Arturo Pereda, former federal magistrate, is invited by the President of the Republic to be attorney general, on the other hand, Rodrigo, a law professor, lives a forbidden love and a normal student from Iguala dreams of social justiceare the stories that make up Towards the swamp (Alfaguara).
In interview with MILLENNIUM, Gerardo Laveaga (Mexico City, 1963), writer, lawyer and academic, points out that it is a novel about power and politics where there is sex, love, jealousy, ambition, selfishness and envy.
—Is it a satire of Mexican political reality?
Towards the swamp It is an expression of my disillusionment with the legal world. All the characters in the novel confront the ideals of law, the ideals of politics and they are all disillusioned. Because the ideal is so high, so unattainable that no one reaches it and even more so, those who enter it end up being crushed by the institutions.
—A political novel?
I do not want to criticize a party, it is a novel about power, because a political novel is to present such a character and such a party to attract proselytes to such and take away from such. I am not talking about parties in the novel, nor about specific people… it is the man in front of power, how he disguises it, how he disguises that he seeks the good of the people when in reality he is seeking his personal good.
—Tell me about the stories?
The first is that of a young man who wants to teach law and falls in love with a student and at the time of Me Too he was very frowned upon and has to fight. The second is about a magistrate who ends up being Attorney General of the Republic and realizes that the situation is very different and begins to lose all his prestige because he enters reality and that of a social fighter who ends up robbing houses because he is the only one. path left.
—The novel is a thriller Where everything is corrupted, is there no salvation?
Yes, but that has to do with the balance of powers. When there is a division of powers there is balance and you cannot do whatever you want, of course there are possibilities of maintaining a balance. That is my solution and I have always said it with a very clear vision. realpolitik.
—Is there no balance of power in the novel?
It does not exist, in such an absorbing presidential system where either you enter it or you do not enter it. And this man wants to come in with his ideals and his naivety and ends up being crushed by the political institution. Everyone wants to change, everyone wants to do good things, but everyone faces reality and is destroyed by it. And I think the novel reflects my own disillusionment, how far can we carry out these ideals, when there are so many real factors of power, when there are so many interests at stake.
—Where did the sinister character Cecilio Barbachano come from?
Many people ask me: “Is he such a politician?”, of course not, but he is certainly a mixture of many politicians that you and I know, he is a mixture of all of them and the only thing they want is money, power, impose your will and get your way. And they disguise this will to power with ideals, justice, the common good, honorability, dignity, but deep down they seek pure power and that is what my novel tries to reflect.
—Is it a criticism of what is happening in the country today?
It’s a novel. I do not intend to denounce anyone, nor make a diagnosis, nor an analysis of a reality, what I simply seek is to present a fresco and let everyone draw their own conclusions. But the truth is that the characters in my novel all allow themselves to be corrupted and end up giving in to the institutions they face.
—Did you plan to publish it right now with all the judicial reform stuff?
Note that I started writing it two years ago, in fact, in the original version it was not a president, but a president. But as I realized that this was progressing I decided to change it for a president, but she is a very secondary character who simply gives political context to the novel. And well, yes, I realize how the Judiciary is now being hit and how the judges, the magistrates, the ministers have been hurt. But in my novel they also leave a lot to be desired. For example, the president of the Court is a lady who goes every day to ask the Secretary of Justice for instructions; What independence? What division of powers? And we have to question this every day from different angles. You from journalism, I from literature and others from the judiciary or politics.
—Towards the swamp Can it happen at any time in the history of Mexico?
I hope that the novel can be read in five years or in twenty and that the same doubts of a character who says: do I want to be a politician? Why do I want to be a politician? What is expected of me as a judge? What is expected of me as attorney general? If I manage to make this novel survive a few years this will show that I did not write it in this context. However, all writers have to pay the price in our time.
—Why do you think they follow these stereotypes of politicians? The country is supposed to change, right?
In that sense, I think I was not so optimistic. I felt that my country was going backwards for two years and I felt that it was sinking into a swamp. In fact, the original title of the novel was “In the swamp” and I said, no, let’s give hope and let it be Towards the swampbecause that means that we can still slow down and stop the path. I have a lot of hope for Claudia Sheinbaum, it seems to me that she is an exceptionally intelligent woman and that she can change many things, not just her, but we have such a horribly presidential system, where the president is the axis of the system, well, we have to have hope in the president or the president.
—You are a man who has traveled through the world of justice and letters, who are you?
When I look in the mirror I see a writer, but all my life I have earned my living as a lawyer, I teach and I was president of the Federal Institute of Access to Information and Data Protection, among other activities, but I am a writer.
PCL
