Why these three places in the world?
ABC: Guatemala because in my view represents Latin America as a destination, with all that this continent has to offer and we are directly connected. Their sensuality, language, so there is this closeness, a bridge over the sea that unites us. It's beautiful landscape from my point of view; we found lost lakes in the middle of nowhere, volcanoes and fabulous sites as the city of Antigua that represents the colonial style. People are extremely friendly and of great simplicity, which is one of the features I love best in people. On the whole it was a revelation. Burma for the same reasons, is in Asia, the Burmese people are the poorest I've ever met to date, all do I haven’t visit countries like India where poverty is extreme, but it is a people with a wealth of life so superior to its misery, that can only fascinate the West. I know they touched Antonio Cruz with their beautiful smiles. They are of great affection and a dire shortage, because they are under a military regime that is dictatorial, they are isolated from the world and give great value to those coming from outside that wants to give them a hug, or talk to them and take pictures. Not to mention the monumental landscape. Hence arises the photo album, I'm not a professional photographer, or even dare to say that I take good pictures. It is a record of these people I met who goes beyond the photo. I did not know them, nor had the opportunity to speak with many of them.
Why now?
ABC: Because I thought I had enough images to make an album. I've been in the last three years in places that marked me deeply here we can see Syria, Panama and Thailand and also to break that habit I had at the end of each year to edit a children's book. This year I decided to "harm" the children on behalf of the adults, although it is a book with many interesting things for young people. It was an accident, had stuff to do it and no story to tell.
You publish a few stories, but you said also that you might not write a novel? Is it lacks of maturity to write it? Don’t you already have the idea of a story you would like to tell?
ABC: I have some, and I do not want to be misinterpreted but what I mean is to write a novel it takes time and I have not reached that maturity. I have met many people and many places, but I haven’t unstructured a novel within. The ultimate goal of a writer should not be a novel. It may be the start to the top of a "career" as a writer. I believe that such is not the case. Take the example of Luis Sepulveda, he did not write a single novel, but has absolutely fantastic story books. He works his way of writing the story and perfects its form of writing in order to make it the best way possible, rather than in a novel. I admit however I do not have time to write. Requires availability and silence is something that I do not have, because I work, I have a family and all limit in terms of concentration. Therefore, I write short stories and maybe throughout this writing I will walk into a novel. It is not an objective, if I must it will naturally arises, if not, I'll be happy with what I have done.
How does function your creative process? First you think of a story, or are about someone you met?
ABC: We go back to Cape Verde. Back to the island of Fogo and a lady I met at the home of a friend, was the maid and her name was Joanna. I was only two days with her. Joanna is the picture of Cape Verdean women of the countryside, walking barefoot, with 30 years old judging she had fifty, someone who is very broken by time and had an empty look. She is one of the first tales of the ten that come from her sad gaze. The book begins with a funeral scene with the weeping of the mourners who came to me thru the wind, I distal from them five hundred feet away and I returned to Portugal with the sound of these mourners and that sad look of Joanna and from them I did a story. With her I recovered others who passed through my life, some more important, others not so and from there managed to create nine more stories around it and I am looking forward to write about people I met in my life and build stories around them. After a few years and some books published and with all the constraints that my life has I notice it's more about people I like to write. Definitely.
It is a constant need?
ABC: It is constant, if it were not I wouldn’t feel the need to write in weeklies and magazines. I cannot do this my life, because books are not profitable in Portugal. They are for a Jose Saramago, Fernando Pessoa or Eça de Queiros and other writers such as Fernando Tordo, or Gonçalo Cadilhe dedicated to travel, which has a standard of living that allows them to live by writing, I cannot do it.
But if this could be your fate?
ABC: Absolutely. If it were recognized and that somehow would be profitable, not to the point of becoming a millionaire, but to hold a nice living standard, I would devote to writing for sure, but we are in Portugal and worse in Madera with all the limitations that it entails. The island is closed. For books to get out is extremely difficult and costly for my publisher the Liberal, to put them on the shelf’s of the mainland, he loses fifty per cent of revenues, in favor of the distributor and maybe in a book of 20 euros and even that the author is the one who triggers all this, he gets only one euro. It’s not justified.
"Curse words & good will" comes from a very Portuguese indispensability that is to criticize everything?
ABC: It's very Portuguese habit. The society above all is extremely fertile, I speak of chroniclers, writers, or whoever in given us ideas about the qualities and the defects that we have. It's like a piece of clay or plasticine we are shaping. Both can write a chronicle of cursing, as one of good will that results from my more sensual rib, more erotic and here I do a balance that I think it works. It is bittersweet. It is also the result of a need. Intelligent people should start by laughing at themselves. If you cannot laugh at yourself because you did something stupid, or crazy or lunatic, idiotic even, if I can laugh at my own faults, I think is halfway to laugh at the society that surrounds me. And I can laugh at me, of my flaws and my imperfections, society only has to review itself in what I write and a lot of people, fortunately, write also.
