тех пор несколько раз возвращался к этому жанру в перерывах между романами и рассказами. Следует также добавить: я никогда не думал, что в семьдесят лет сам поднимусь (спотыкаясь, конечно) на сцену в качестве актера. Эта безумная авантюра позволила мне впервые на собственной шкуре испытать то чудо, которым становится для всю жизнь писавшего выдуманные истории человека возможность воплотить на несколько часов выдуманный персонаж, пожить выдуманной жизнью перед зрителями. Я никогда не смогу сполна выразить благодарность моим друзьям — режиссеру Хуану Олле и актрисе Айтане Санчес-Гихон — за то, что они убедили меня разделить с ними эти фантастические впечатления (несмотря на панический страх, который я при этом испытал).

Литература — это ложное изображение жизни, но, тем не менее, она помогает нам лучше понять жизнь, ориентироваться в лабиринте, в котором мы рождаемся, бродим и умираем. Она помогает преодолеть те неудачи и огорчения, что приносит нам реальность, благодаря литературе мы можем хотя бы частично расшифровать тайнопись, которой представляется наше существование подавляющему большинству людей, — прежде всего тем, кто испытывает сомнения чаще, чем уверенность, и признает, что такие вещи, как трансцедентность, личное и коллективное предназначение, душа, смысл или бессмысленность истории, шараханье рационального знания из стороны в сторону, ставят нас в тупик.

Меня всегда завораживала мысль о том состоянии неопределенности, в котором наши предки — еще мало отличавшиеся от животных, ведь язык, позволяющий им общаться друг с другом, только-только появился — в пещерах, у костров, по ночам, дышащим угрозой в виде молний, раскатов грома, рычания животных, начали придумывать и рассказывать истории. Это был решающий момент в нашей судьбе, поскольку с этих первобытных существ, собиравшихся в кружки, зачарованных голосом и фантазией сказителя, началась цивилизация — долгий путь, который постепенно превратил в людей и привел к идее самостоятельности личности, а затем оторвал индивида от племени, породил науку, искусство, закон, свободу, побудил нас добраться до самых глубин в исследовании природы, человеческого тела, космоса, полететь к звездам. Эти сказки, басни, мифы, легенды, впервые прозвучавшие словно новая музыка перед слушателями, напуганными загадками и угрозами мира, где все было неизведанно и опасно, должно быть, подействовали как прохладная вода, как тихий водоем на души тех, кто всегда был настороже, для кого существование состояло из еды, поисков укрытия от стихии, убийства и совокупления. С того времени, как они, вдохновленные сказителями, начали коллективно мечтать и делиться своими мечтами, они уже не были привязаны к «беличьему колесу» простого выживания, вырвались из водоворота отупляющих забот. Их жизнь стала мечтой, удовольствием, фантазией и революционным преодолением рамок, изменением, совершенствованием, борьбой за удовлетворение желаний и амбиций, пробуждавших в них воображаемую жизнь и любознательность, стремление разгадать окружавшие их загадки.

Этот непрерывный процесс обогатило появление письменности, когда рассказы стало возможным не только услышать, но и прочесть — они превратились в литературу, а значит, обрели вечность. Поэтому необходимо повторять вновь и вновь, пока новые поколения этого не усвоят: литература — больше, чем развлечение, больше, чем упражнение для ума, обостряющее восприимчивость и пробуждающее критический дух. Она абсолютно необходима для самого существования цивилизации, она обновляет и сохраняет в нас лучшие черты человека. Необходима для того, чтобы мы вновь не окунулись в дикость изоляции, и жизнь не свелась к прагматизму специалистов, способных проникнуть вглубь вещей, но оставляющих без внимания то, что окружает эти вещи, предшествует им и продолжает их. Чтобы мы, изобретающие машины, которые должны нам служить, не превратились сами в слуг и рабов машин. Она необходима потому, что мир без литературы был бы миром без стремлений, идеалов и непослушания, миром автоматов, лишенных того, что делает человека человеком — способности поставить себя на место другого, других, вылепленной из глины наших мечтаний.

От пещеры к небоскребу, от дубины к оружию массового поражения, от монотонности племенной жизни к эпохе глобализации литература — плод воображения — приумножала человеческий опыт, не позволяя нам поддаться летаргии, обреченности, уйти в себя. Ничто так не сеяло неуспокоенность, не будоражило наше воображение и желания, как «лживая» жизнь, которую мы, благодаря литературе, прибавляем к той, что у нас есть, и можем стать героями невероятных приключений, великих страстей, которые никогда не даст нам реальность. Литература — ложь, но она становится правдой в нас, читателях, преобразованных, зараженных стремлениями и благодаря воображению постоянно подвергающих сомнению серую реальность. Литература превращается в колдовство, когда дает нам надежду получить то, чего у нас нет, стать тем, кем мы не являемся, вести то невозможное существование, в котором мы, как языческие боги, чувствуем себя смертными и бессмертными одновременно, когда закладывает в нас дух нонконформизма и бунта, лежащий в основе всех подвигов, способствовавших снижению насилия в отношениях между людьми. Снижению, но не полному устранению, потому что наша история, к счастью, всегда будет оставаться неоконченной. Поэтому нам надо продолжать мечтать, читать и писать — ведь это самый эффективный из найденных нами способов облегчить наше смертное существование, победить коррозию времени и сделать невозможное возможным.

Стокгольм (07.12.2010)

• Full transcript of the address (EN / RU)

Reading changed dreams into life and life into dreams and placed the universe of literature within reach of the boy I once was. My mother told me the first things I wrote were continuations of the stories I read because it made me sad when they concluded or because I wanted to change their endings. And perhaps this is what I have spent my life doing without realizing it: prolonging in time, as I grew, matured, and aged, the stories that filled my childhood with exaltation and adventures.

I wish my mother were here, a woman who was moved to tears reading the poems of Amado Nervo and Pablo Neruda, and Grandfather Pedro too, with his large nose and gleaming bald head, who celebrated my verses, and Uncle Lucho, who urged me so energetically to throw myself body and soul into writing even though literature, in that time and place, compensated its devotees so badly. Throughout my life I have had people like that at my side, people who loved and encouraged me and infected me with their faith when I had doubts. Thanks to them, and certainly to my obstinacy and some luck, I have been able to devote most of my time to the passion, the vice, the marvel of writing, creating a parallel life where we can take refuge against adversity, one that makes the extraordinary natural and the natural extraordinary, that dissipates chaos, beautifies ugliness, eternalizes the moment, and turns death into a passing spectacle.

Writing stories was not easy. When they were turned into words, projects withered on the paper and ideas and images failed. How to reanimate them? Fortunately, the masters were there, teachers to learn from and examples to follow. Flaubert taught me that talent is unyielding discipline and long patience. Faulkner, that form – writing and structure – elevates or impoverishes subjects. Martorell, Cervantes, Dickens, Balzac, Tolstoy, Conrad, Thomas Mann, that scope and ambition are as important in a novel as stylistic dexterity and narrative strategy. Sartre, that words are acts, that a novel, a play, or an essay, engaged with the present moment and better options, can change the course of history. Camus and Orwell, that a literature stripped of morality is inhuman, and Malraux that heroism and the epic are as possible in the present as is the time of the Argonauts, the Odyssey, and the Iliad.

If in this address I were to summon all the writers to whom I owe a few things or a great deal, their shadows would plunge us into darkness. They are innumerable. In addition to revealing the secrets of the storytelling craft, they obliged me to explore the bottomless depths of humanity, admire its heroic deeds, and feel horror at its savagery. They were my most obliging friends, the ones who vitalized my calling and in whose books I discovered that there is hope even in the worst of circumstances, that living is worth the effort if only because without life we could not read or imagine stories.

At times I wondered whether writing was not a solipsistic luxury in countries like mine, where there were scant readers, so many people who were poor and illiterate, so much injustice, and where culture was a privilege of the few. These doubts, however, never stifled my calling, and I always kept writing even during those periods when earning a living absorbed most of my time. I believe I did the right thing, since if, for literature to flourish, it was first necessary for a society to achieve high culture, freedom, prosperity, and justice, it never would have existed. But thanks to literature, to the consciousness it shapes, the desires and longings it inspires, and our disenchantment with reality when we return from the journey to a beautiful fantasy, civilization is now less cruel than when storytellers began to humanize life with their fables. We would be worse than we are without the good books we have read, more conformist, not as restless, more submissive, and the critical spirit, the engine of progress, would not even exist. Like writing, reading is a protest against the insufficiencies of life. When we look in fiction for what is missing in life, we are saying, with no need to say it or even to know it, that life as it is does not satisfy our thirst for the absolute – the foundation of the human condition – and should be better. We invent fictions in order to live somehow the many lives we would like to lead when we barely have one at our disposal.

Without fictions we would be less aware of the importance of freedom for life to be livable, the hell it turns into when it is trampled underfoot by a tyrant, an ideology, or a religion. Let those who doubt that literature not only submerges us in the dream of beauty and happiness but alerts us to every kind of oppression, ask themselves why all regimes determined to control the behavior of citizens from cradle to grave fear it so much they establish systems of censorship to repress it and keep so wary an eye on independent writers. They do this because they know the risk of allowing the imagination to wander free in books, know how seditious fictions become when the reader compares the freedom that makes them possible and is exercised in them with the obscurantism and fear lying in wait in the real world. Whether they want it or not, know it or not, when they invent stories the writers of tales propagate dissatisfaction, demonstrating that the world is badly made and the life of fantasy richer than the life of our daily routine. This fact, if it takes root in their sensibility and consciousness, makes citizens more difficult to manipulate, less willing to accept the lies of the interrogators and jailers who would like to make them believe that behind bars they lead more secure and better lives.

Good literature erects bridges between different peoples, and by having us enjoy, suffer, or feel surprise, unites us beneath the languages, beliefs, habits, customs, and prejudices that separate us. When the great white whale buries Captain Ahab in the sea, the hearts of readers take fright in exactly the same way in Tokyo, Lima, or Timbuctu. When Emma Bovary swallows arsenic, Anna Karenina throws herself in front of the train, and Julien Sorel climbs to the scaffold, and when, in “El sur,” the urban doctor Juan Dahlmann walks out of that tavern on the pampa to face a thug’s knife, or we realize that all the residents of Comala, Pedro Páramo’s village, are dead, the shudder is the same in the reader who worships Buddha, Confucius, Christ, Allah, or is an agnostic, wears a jacket and tie, a jalaba, a kimono, or bombachas. Literature creates a fraternity within human diversity and eclipses the frontiers erected among men and women by ignorance, ideologies, religions, languages, and stupidity.

Since every period has its horrors, ours is the age of fanatics, of suicide terrorists, an ancient species convinced that by killing they earn heaven, that the blood of innocents washes away collective affronts, corrects injustices, and imposes truth on false beliefs. Every day, all over the world, countless victims are sacrificed by those who feel they possess absolute truths. With the collapse of totalitarian empires, we believed that living together, peace, pluralism, and human rights would gain the ascendancy and the world would leave behind holocausts, genocides, invasions, and wars of extermination. None of that has occurred. New forms of barbarism flourish, incited by fanaticism, and with the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, we cannot overlook the fact that any small faction of crazed redeemers may one day provoke a nuclear cataclysm. We have to thwart them, confront them, and defeat them. There aren’t many, although the tumult of their crimes resounds all over the planet and the nightmares they provoke overwhelm us with dread. We should not allow ourselves to be intimidated by those who want to snatch away the freedom we have been acquiring over the long course of civilization. Let us defend the liberal democracy that, with all its limitations, continues to signify political pluralism, coexistence, tolerance, human rights, respect for criticism, legality, free elections, alternation in power, everything that has been taking us out of a savage life and bringing us closer – though we will never attain it – to the beautiful, perfect life literature devises, the one we can deserve only by inventing, writing, and reading it. By confronting homicidal fanatics we defend our right to dream and to make our dreams reality.

In my youth, like many writers of my generation, I was a Marxist and believed socialism would be the remedy for the exploitation and social injustices that were becoming more severe in my country, in Latin America, and in the rest of the Third World. My disillusion with statism and collectivism and my transition to the democrat and liberal that I am – that I try to be – was long and difficult and carried out slowly as a consequence of episodes like the conversion of the Cuban Revolution, about which I initially had been enthusiastic, to the authoritarian, vertical model of the Soviet Union; the testimony of dissidents who managed to slip past the barbed wire fences of the Gulag; the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the nations of the Warsaw Pact; and because of thinkers like Raymond Aron, Jean Francois Rével, Isaiah Berlin, and Karl Popper, to whom I owe my reevaluation of democratic culture and open societies. Those masters were an example of lucidity and gallant courage when the intelligentsia of the West, as a result of frivolity or opportunism, appeared to have succumbed to the spell of Soviet socialism or, even worse, to the bloody witches’ Sabbath of the Chinese Cultural Revolution.

As a boy I dreamed of coming some day to Paris because, dazzled by French literature, I believed that living there and breathing the air breathed by Balzac, Stendhal, Baudelaire, and Proust would help transform me into a real writer, and if I did not leave Peru I would be only a pseudo Sundays-and-holidays writer. And the truth is I owe to France and French culture unforgettable lessons, for example that literature is as much a calling as it is a discipline, a job, an obstinacy. I lived there when Sartre and Camus were alive and writing, in the years of Ionesco, Beckett, Bataille, and Cioran, the discovery of the theater of Brecht and the films of Ingmar Bergman, the Theatre National Populaire of Jean Vilar and the Odéon of Jean-Louis Barrault, of the Nouvelle Vague and the Nouveau Roman and the speeches, beautiful literary pieces, of André Malraux, and what may have been the most theatrical spectacle in Europe during that time, the press conferences and Olympic thunderings of General de Gaulle. But perhaps I am most grateful to France for the discovery of Latin America. There I learned that Peru was part of a vast community united by history, geography, social and political problems, a certain mode of being, and the delicious language it spoke and wrote. And in those same years, it was producing a new, forceful literature. There I read Borges, Octavio Paz, Cortázar, García Márquez, Fuentes, Cabrera Infante, Rulfo, Onetti, Carpentier, Edwards, Donoso, and many others whose writings were revolutionizing narrative in the Spanish language, and thanks to whom Europe and a good part of the world discovered that Latin America was not the continent only of coups, operetta despots, bearded guerrillas, and the maracas of the mambo and the cha-cha-cha but of ideas, artistic forms, and literary fantasies that transcended the picturesque and spoke a universal language.

From that time to this, not without stumbling and blunders, Latin America has made progress although, as César Vallejo said in a poem, Hay, hermanos, muchísimo que hacer [There is still, brothers, so much to do]. We are afflicted with fewer dictatorships than before, only Cuba and her named successor, Venezuela, and some pseudo populist, clownish democracies like those in Bolivia and Nicaragua. But in the rest of the continent democracy is functioning, supported by a broad popular consensus, and for the first time in our history, as in Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Peru, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and almost all of Central America, we have a left and a right that respect legality, the freedom to criticize, elections, and succession in power. That is the right road, and if it stays on it, combats insidious corruption, and continues to integrate with the world, Latin America will finally stop being the continent of the future and become the continent of the present.

I never felt like a foreigner in Europe or, in fact, anywhere. In all the places I have lived, in Paris, London, Barcelona, Madrid, Berlin, Washington, New York, Brazil, or the Dominican Republic, I felt at home. I have always found a lair where I could live in peace, work, learn things, nurture dreams, and find friends, good books to read, and subjects to write about. It does not seem to me that my unintentionally becoming a citizen of the world has weakened what are called “my roots,” my connections to my own country – which would not be particularly important – because if that were so, my Peruvian experiences would not continue to nourish me as a writer and would not always appear in my stories, even when they seem to occur very far from Peru. I believe instead that living for so long outside the country where I was born has strengthened those connections, adding a more lucid perspective to them, and a nostalgia that can differentiate the adjectival from the substantive and keep memories reverberating. Love of the country where one was born cannot be obligatory, but like any other love must be a spontaneous act of the heart, like the one that unites lovers, parents and children, and friends.

I carry Peru deep inside me because that is where I was born, grew up, was formed, and lived those experiences of childhood and youth that shaped my personality and forged my calling, and there I loved, hated, enjoyed, suffered, and dreamed. What happens there affects me more, moves and exasperates me more than what occurs elsewhere. I have not wished it or imposed it on myself; it simply is so. Some compatriots accused me of being a traitor, and I was on the verge of losing my citizenship when, during the last dictatorship, I asked the democratic governments of the world to penalize the regime with diplomatic and economic sanctions, as I have always done with all dictatorships of any kind, whether of Pinochet, Fidel Castro, the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Imams in Iran, apartheid in South Africa, the uniformed satraps of Burma (now called Myanmar). And I would do it again tomorrow if – may destiny not wish it and Peruvians not permit it – Peru were once again the victim of a coup that would annihilate our fragile democracy. It was not the precipitate, emotional action of a resentful man, as some scribblers wrote, accustomed to judging others from the point of view of their own pettiness. It was an act in line with my conviction that a dictatorship represents absolute evil for a country, a source of brutality and corruption and profound wounds that take a long time to close, poison the nation’s future, and create pernicious habits and practices that endure for generations and delay democratic reconstruction. This is why dictatorships must be fought without hesitation, with all the means at our disposal, including economic sanctions. It is regrettable that democratic governments, instead of setting an example by making common cause with those, like the Damas de Blanco in Cuba, the Venezuelan opposition, or Aung San Suu Kyi and Liu Xiaobo, who courageously confront the dictatorships they endure, often show themselves complaisant not with them but with their tormenters. Those valiant people, struggling for their freedom, are also struggling for ours.

A compatriot of mine, José María Arguedas, called Peru the country of “every blood.” I do not believe any formula defines it better: that is what we are and that is what all Peruvians carry inside us, whether we like it or not: an aggregate of traditions, races, beliefs, and cultures proceeding from the four cardinal points. I am proud to feel myself the heir to the pre-Hispanic cultures that created the textiles and feather mantles of Nazca and Paracas and the Mochican or Incan ceramics exhibited in the best museums in the world, the builders of Machu Picchu, Gran Chimú, Chan Chan, Kuelap, Sipán, the burial grounds of La Bruja and El Sol and La Luna, and to the Spaniards who, with their saddle bags, swords, and horses, brought to Peru Greece, Rome, the Judeo-Christian tradition, the Renaissance, Cervantes, Quevedo, and Góngora, and the harsh language of Castile sweetened by the Andes. And with Spain came Africa, with its strength, its music, and its effervescent imagination, to enrich Peruvian heterogeneity. If we investigate only a little we discover that Peru, like the Aleph of Borges, is a small format of the entire world. What an extraordinary privilege for a country not to have an identity because it has all of them!

The conquest of America was cruel and violent, like all conquests, of course, and we should criticize it but not forget as we do that those who committed pillage and crimes were, for the most part, our great-grandfathers and great-great-grandfathers, the Spaniards who came to America and adopted American ways, not those who remained in their own country. Such criticism, to be just, should be self-criticism. Because when we gained our independence from Spain two hundred years ago, those who assumed power in the former colonies, instead of liberating the Indians and creating justice for old wrongs, continued to exploit them with as much greed and ferocity as the conquerors and, in some countries, decimating and exterminating them. Let us say this with absolute clarity: for two centuries the emancipation of the indigenous population has been our exclusive responsibility, and we have not fulfilled it. This continues to be an unresolved issue in all of Latin America. There is not a single exception to this ignominy and shame.

I love Spain as much as Peru, and my debt to her is as great as my gratitude. If not for Spain, I never would have reached this podium or become a known writer and perhaps, like so many unfortunate colleagues, I would wander in the limbo of writers without luck, publishers, prizes, or readers, whose talent – sad comfort – posterity may one day discover. All my books were published in Spain, where I received exaggerated recognition, and friends like Carlos Barral, Carmen Balcells, and so many others were zealous about my stories having readers. And Spain granted me a second nationality when I could have lost mine. I have never felt the slightest incompatibility between being Peruvian and having a Spanish passport, because I have always felt that Spain and Peru are two sides of the same coin, not only in my small person but in essential realities like history, language, and culture.

Of all the years I have lived on Spanish soil, I remember as most brilliant the five I spent in a dearly loved Barcelona in the early 1970s. Franco’s dictatorship was still in power and shooting, but by then it was a fossil in rags, and especially in the field of culture, incapable of maintaining its earlier controls. Cracks and chinks were opening that the censors could not patch over, and through them Spanish society absorbed new ideas, books, currents of thought, and artistic values and forms prohibited until then as subversive. No city took as much or better advantage of this start of an opening than Barcelona or experienced a comparable excitement in all fields of ideas and creativity. It became the cultural capital of Spain, the place you had to be to breathe anticipation of the freedom to come. And, in a sense, it was also the cultural capital of Latin America because of the number of painters, writers, publishers, and artists from Latin American countries who either settled in or traveled back and forth to Barcelona: it was where you had to be if you wanted to be a poet, novelist, painter, or composer in our time. For me, those were unforgettable years of comradeship, friendship, plots, and fertile intellectual work. Just as Paris had been, Barcelona was a Tower of Babel, a cosmopolitan, universal city where it was stimulating to live and work and where, for the first time since the days of the Civil War, Spanish and Latin American writers mixed and fraternized, recognizing one another as possessors of the same tradition and allied in a common enterprise and certainty: the end of the dictatorship was imminent and in democratic Spain, culture would be the principal protagonist.

Although it did not occur exactly that way, the Spanish transition from dictatorship to democracy has been one of the best stories of modern times, an example of how, when good sense and reason prevail and political adversaries set aside sectarianism for the common good, events can occur as marvelous as the ones in novels of magic realism. The Spanish transition from authoritarianism to freedom, from underdevelopment to prosperity, from third-world economic contrasts and inequalities to a country of middle classes, her integration into Europe and her adoption in a few years of a democratic culture, has astonished the entire world and precipitated Spain’s modernization. It has been moving and instructive for me to experience this near at hand, at times from the inside. I fervently hope that nationalism, the incurable plague of the modern world and of Spain as well, does not ruin this happy tale.

I despise every form of nationalism, a provincial ideology – or rather, religion – that is short-sighted, exclusive, that cuts off the intellectual horizon and hides in its bosom ethnic and racist prejudices, for it transforms into a supreme value, a moral and ontological privilege, the fortuitous circumstance of one’s birthplace. Along with religion, nationalism has been the cause of the worst slaughters in history, like those in the two world wars and the current bloodletting in the Middle East. Nothing has contributed as much as nationalism to Latin America’s having been Balkanized and stained with blood in senseless battles and disputes, squandering astronomical resources to purchase weapons instead of building schools, libraries, and hospitals.

We should not confuse a blinkered nationalism and its rejection of the “other,” always the seed of violence, with patriotism, a salutary, generous feeling of love for the land where we were born, where our ancestors lived, where our first dreams were forged, a familiar landscape of geographies, loved ones, and events that are transformed into signposts of memory and defenses against solitude. Homeland is not flags, anthems, or apodictic speeches about emblematic heroes, but a handful of places and people that populate our memories and tinge them with melancholy, the warm sensation that no matter where we are, there is a home for us to return to.

Peru is for me Arequipa, where I was born but never lived, a city my mother, grandparents, and aunts and uncles taught me to know through their memories and yearnings, because my entire family tribe, as Arequepeños tend to do, always carried the White City with them in their wandering existence. It is Piura in the desert, mesquite trees and the long-suffering burros that Piurans of my youth called “somebody else’s feet” – an elegant, sad name – where I discovered that storks did not bring babies into the world but couples made them by doing outrageous things that were a mortal sin. It is San Miguel Academy and the Varieties Theater where for the first time I saw a short work I had written produced on stage. It is the corner of Diego Ferré and Colón, in Lima’s Miraflores – we called it the Happy Neighborhood – where I exchanged short pants for long trousers, smoked my first cigarette, learned to dance, fall in love, and open my heart to girls. It is the dusty, pulsing editorial offices of the paper La Crónica where, at sixteen, I stood virgil over my first arms as a journalist, a trade that, along with literature, has occupied almost my entire life and, like books, has made me live more, know the world better, and be with men and women from everywhere and every class, excellent, good, bad, and execrable people. It is the Leoncio Prado Military Academy, where I learned that Peru was not the small middle-class redoubt where I had lived until then, confined and protected, but a large, ancient, rancorous, unequal country, shaken by all kinds of social storms. It is the clandestine cells of Cahuide where, with a handful of San Marcos students, we prepared the world revolution. And Peru is my friends in the Freedom Movement with whom for three years, in the midst of bombs, blackouts, and terrorist assassinations, we worked in defense of democracy and the culture of freedom.

Peru is Patricia, my cousin with the upturned nose and indomitable character, whom I was lucky enough to marry forty-five years ago and who still endures the manias, neuroses, and temper tantrums that help me to write. Without her my life would have dissolved a long time ago into a turbulent whirlwind, and Alvaro, Gonzalo, Morgana and the six grandchildren who extend and gladden our existence would not have been born. She does everything and does everything well. She solves problems, manages the economy, imposes order on chaos, keeps journalists and intrusive people at bay, defends my time, decides appointments and trips, packs and unpacks suitcases, and is so generous that even when she thinks she is rebuking me, she pays me the highest compliment: “Mario, the only thing you’re good for is writing.”

Let us return to literature. The paradise of childhood is not a literary myth for me but a reality I lived and enjoyed in the large family house with three courtyards in Cochabamba, where with my cousins and school friends we could reproduce the stories of Tarzan and Salgari, and in the prefecture of Piura, where bats nested in the lofts, silent shadows that filled the starry nights of that hot land with mystery. During those years, writing was playing a game my family celebrated, something charming that earned applause for me, the grandson, the nephew, the son without a papa because my father had died and gone to heaven. He was a tall, good-looking man in a navy uniform whose photo adorned my night table, which I prayed to and then kissed before going to sleep. One Piuran morning – I do not think I have recovered from it yet – my mother revealed that the gentleman was, in fact, alive. And on that very day we were going to live with him in Lima. I was eleven years old, and from that moment everything changed. I lost my innocence and discovered loneliness, authority, adult life, and fear. My salvation was reading, reading good books, taking refuge in those worlds where life was glorious, intense, one adventure after another, where I could feel free and be happy again. And it was writing, in secret, like someone giving himself up to an unspeakable vice, a forbidden passion. Literature stopped being a game. It became a way of resisting adversity, protesting, rebelling, escaping the intolerable, my reason for living. From then until now, in every circumstance when I have felt disheartened or beaten down, on the edge of despair, giving myself body and soul to my work as a storyteller has been the light at the end of the tunnel, the plank that carries the shipwrecked man to shore.

Although it is very difficult and forces me to sweat blood and, like every writer, to feel at times the threat of paralysis, a dry season of the imagination, nothing has made me enjoy life as much as spending months and years constructing a story, from its uncertain beginnings, the image memory stores of a lived experience that becomes a restlessness, an enthusiasm, a daydream that then germinates into a project and the decision to attempt to convert the agitated cloud of phantoms into a story. “Writing is a way of living,” said Flaubert. Yes, absolutely, a way of living with illusion and joy and a fire throwing out sparks in your head, struggling with intractable words until you master them, exploring the broad world like a hunter tracking down desirable prey to feed an embryonic fiction and appease the voracious appetite of every story that, as it grows, would like to devour every other story. Beginning to feel the vertigo a gestating novel leads us to, when it takes shape and seems to begin to live on its own, with characters that move, act, think, feel, and demand respect and consideration, on whom it is no longer possible to arbitrarily impose behavior or to deprive them of their free will without killing them, without having the story lose its power to persuade – this is an experience that continues to bewitch me as it did the first time, as complete and dizzying as making love to the woman you love for days, weeks, months, without stopping.

When speaking of fiction, I have talked a great deal about the novel and very little about the theater, another of its preeminent forms. A great injustice, of course. Theater was my first love, ever since, as an adolescent, I saw Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman at the Segura Theater in Lima, a performance that left me transfixed with emotion and precipitated my writing a drama with Incas. If there had been a theatrical movement in the Lima of the 1950s, I would have been a playwright rather than a novelist. There was not, and that must have turned me more and more toward narrative. But my love for the theater never ended; it dozed, curled up in the shadow of novels, like a temptation and a nostalgia, above all whenever I saw an enthralling play. In the late 1970s, the persistent memory of a hundred-year-old great-aunt, Mamaé, who in the final years of her life cut off her surrounding reality to take refuge in memories and fiction, suggested a story. And I felt, prophetically, that it was a story for the theater, that only on stage would it take on the animation and splendor of successful fictions. I wrote it with the tremulous excitement of a beginner and so enjoyed seeing it on stage with Norma Aleandro in the heroine’s role that since then, between novels and essays, I have relapsed several times. And I must add, I never imagined that at the age of seventy I would mount (I should say, stumble onto) a stage to act. That reckless adventure made me experience for the first time in my own flesh and bone the miracle it is for someone who has spent his life writing fictions to embody for a few hours a character of fantasy, to live the fiction in front of an audience. I can never adequately thank my dear friends, the director Joan Ollé and the actress Aitana Sánchez Gijón, for having encouraged me to share with them that fantastic experience (in spite of the panic that accompanied it).

Literature is a false representation of life that nevertheless helps us to understand life better, to orient ourselves in the labyrinth where we are born, pass by, and die. It compensates for the reverses and frustrations real life inflicts on us, and because of it we can decipher, at least partially, the hieroglyphic that existence tends to be for the great majority of human beings, principally those of us who generate more doubts than certainties and confess our perplexity before subjects like transcendence, individual and collective destiny, the soul, the sense or senselessness of history, the to and fro of rational knowledge.

I have always been fascinated to imagine the uncertain circumstance in which our ancestors – still barely different from animals, the language that allowed them to communicate with one another just recently born – in caves, around fires, on nights seething with the menace of lightning bolts, thunder claps, and growling beasts, began to invent and tell stories. That was the crucial moment in our destiny, because in those circles of primitive beings held by the voice and fantasy of the storyteller, civilization began, the long passage that gradually would humanize us and lead us to invent the autonomous individual, then disengage him from the tribe, devise science, the arts, law, freedom, and to scrutinize the innermost recesses of nature, the human body, space, and travel to the stars. Those tales, fables, myths, legends that resounded for the first time like new music before listeners intimidated by the mysteries and perils of a world where everything was unknown and dangerous, must have been a cool bath, a quiet pool for those spirits always on the alert, for whom existing meant barely eating, taking shelter from the elements, killing, and fornicating. From the time they began to dream collectively, to share their dreams, instigated by storytellers, they ceased to be tied to the treadmill of survival, a vortex of brutalizing tasks, and their life became dream, pleasure, fantasy, and a revolutionary plan: to break out of confinement and change and improve, a struggle to appease the desires and ambitions that stirred imagined lives in them, and the curiosity to clear away the mysteries that filled their surroundings.

This never-interrupted process was enriched when writing was born and stories, in addition to being heard, could be read, achieving the permanence literature confers on them. That is why this must be repeated incessantly until new generations are convinced of it: fiction is more than an entertainment, more than an intellectual exercise that sharpens one’s sensibility and awakens a critical spirit. It is an absolute necessity so that civilization continues to exist, renewing and preserving in us the best of what is human. So that we do not retreat into the savagery of isolation and life is not reduced to the pragmatism of specialists who see things profoundly but ignore what surrounds, precedes, and continues those things. So that we do not move from having the machines we invent serve us to being their servants and slaves. And because a world without literature would be a world without desires or ideals or irreverence, a world of automatons deprived of what makes the human being really human: the capacity to move out of oneself and into another, into others, modeled with the clay of our dreams.

From the cave to the skyscraper, from the club to weapons of mass destruction, from the tautological life of the tribe to the era of globalization, the fictions of literature have multiplied human experiences, preventing us from succumbing to lethargy, self-absorption, resignation. Nothing has sown so much disquiet, so disturbed our imagination and our desires as the life of lies we add, thanks to literature, to the one we have, so we can be protagonists in the great adventures, the great passions real life will never give us. The lies of literature become truths through us, the readers transformed, infected with longings and, through the fault of fiction, permanently questioning a mediocre reality. Sorcery, when literature offers us the hope of having what we do not have, being what we are not, acceding to that impossible existence where like pagan gods we feel mortal and eternal at the same time, that introduces into our spirits non-conformity and rebellion, which are behind all the heroic deeds that have contributed to the reduction of violence in human relationships. Reducing violence, not ending it. Because ours will always be, fortunately, an unfinished story. That is why we have to continue dreaming, reading, and writing, the most effective way we have found to alleviate our mortal condition, to defeat the corrosion of time, and to transform the impossible into possibility.

Nobel Lecture (07.12.2010)

• Full transcript of the address (EN / RU)

Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio

Why do we write? I imagine that each of us has his or her own response to this simple question. One has predispositions, a milieu, circumstances. Shortcomings, too. If we are writing, it means that we are not acting. That we find ourselves in difficulty when we are faced with reality, and so we have chosen another way to react, another way to communicate, a certain distance, a time for reflection.

If I examine the circumstances which inspired me to write–and this is not mere self-indulgence, but a desire for accuracy–I see clearly that the starting point of it all for me was war. Not war in the sense of a specific time of major upheaval, where historical events are experienced, such as the French campaign on the battlefield at Valmy, as recounted by Goethe on the German side and my ancestor François on the side of the armée révolutionnaire. That must have been a moment full of exaltation and pathos. No, for me war is what civilians experience, very young children first and foremost. Not once has war ever seemed to me to be an historical moment. We were hungry, we were frightened, we were cold, and that is all. I remember seeing the troops of Field Marshal Rommel pass by under my window as they headed towards the Alps, seeking a passage to the north of Italy and Austria. I do not have a particularly vivid memory of that event. I do recall, however, that during the years which followed the war we were deprived of everything, in particular books and writing materials. For want of paper and ink, I made my first drawings and wrote my first texts on the back of the ration books, using a carpenter’s blue and red pencil. This left me with a certain preference for rough paper and ordinary pencils. For want of any children’s books, I read my grandmother’s dictionaries. They were like a marvellous gateway, through which I embarked on a discovery of the world, to wander and daydream as I looked at the illustrated plates, and the maps, and the lists of unfamiliar words. The first book I wrote, at the age of six or seven, was entitled, moreover, Le Globe à mariner. Immediately afterwards came a biography of an imaginary king named Daniel III—could he have been Swedish?—and a tale told by a seagull. It was a time of reclusion. Children were scarcely allowed outdoors to play, because in the fields and gardens near my grandmother’s there were land mines. I recall that one day as I was out walking by the sea I came across an enclosure surrounded by barbed wire: on the fence was a sign in French and in German that threatened intruders with a forbidding message, and a skull to make things perfectly clear.

It is easy, in such a context, to understand the urge to escape—hence, to dream, and put those dreams in writing. My maternal grandmother, moreover, was an extraordinary storyteller, and she set aside the long afternoons for the telling of stories. They were always very imaginative, and were set in a forest—perhaps it was in Africa, or in Mauritius, the forest of Macchabée—where the main character was a monkey who had a great talent for mischief, and who always wriggled his way out of the most perilous situations. Later, I would travel to Africa and spend time there, and discover the real forest, one where there were almost no animals. But a District Officer in the village of Obudu, near the border with Cameroon, showed me how to listen for the drumming of the gorillas on a nearby hill, pounding their chests. And from that journey, and the time I spent there (in Nigeria, where my father was a bush doctor), it was not subject matter for future novels that I brought back, but a sort of second personality, a daydreamer who was fascinated with reality at the same time, and this personality has stayed with me all my life—and has constituted a contradictory dimension, a strangeness in myself that at times has been a source of suffering. Given the slowness of life, it has taken me the better part of my existence to understand the significance of this contradiction.

Books entered my life at a later period. When my father’s inheritance was divided, at the time of his expulsion from the family home in Moka, in Mauritius, he managed to put together several libraries consisting of the books that remained. It was then that I understood a truth not immediately apparent to children, that books are a treasure more precious than any real property or bank account. It was in those volumes—most of them ancient, bound tomes—that I discovered the great works of world literature: Don Quijote, illustrated by Tony Johannot; La vida de Lazarillo de Tormes; the Ingoldsby Legends; Gulliver’s Travels; Victor Hugo’s great, inspired novels Quatre-vingt-treize, Les Travailleurs de la Mer, and L’Homme qui rit. Balzac’s Les Contes drôlatiques, as well. But the books which had the greatest impact on me were the anthologies of travellers’ tales, most of them devoted to India, Africa, and the Mascarene islands, or the great histories of exploration by Dumont d’Urville or the Abbé Rochon, as well as Bougainville, Cook, and of course The Travels of Marco Polo. In the mediocre life of a little provincial town dozing in the sun, after those years of freedom in Africa, those books gave me a taste for adventure, gave me a sense of the vastness of the real world, a means to explore it through instinct and the senses rather than through knowledge. In a way, too, those books gave me, from very early on, an awareness of the contradictory nature of a child’s existence: a child will cling to a sanctuary, a place to forget violence and competitiveness, and also take pleasure in looking through the windowpane to watch the outside world go by.

Shortly before I received the—to me, astonishing—news that the Swedish Academy was awarding me this distinction, I was re-reading a little book by Stig Dagerman that I am particularly fond of: a collection of political essays entitled Essäer och texter. It was no mere chance that I was re-reading this bitter, abrasive book. I was preparing a trip to Sweden to receive the prize which the Association of the Friends of Stig Dagerman had awarded to me the previous summer, to visit the places where the writer had lived as a child. I have always been particularly receptive to Dagerman’s writing, to the way in which he combines a child-like tenderness with naïveté and sarcasm. And to his idealism. To the clear-sightedness with which he judges his troubled, post-war era—that of his mature years, and of my childhood. One sentence in particular caught my attention, and seemed to be addressed to me at that very moment, for I had just published a novel entitled Ritournelle de la faim. That sentence, or that passage rather, is as follows: «How is it possible on the one hand, for example, to behave as if nothing on earth were more important than literature, and on the other fail to see that wherever one looks, people are struggling against hunger and will necessarily consider that the most important thing is what they earn at the end of the month? Because this is where he (the writer) is confronted with a new paradox: while all he wanted was to write for those who are hungry, he now discovers that it is only those who have plenty to eat who have the leisure to take notice of his existence.» (The Writer and Consciousness)

This «forest of paradoxes», as Stig Dagerman calls it, is, precisely, the realm of writing, the place from which the artist must not attempt to escape: on the contrary, he or she must «camp out» there in order to examine every detail, explore every path, name every tree. It is not always a pleasant stay. He thought he had found shelter, she was confiding in her page as if it were a close, indulgent friend; but now these writers are confronted with reality, not merely as observers, but as actors. They must choose sides, establish their distance. Cicero, Rabelais, Condorcet, Rousseau, Madame de Staël, or, far more recently, Solzhenitsyn or Hwang Sok-yong, Abdelatif Laâbi, or Milan Kundera: all were obliged to follow the path of exile. For someone like myself who has always—except during that brief war-time period—enjoyed freedom of movement, the idea that one might be forbidden to live in the place one has chosen is as inadmissible as being deprived of one’s freedom.

But the privilege of freedom of movement results in the paradox. Look, for a moment, at the tree with its prickly thorns that is at the very heart of the forest where the writer lives: this man, this woman, busily writing, inventing their dreams—do they not belong to a very fortunate and exclusive happy few? Let us pause and imagine an extreme, terrifying situation—like the one in which the vast majority of people on our planet find themselves. A situation which, long ago, at the time of Aristotle, or Tolstoy, was shared by those who had no status—serfs, servants, villeins in Europe in the Middle Ages, or those peoples who during the Enlightenment were plundered from the coast of Africa, sold in Gorée, or El Mina, or Zanzibar. And even today, as I am speaking to you, there are all those who do not have freedom of speech, who are on the other side of language. I am overcome by Dagerman’s pessimistic thoughts, rather than by Gramsci’s militancy, or Sartre’s disillusioned wager. The idea that literature is the luxury of a dominant class, feeding on ideas and images that remain foreign to the vast majority: that is the source of the malaise that each of us is feeling—as I address those who read, who write. Of course one would like to spread the word to all those who have been excluded, to invite them magnanimously to the banquet of culture. Why is this so difficult? Peoples without writing, as the anthropologists like to call them, have succeeded in inventing a form of total communication, through song and myth. Why has this become impossible for our industrialized societies, in the present day? Must we reinvent culture? Must we return to an immediate, direct form of communication? It is tempting to believe that the cinema fulfils just such a role in our time, or popular music with its rhythms and rhymes, its echoes of the dance. Or jazz and, in other climes, calypso, maloya, sega.

The paradox is not a recent one. François Rabelais, the greatest writer in the French language, waged war long ago against the pedantry of the scholars at the Sorbonne by taunting them to their face with words plucked from the common tongue. Was he speaking for those who were hungry? Excess, intoxication, feasting. He put into words the extraordinary appetite of those who dined off the emaciation of peasants and workers, just long enough for a masquerade, a world turned upside down. The paradox of revolution, like the epic cavalcade of the sad-faced knight, lives within the writer’s consciousness. If there is one virtue which the writer’s pen must always have, it is that it must never be used to praise the powerful, even with the faintest of scribblings. And yet just because an artist observes this virtuous behaviour does not mean that he may feel purged of all suspicion. His rebellion, denial, and imprecations definitely remain to one side of the barrier, the side of the language of power. A few words, a few phrases may have escaped. But the rest? A long palimpsest, an elegant and distant time of procrastination. And there is humour, sometimes, which is not the politeness of despair, but the despairing of those who know too well their imperfections; humour is the shore where the tumultuous current of injustice has abandoned them.

Why write, then? For some time now, writers have no longer been so presumptuous as to believe that they can change the world, that they will, through their stories and novels, give birth to a better example for how life should be. Simply, they would like to bear witness. See that other tree in the forest of paradoxes. The writer would like to bear witness, when in fact, most of the time, he is nothing more than a simple voyeur.

And yet there are artists who do become witnesses: Dante in the La Divina Commedia, Shakespeare in The Tempest—and Aimé Césaire in his magnificent adaptation of that play, entitled Une Tempête, in which Caliban, sitting astride a barrel of gunpowder, threatens to blow himself up and take his despised masters with him. There are also those witnesses who are unimpeachable, such as Euclides da Cunha in Os Sertões, or Primo Levi. We see the absurdity of the world in Der Prozess (or in the films of Charlie Chaplin); its imperfection in Colette’s La Naissance du jour, its phantasmagoria in the Irish ballad Joyce created in Finnegans Wake. Its beauty shines, brilliantly, irresistibly, in Peter Matthiessen’s The Snow Leopard or in Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac. Its wickedness in William Faulkner’s Sanctuary, or in Lao She’s First Snow. Its childhood fragility in Dagerman’s Ormen (The Snake).

The best writer as witness is the one who is a witness in spite of himself, unwillingly. The paradox is that he does not bear witness to something he has seen, or even to what he has invented. Bitterness, even despair may arise because he cannot be present at the indictment. Tolstoy may show us the suffering that Napoleon’s army inflicted upon Russia, and yet nothing is changed in the course of history. Claire de Duras wrote Ourika, and Harriet Beecher Stowe Uncle Tom’s Cabin, but it was the enslaved peoples themselves who changed their own destiny, who rebelled and fought against injustice by creating the Maroon resistance in Brazil, in French Guiana, and in the West Indies, and the first black republic in Haiti.

To act: that is what the writer would like to be able to do, above all. To act, rather than to bear witness. To write, imagine, and dream in such a way that his words and inventions and dreams will have an impact upon reality, will change people’s minds and hearts, will prepare the way for a better world. And yet, at that very moment, a voice is whispering to him that it will not be possible, that words are words that are taken away on the winds of society, and dreams are mere illusions. What right has he to wish he were better? Is it really up to the writer to try to find solutions? Is he not in the position of the gamekeeper in the play Knock ou Le Triomphe de la médecine, who would like to prevent an earthquake? How can the writer act, when all he knows is how to remember?

Solitude will be his lot in life. It always has been. As a child, he was a fragile, anxious, excessively receptive boy, or the girl described by Colette, who cannot help but watch as her parents tear each other apart, her big black eyes enlarged with a sort of painful attentiveness. Solitude is affectionate to writers, and it is in the company of solitude that they find the essence of happiness. It is a contradictory happiness, a mixture of pain and delight, an illusory triumph, a muted, omnipresent torment, not unlike a haunting little tune. The writer, better than anyone, knows how to cultivate the vital, poisonous plant, the one that grows only in the soil of his own powerlessness. The writer wanted to speak for everyone, and for every era: there he is, there she is, each alone in a room, facing the too-white mirror of the blank page, beneath the lampshade distilling its secret light. Or sitting at the too-bright screen of the computer, listening to the sound of one’s fingers clicking over the keys. This, then, is the writer’s forest. And each writer knows every path in that forest all too well. If, now and again, something escapes, like a bird flushed by a dog at dawn, then the writer looks on, amazed—this happened merely by chance, in spite of oneself.

It is not my wish, however, to revel in negativity. Literature—and this is what I have been driving at—is not some archaic relic that ought, logically, to be replaced by the audiovisual arts, the cinema in particular. Literature is a complex, difficult path, but I hold it to be even more vital today than in the time of Byron or Victor Hugo.

There are two reasons why literature is necessary:
First of all, because literature is made up of language. The primary sense of the word: letters, that which is written. In French, the word roman refers to those texts in prose which for the first time after the Middle Ages used the new language spoken by the people, a Romance language. And the word for short story, nouvelle, also derives from this notion of novelty. At roughly the same time, in France, the word rimeur (from rime, or rhyme) fell out of use for designating poetry and poets—the new words come from the Greek verb poiein, to create. The writer, the poet, the novelist, are all creators. This does not mean that they invent language, it means that they use language to create beauty, ideas, images. This is why we cannot do without them. Language is the most extraordinary invention in the history of humanity, the one which came before everything, and which makes it possible to share everything. Without language there would be no science, no technology, no law, no art, no love. But without another person with whom to interact, the invention becomes virtual. It may atrophy, diminish, disappear. Writers, to a certain degree, are the guardians of language. When they write their novels, their poetry, their plays, they keep language alive. They are not merely using words—on the contrary, they are at the service of language. They celebrate it, hone it, transform it, because language lives through them and because of them, and it accompanies all the social and economic transformations of their era.

When, in the last century, racist theories were expressed, there was talk of fundamental differences between cultures. In a sort of absurd hierarchy, a correlation was drawn between the economic success of the colonial powers and their purported cultural superiority. Such theories, like a feverish, unhealthy urge, tend to resurface here and there, now and again, to justify neo-colonialism or imperialism. There are, we are told, certain nations that lag behind, who have not acquired their rights and privileges where language is concerned, because they are economically backward or technologically outdated. But have those who prone their cultural superiority realized that all peoples, the world over, whatever their degree of development, use language? And that each of these languages has, identically, a set of logical, complex, structured, analytical features that enable it to express the world, that enable it to speak of science, or invent myths?

Now that I have defended the existence of that ambiguous and somewhat passé creature we call a writer, I would like to turn to the second reason for the necessity of literature, for this has more to do with the fine profession of publishing.

There is a great deal of talk about globalization these days. People forget that in fact the phenomenon began in Europe during the Renaissance, with the beginnings of the colonial era. Globalization is not a bad thing in and of itself. Communication has accelerated progress in medicine and in science. Perhaps the generalization of information will help to forestall conflicts. Who knows, if the Internet had existed at the time, perhaps Hitler’s criminal plot would not have succeeded—ridicule might have prevented it from ever seeing the light of day.

We live in the era of the Internet and virtual communication. This is a good thing, but what would these astonishing inventions be worth, were it not for the teachings of written language and books? To provide nearly everyone on the planet with a liquid crystal display is utopian. Are we not, therefore, in the process of creating a new elite, of drawing a new line to divide the world between those who have access to communication and knowledge, and those who are left out? Great nations, great civilizations have vanished because they failed to realize that this could happen. To be sure, there are great cultures, considered to be in a minority, who have been able to resist until this day, thanks to the oral transmission of knowledge and myths. It is indispensable, and beneficial, to acknowledge the contribution of these cultures. But whether we like it or not, even if we have not yet attained the age of reality, we are no longer living in the age of myths. It is not possible to provide a foundation for equality and the respect of others unless each child receives the benefits of writing.

And now, in this era following decolonization, literature has become a way for the men and women in our time to express their identity, to claim their right to speak, and to be heard in all their diversity. Without their voices, their call, we would live in a world of silence.

Culture on a global scale concerns us all. But it is above all the responsibility of readers—of publishers, in other words. True, it is unjust that an Indian from the far north of Canada, if he wishes to be heard, must write in the language of the conquerors—in French, or in English. True, it is an illusion to expect that the Creole language of Mauritius or the West Indies might be heard as easily around the world as the five or six languages that reign today as absolute monarchs over the media. But if, through translation, their voices can be heard, then something new is happening, a cause for optimism. Culture, as I have said, belongs to us all, to all humankind. But in order for this to be true, everyone must be given equal access to culture. The book, however old-fashioned it may be, is the ideal tool. It is practical, easy to handle, economical. It does not require any particular technological prowess, and keeps well in any climate. Its only flaw—and this is where I would like to address publishers in particular—is that in a great number of countries it is still very difficult to gain access to books. In Mauritius the price of a novel or a collection of poetry is equivalent to a sizeable portion of the family budget. In Africa, Southeast Asia, Mexico, or the South Sea Islands, books remain an inaccessible luxury. And yet remedies to this situation do exist. Joint publication with the developing countries, the establishment of funds for lending libraries and bookmobiles, and, overall, greater attention to requests from and works in so-called minority languages—which are often clearly in the majority—would enable literature to continue to be this wonderful tool for self-knowledge, for the discovery of others, and for listening to the concert of humankind, in all the rich variety of its themes and modulations.

I think I would like to say a few more words about the forest. It is no doubt for this reason that Stig Dagerman’s little sentence is still echoing in my memory, and for this reason that I want to read it and re-read it, to fill myself with it. There is a note of despair in his words, and something triumphant at the same time, because it is in bitterness that we can find the grain of truth that each of us seeks. As a child, I dreamt of that forest. It frightened me and fascinated me at the same time—I suppose that Tom Thumb and Hansel must have felt that way, when they were deep in the forest, surrounded by all its dangers and its wonders. The forest is a world without landmarks. You can get lost in the thickness of trees and the impenetrable darkness. The same could be said of the desert, or the open ocean, where every dune, every hill gives way to yet another identical hill, every wave to yet another perfectly identical wave. I remember the first time I experienced just what literature could be—in Jack London’s The Call of the Wild, to be exact, where one of the characters, lost in the snow, felt the cold gaining on him just as the circle of wolves was closing round him. He looked at his hand, which was already numb, and tried to move each finger one after the other. There was something magical in this discovery for me, as a child. It was called self-awareness.

To the forest I owe one of the greatest literary emotions of my adult life. This was about thirty years ago, in a region of Central America known as El Tapón del Darién, the Darién Gap, because that is where, in those days (and I believe the situation has not changed in the meantime), there was an interruption in the Pan-American Highway that was meant to join the two Americas from Alaska to the tip of Tierra del Fuego. In this region of the isthmus of Panama the rainforest is extremely dense, and the only means of travelling there is to go upriver by pirogue. In the forest there lives an indigenous population, divided into two groups, the Emberá and the Wounaans, both belonging to the Ge-Pano-Carib linguistic family. I had landed there by chance, and was so fascinated by this people that I stayed there several times for fairly lengthy periods, over roughly three years. During the entire time I did nothing other than wander aimlessly from one house to the next—for at the time the population refused to live in villages—and learn to live according to a rhythm that was completely different from anything I had known up to that point. Like all true forests, this forest was particularly hostile. I had to draw up a list of all the potential dangers, and of all the corresponding means of survival. I have to say that on the whole the Emberá were very patient with me. They were amused by my awkwardness, and I think that to a certain degree, I was able to repay them in entertainment what they shared with me in wisdom. I did not write a great deal. The rain forest is not really an ideal setting. Your paper gets soaked with the humidity, the heat dries out all your ball point pens. Nothing that has to work off electricity lasts for very long. I had arrived there with the conviction that writing was a privilege, and that I would always be able to resort to it in order to resolve all my existential problems. A protection, in a way; a sort of virtual window that I could roll up as I needed to shelter from the storm.

Once I had assimilated the system of primitive communism practised by the Amerindians, as well as their profound disgust for authority and their tendency towards natural anarchy, I came to see that art, as a form of individual expression, did not have any role to play in the forest. Besides, these people had nothing that resembled what we call art in our consumer society. Instead of hanging paintings on a wall, the men and women painted their bodies, and in general were loath to create anything lasting. And then I gained access to their myths. When we talk of myths, in our world of written books, it seems as if we are referring to something that is very far away, either in time, or in space. I too believed in that distance. And now suddenly the myths were there for me to hear, regularly, almost every night. Near the wood fire that people built in their houses on a hearth of three stones, amidst the dance of mosquitoes and moths, the voice of the storytellers—men and women alike—would set in motion stories, legends, tales, as if they were speaking of a daily reality. The storyteller sang in a shrill voice, striking his breast; his face would mime the expressions and passions and fears of the characters. It might have been something from a novel, not a myth. But one night, a young woman came. Her name was Elvira. She was known throughout the entire forest of the Emberá for her storytelling skills. She was an adventuress, and lived without a man, without children—people said that she was a bit of a drunkard, a bit of a whore, but I don’t believe it for a minute—and she would go from house to house to sing, in exchange for a meal or a bottle of alcohol or sometimes a few coins. Although I had no access to her tales other than through translation—the Emberá language has a literary variant that is far more complex than the everyday form—I quickly realized that she was a great artist, in the best sense of the term. The timbre of her voice, the rhythm of her hands tapping against her chest, against her heavy necklaces of silver coins, and above all the air of possession which illuminated her face and her gaze, a sort of measured, rhythmic trance, exerted a power over all those who were present. To the simple framework of her myths—the invention of tobacco, the first primeval twins, stories about gods and humans from the dawn of time—she added her own story, her life of wandering, her loves, the betrayals and suffering, the intense joy of carnal love, the sting of jealousy, her fear of growing old, of dying. She was poetry in action, ancient theatre, and the most contemporary of novels all at the same time. She was all those things with fire, with violence, she invented, in the blackness of the forest, amidst the surrounding chorus of insects and toads and the whirlwind of bats, a sensation which cannot be called anything other than beauty. As if in her song she carried the true power of nature, and this was surely the greatest paradox: that this isolated place, this forest, as far away as could be imagined from the sophistication of literature, was the place where art had found its strongest, most authentic expression.

Then I left that region, and I never saw Elvira again, or any of the storytellers of the forest of Darién. But I was left with far more than nostalgia—with the certainty that literature could exist, even when it was worn away by convention and compromise, even if writers were incapable of changing the world. Something great and powerful, which surpassed them, which on occasion could enliven and transfigure them, and restore the sense of harmony with nature. Something new and very ancient at the same time, impalpable as the wind, ethereal as the clouds, infinite as the sea. It is this something which vibrates in the poetry of Jalal ad-Din Rumi, for example, or in the visionary architecture of Emanuel Swedenborg. The shiver one feels on reading the most beautiful texts of humankind, such as the speech that Chief Stealth gave in the mid-19th century to the President of the United States upon conceding his land: «We may be brothers after all…»

Something simple, and true, which exists in language alone. A charm, sometimes a ruse, a grating dance, or long spells of silence. The language of mockery, of interjections, of curses, and then, immediately afterwards, the language of paradise.

It is to her, to Elvira, that I address this tribute—and to her that I dedicate the Prize which the Swedish Academy is awarding me. To her and to all those writers with whom—or sometimes against whom—I have lived. To the Africans: Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, Ahmadou Kourouma, Mongo Beti, to Alan Paton’s Cry the Beloved Country, to Thomas Mofolo’s Chaka. To the great Mauritian author Malcolm de Chazal, who wrote, among other things, Judas. To the Hindi-language Mauritian novelist Abhimanyu Unnuth, for Lal passina (Sweating Blood) to the Urdu novelist Qurratulain Hyder for her epic novel Ag ka Darya (River of Fire). To the defiant Danyèl Waro of La Réunion, for his maloya songs; to the Kanak poetess Déwé Gorodey, who defied the colonial powers all the way to prison; to the rebellious Abdourahman Waberi. To Juan Rulfo and Pedro Paramo, and his short stories El llano en llamas, and the simple and tragic photographs he took of rural Mexico. To John Reed for Insurgent Mexico; to Jean Meyer who was the spokesman for Aurelio Acevedo and the Cristeros insurgents of central Mexico. To Luis González, author of Pueblo en vilo. To John Nichols, who wrote about the bitter land of The Milagro Beanfield War; to Henry Roth, my neighbour on New York Street in Albuquerque, New Mexico, for Call it Sleep. To Jean-Paul Sartre, for the tears contained in his play Morts sans sépulture. To Wilfred Owen, the poet who died on the banks of the Marne in 1914. To J.D. Salinger, because he succeeded in putting us in the shoes of a young fourteen-year-old boy named Holden Caulfield. To the writers of the first nations in America – Sherman Alexie the Sioux, Scott Momaday the Navajo for The Names. To Rita Mestokosho, an Innu poet from Mingan, Quebec, who lends her voice to trees and animals. To José Maria Arguedas, Octavio Paz, Miguel Angel Asturias. To the poets of the oases of Oualata and Chinguetti. For their great imagination, to Alphonse Allais and Raymond Queneau. To Georges Perec for Quel petit vélo à guidon chromé au fond de la cour? To the West Indian authors Edouard Glissant and Patrick Chamoiseau, to René Depestre from Haiti, to André Schwartz-Bart for Le Dernier des justes. To the Mexican poet Homero Aridjis who allows us to imagine the life of a leatherback turtle, and who evokes the rivers flowing orange with Monarch butterflies along the streets of his village, Contepec. To Vénus Koury Ghata who speaks of Lebanon as of a tragic, invincible lover. To Khalil Gibran. To Rimbaud. To Emile Nelligan. To Réjean Ducharme, for life.

To the unknown child I met one day, on the banks of the river Tuira, in the forest of Darién. At night, sitting on the floor in a shop, lit by the flame of a kerosene lamp, he is reading a book and writing, hunched forward, not paying the slightest attention to anything around him, oblivious of the discomfort or noise or promiscuity of the harsh, violent life there just next to him. That child sitting cross-legged on the floor of that shop, in the heart of the forest, reading all alone in the lamplight, is not there by chance. He resembles like a brother that other child I spoke about at the beginning of these pages, who was trying to write with a carpenter’s pencil on the back of ration books, in the dark years immediately after the war. The child reminds us of the two great urgent tasks of human history, tasks we are far, alas, from having fulfilled. The eradication of hunger, and the elimination of illiteracy.

For all his pessimism, Stig Dagerman’s phrase about the fundamental paradox of the writer, unsatisfied because he cannot communicate with those who are hungry—whether for nourishment or for knowledge—touches on the greatest truth. Literacy and the struggle against hunger are connected, closely interdependent. One cannot succeed without the other. Both of them require, indeed urge, us to act. So that in this third millennium, which has only just begun, no child on our shared planet, regardless of gender or language or religion, shall be abandoned to hunger or ignorance, or turned away from the feast. This child carries within him the future of our human race. In the words of the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, a very long time ago, the kingdom belongs to a child.

Nobel Lecture (04.11.2008)

Instead, I would like to share a few thoughts with you about free speech (and speech here includes writing and reading, listening and thinking) – free speech – the life blood, the essential condition of the liberal education you’ve just received. Let’s begin on a positive note: there is likely more free speech, free thought, free enquiry on earth now than at any previous moment in recorded history (even taking into account the golden age of the so-called ‘pagan’ philosophers). And you’ve come of age in a country where the enshrinement of free speech in the First Amendment is not an empty phrase, as it is in many constitutions, but a living reality.

But free speech was, it is and always will be, under attack – from the political right, the left, the centre. It will come from under your feet, from the extremes of religion as well as from unreligious ideologies. It’s never convenient, especially for entrenched power, to have a lot of free speech flying around.

The words associated with Voltaire (more likely, his sentiments but not his actual phrasing) remain crucial and should never be forgotten: I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. It’s only rarely appropriate to suppress the speech of those you disagree with. As my late friend Christopher Hitchens used to say, when you meet a flat-earther or a creationist, it can be useful to be made to remember just why you think the earth is round or whether you’re capable of making the case for natural selection. For that reason, it’s a poor principle, adopted in some civilised countries, to imprison the deniers of the Holocaust or the Armenian massacres, however contemptible they might be.

It’s worth remembering this: freedom of expression sustains all the other freedoms we enjoy. Without free speech, democracy is a sham. Every freedom we possess or wish to possess (of habeas corpus and due process, of universal franchise and of assembly, union representation, sexual equality, of sexual preference, of the rights of children, of animals – the list goes on) has had to be freely thought and talked and written into existence. No single individual can generate these rights alone. The process is cumulative. It was a historical context of relative freedom of speech that made possible the work of those who were determined to extend that liberty. John Milton, Tom Paine, Mary Wollstonecraft, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Stuart Mill, Oliver Wendell Holmes – the roll call is long and honourable – and that is why an education in the liberal arts is so vital to the culture you are about to contribute to.

Take a long journey from these shores as I’m sure many of you will, and you will find the condition of free expression to be desperate. Across almost the entire Middle East, free thought can bring punishment or death, from governments or from street mobs or motivated individuals. The same is true in Bangladesh, Pakistan, across great swathes of Africa. These past years the public space for free thought in Russia has been shrinking. In China, state monitoring of free expression is on an industrial scale. To censor daily the internet alone, the Chinese government employs as many as fifty thousand bureaucrats – a level of thought repression unprecedented in human history.

Paradoxically, it’s all the more important to be vigilant for free expression wherever it flourishes. And nowhere has it been more jealously guarded than under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Which is why it has been so puzzling lately, when we saw scores of American writers publicly disassociating themselves from a PEN gala to honour the murdered journalists of the French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo. American PEN exists to defend and promote free speech. What a disappointment that so many American authors could not stand with courageous fellow writers and artists at a time of tragedy. The magazine has been scathing about racism. It’s also scathing about organised religion and politicians and it might not be to your taste – but that’s when you should remember your Voltaire.

Hebdo’s offices were fire-bombed in 2011, and the journalists kept going. They received constant death threats – and they kept going. In January nine colleagues were murdered, gunned down, in their office – the editorial staff kept going and within days they had produced an edition whose cover forgave their attackers. Tout est pardonne, all is forgiven. All this, when in the U.S. and U.K. one threatening phone call can be enough to stop a major publishing house in its tracks.

The attack on Charlie Hebdo came from religious fanatics whose allegiances became clear when one of the accomplices made her way from France, through Turkey to ISIS in Syria. Remember, this is a form of fanaticism whose victims, across Africa and the Middle East, are mostly Muslims – Muslim gays and feminists, Muslim reformists, bloggers, human rights activists, dissidents, apostates, novelists, and ordinary citizens, including children, murdered in or kidnapped from their schools.

There’s a phenomenon in intellectual life that I call bi-polar thinking. Let’s not side with Charlie Hebdo because it might seem as if we’re endorsing George Bush’s ‘war on terror’. This is a suffocating form of intellectual tribalism and a poor way of thinking for yourself. As a German novelist friend wrote to me in anguish about the PEN affair -“It’s the Seventies again: Let’s not support the Russian dissidents, because it would get “applause from the wrong side.” That terrible phrase.”

But note the end of the Hebdo affair: the gala went ahead, the surviving journalists received a thunderous and prolonged standing ovation from American PEN.

Timothy Garton Ash reminds us in a new book on free speech that “The U.S. Supreme Court has described academic freedom as a ‘special concern of the First Amendment.’” Worrying too, then, is the case of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, an ex Muslim, highly critical of Islam, too critical for some. As a victim herself, she has campaigned against female genital mutilation. She has campaigned for the rights of Muslim women. In a recent book she has argued that for Islam to live more at ease in the modern world it needs to rethink its attitudes to homosexuality, to the interpretation of the Koran as the literal word of God, to blasphemy, to punishing severely those who want to leave the religion. Contrary to what some have suggested, such arguments are neither racist nor driven by hatred. But she has received death threats. Crucially, on many American campuses she is not welcomed, and, notoriously, Brandeis withdrew its offer of an honorary degree. Islam is worthy of respect, as indeed is atheism. We want respect flowing in all directions. But religion and atheism, and all thought systems, all grand claims to truth, must be open to criticism, satire, even, sometimes, mockery. Surely, we have not forgotten the lessons of the Salman Rushdie affair.

Campus intolerance of inconvenient speakers is hardly new. Back in the sixties my own university blocked a psychologist for promoting the idea of a hereditable component to intelligence. In the seventies, the great American biologist EO Wilson was drowned out for suggesting a genetic element in human social behaviour. As I remember, both men were called fascists. The ideas of these men did not fit prevailing ideologies, but their views are unexceptionable today.

More broadly – the internet has, of course, provided extraordinary possibilities for free speech. At the same time, it has taken us onto some difficult and unexpected terrain. It has led to the slow decline of local newspapers, and so removed a sceptical and knowledgeable voice from local politics. Privacy is an essential element of free expression; the Snowden files have revealed an extraordinary and unnecessary level of email surveillance by government agencies. Another essential element of free expression is access to information; the internet has concentrated huge power over that access into the hands of private companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter. We need to be careful that such power is not abused. Large pharmaceutical companies have been know to withhold research information vital to the public interest. On another scale, the death of young black men in police custody could be framed as the ultimate sanction against free expression. As indeed is poverty and poor educational resources.

All these issues need the input of men and women with a liberal arts education and you, graduates, are well placed to form your own conclusions. And you may reasonably conclude that free speech is not simple. It’s never an absolute. We don’t give space to proselytising paedophiles, to racists (and remember, race is not identical to religion) or to those who wish to incite violence against others. Wendell Holmes’s hypothetical ‘shouting fire in a crowded theatre’ is still relevant. But it can be a little too easy sometimes to dismiss arguments you don’t like as ‘hate speech’ or to complain that this or that speaker makes you feel ‘disrespected.’ Being offended is not to be confused with a state of grace; it’s the occasional price we all pay for living in an open society. Being robust is no bad thing. Either engage, with arguments – not with banishments and certainly not with guns – or, as an American Muslim teacher said recently at Friday prayers, ignore the entire matter.

In making your mind up on these issues, I hope you’ll remember your time at Dickinson and the novels you may have read here. It would prompt you, I hope, in the direction of mental freedom. The novel as a literary form was born out of the Enlightenment, out of curiosity about and respect for the individual. Its traditions impel it towards pluralism, openness, a sympathetic desire to inhabit the minds of others. There is no man, woman or child, on earth whose mind the novel cannot reconstruct. Totalitarian systems are right with regard to their narrow interests when they lock up novelists. The novel is, or can be, the ultimate expression of free speech.

I hope you’ll use your fine liberal education to preserve for future generations the beautiful and precious but also awkward, sometimes inconvenient and even offensive culture of freedom of expression we have. Take with you these celebrated words of George Washington: “If the freedom of speech is taken away then, dumb and silent, we may be led like sheep to the slaughter.”

We may be certain that Dickinson has not prepared you to be sheep. Good luck 2015 graduates in whatever you choose to do in life.

Dickinson College commencement address (17.05.2015)

• Видео выступления

I especially want to thank the University president, Nathan O. Hatch, known to you as Nate Dawg, Natty O, the Hatchet, Hatch Adam, Sen. Orrin Hatch, Angel Dust. And I only made a couple of those up.

Of course, we mustn’t forget the parents, who, to get you students to this day, have sacrificed so many things, primarily money. I’m sure there are other things they’ve sacrificed, but I’m gonna guess that money’s the one they bring up most often.

Most importantly, congratulations to you, the Class of 2015. You did it.

And you look amazing. Although it’s a little embarrassing you all showed up in the same outfit. Really. Even all the accessories are the same. Everyone has a black and gold tassel. Or, is it blue and white? Grandparents, just know this was the issue that divided a generation. You had the Vietnam War. Your grandchildren had an ambiguously colored Tumblr post.

I am so proud to be your Commencement speaker today, cause I know I am following in some impressive footsteps. Last year, you heard from New York Times Executive Editor Jill Abramson, who, unfortunately, lost her job just five days before her speech. Is there something you know about my new job that I don’t? Please. Just tell me. I really need that money. I have kids in college.

Of course for you grads, the future is a dark chasm of yawning uncertainty. But don’t worry. You don’t have to face the future for like two hours — first brunch then yawning uncertainty. But for now, you are still nestled in the beautiful, comforting bosom of Wake Forest.

There’s an interesting story about how this institution came to be. The father of Wake Forest, Samuel Wait, was trying to raise money for a different school, but during his travels his horse ran off, and he became stranded nearby. So the locals asked him to lead their new university. It was a simpler time. Back then, they just handed out universities to whoever’s horse had run off most recently. This man has no control over his animals? Surely, he has something to teach us all.

Of course, Wake Forest or Wack Fo as I’ve been asked by Provost Kersh not to call it, wasn’t always the purely academic institution it is today. It was founded as the seductively named Wake Forest Manual Labor Institute. And students spent half their day toiling in the fields. The first class had just 16 students, one of them just 12 years old. But, he was a prodigy. He could haul sacks of grain at a college level.

Back then, of course, if you didn’t get into the Wake Forest Manual Labor Institute, you could always settle for the North Carolina Crushing Toil Academy, which now, of course, is known as UNC.

Wake Forest has always been a leader. In the late 19th century, this was among the first Southern schools to teach biology in a lab. Before then, you weren’t supposed to learn biology until marriage.

In 1962, Wake Forest had the proud distinction of being the South’s first major private school to integrate. And, yes…they’ve kept it up. All right. Good. Good. You don’t know these days. You don’t know.

Even now, Wake Forest is a trailblazer. You were America’s first top 30 school to make standardized testing optional. The implications are huge. Consider this: In a group of 30 applicants, where 15 took the SATs, 10 took the ACTs and five took no test, calculate the ratio between…actually, forget it. You all didn’t have to know any of that stuff.

Still, while Wake has been a trailblazer, this is a school that respects tradition. Traditions like rolling the Quad with toilet paper after big wins. And this is actually an eco-friendly tradition because, looking at this season’s win-loss record, you guys saved a lot of paper.

Let me win you back. Duke sucks.

I do want to say one thing that I love about rolling the Quad. It really sticks it to the trees. I mean, covering a tree with the processed pulp of its relatives? That sends a harsh message. That’s like throwing wallets at an alligator or flinging piano keys at an elephant.

Speaking of the Quad. Streaking. Is anyone here naked under their robes? No? Just me. Ok. You are the rare school that not only streaks your Quad; you also have a 24-hour live webcam pointed at it. Come on. Naked on a webcam, really? You young people know that’s wrong. Those are the kind of pictures you’re supposed to Snapchat to each other.

You people also have campus traditions that are people. I want to give a shout out to Mr. Dean Shore, the University barber. There he is. Right there. Dean actually contacted me first by sending me a Facebook request the minute my plane landed. He is a friend to so many students, and a real throwback to a simpler time because when your biggest local celebrity is a barber, you’re basically a medieval village.

But of all the local celebrities, none is more famous than your mascot, the Demon Deacon. Everybody loves the Deacon. When he rides out on his motorcycle during basketball games, the crowd erupts with a madness that can come only from the passion of true fans or from inhaling motorcycle fumes in an enclosed space.

Clearly, Wake Forest has come a long way since it was a labor school founded by a horseless drifter. But as great as Wake Forest is, Wake is your past now. It is my responsibility as a commencement speaker to prepare you for what awaits you in the future.

Here it is: No one has any idea what’s going to happen. Not even Elon Musk. That’s why he’s building those rockets. He wants a ‘Plan B’ on another world.

But whatever happens, I think it’s entirely appropriate that I’m the one talking to you right now. Because I just spent many years learning to do one thing really well. I got so comfortable with that place, that role, those responsibilities that it came to define how I saw myself. But now that part of my life is over. It’s time to say goodbye to the person we’ve become, we’ve worked so hard to perfect, and to make some crucial decisions about who we’re going to be. For me, I’ll have to figure out how to do an hour-long show every night. And you, at some point, will have to sleep. I am told the Adderall wears off eventually. Good luck.

But this uncertainty is not new to your generation. The future is always uncertain. The only thing we can be sure will happen in 2016 is that we’ll elect a new president. And that between now and then, about this many people will run as the Republican nominee.

Yes, you are graduating into an election year, which is the technical term for “two years before an election.” A lot of candidates will be vying for your attention, and you will perform the ultimate civic duty: deciding for whom you will swipe left and for whom you will swipe right. Because I think we’re voting on Tinder now. At least the Republicans are. Democrats might be voting on Grindr. I don’t know.

And with all these people appealing to you, you’re going to have to learn pretty damn quick how to tell the difference between hype and substance. So to keep folks from selling you things and ideas that aren’t true, you will need a well calibrated BS detector. And luckily, I’m selling them today for the low, low price of just $89.95. Order now and I’ll include an anti-flim-flam travel case. That’s Stephen Colbert’s BS detector. If you buy it, that means you needed it.

And if there’s one thing you need even more, it’s your own set of standards. It may seem counter-intuitive now, but once you leave here, you may miss being graded on all your work. Because when you’re out of school, there are no objective criteria for achievement anymore.

People my age will sometimes say to you, “Hey, that work you did, that thing you said, that cause you championed, it’s not good.” Well, having your own standards will help you weather moments like that. Having your own standards allows you to perceive success where others may see failure.

I’m reminded of one famous inventor who was ridiculed for his dream. But flash forward 15 years to the day. And do we or do we not now all ride Segways to work? We do not, but they are featured prominently in the movie Paul Blart: Mall Cop. That’s good, too.

Here’s another example. Over the years, I have given my work a lot of thought. I have my own standard for success now. I have a pretty good idea of what jokes will get laughs and a pretty good idea of what jokes may be iffy. But I’m going to say them anyway because I kind of like how iffy they are. Those who have watched my show over the years know I have made that decision many times. But having my own standards is why I could keep going at times when no one laughed or when I thought the person I was interviewing might throw a punch at me. It’s also why the epitaph on my tombstone will probably read, “Well, I thought it was funny.”

Of course, any standards worth having will be a challenge to meet. And most of the time, you will fall short. But what is nice about having your own set of standards is that from now on, you fill out your own report card. So do yourself a favor: Be an easy grader. Score yourself on a curve. Give yourself extra credit. You have the power. You are your own professor now. Which I know is a little creepy because that means you’re showering with your professor. But you have tenure. They can’t fire you.

So I hope you find the courage to decide for yourself what is right and what is wrong. And then, please expect as much of the world around you. Try to make the world good according to your standards. It won’t be easy. Get ready for my generation to tell you everything that can’t be done — like ending racial tension, or getting money out of politics, or lowering the world’s carbon emissions. And we should know they can’t be done. After all, we’re the ones who didn’t do them.

Your job, Pro Humanitate, is to prove us wrong. Because if you don’t prove us wrong, then forget everything I’ve been saying.

And instead, I’d like to leave you with a bit of wisdom I picked up from a documentary I saw this weekend: Mad Max: Fury Road. All you young people really need to succeed in the future is a reliable source of fuel and a fanatical cadre of psychopathic motorcycle killers. May you ride eternal, shiny and chrome.

Thank you for the honor of addressing you. And congratulations again to the Wake Forest Class of 2015.

Wake Forest University commencement address (18.05.2015)

• Видео выступления