Just as Don Quixote righted wrongs, Javier Cercas righted modern literary misunderstandings in his induction speech to the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE). The writer from Cáceres (Ibahernando, 1962) read ”Misunderstandings of modernity” in front of his colleagues at the learned house this Sunday. ‘A manifesto’, he subtitled his extensive and critical speech, with which he dismantled themes such as the uselessness of art, the sacredness of the writer, his isolation in an ivory tower, the systematic condemnation of popular literature as bad and the consecration of the equally good minority.
Cercas believes that in literature “we struggle in a stubborn web of misunderstandings, not to mention superstitions, prejudices, half-truths or simple lies, which distort reality and prevent us from seeing it clearly.” He said it under the portrait of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, in the great hall of the noble academic palace to which Cercas, dressed in the obligatory tailcoat, was introduced by Asunción Gómez-Pérez and Pedro Cátedra. The supporters of his candidacy were the academic Clara Sánchez – responsible for Sunday’s ‘laudatio’ -, the Nobel prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa – who was not present - and Pedro Álvarez de Miranda.
“Writing really consists of writing against clichés”, stated the new holder of the R chair in a firm tone at the beginning of a long speech – 70 pages – in which he reviewed his life and his literary ambitions, citing numerous narrators, poets and thinkers: Homer, Ovid, Tirso de Molina, Lichtemberg, Sterne, Kant, Sainte-Beuve, Baudelaire, De Vigny, Lepoardi, Wilde, Flaubert, Valéry, Henry James, Conrad, Kafka, Joyce, Proust, Sartre, Faukner, Virginia Woolf, Scott Fitzgerlad, Hemingway, Nabokov, Borges, Octavio Paz, Bernhard, Bodsky, Kundera and Heidegger filled his speech with quotes. And of course Shakespeare, Cervantes and his universal Don Quixote and Sancho “two hopeless madmen”.
Authentic literature is made “with rebellious words”, according to Cercas. He therefore “represents a danger to any power”. Since he “only wants submissive citizens, people who say yes, he will always aspire to control them, to subjugate them, to domesticate them.” “If it were up to him, don’t hesitate: he would ban it immediately,” he said. “Is there anything more useful than this?” Cercas asked himself to reclaim the usefulness of literature.
For the author of ‘Solados de Salamina’ or ‘El impostor’, someone with a good novel in his hands “is a public danger, a walking time bomb, a potential independent thinker, an insubordinate person in the making”. Citizens “capable of saying no – like Camus’s rebellious man or Ibsen’s enemy of the people – when everyone around them says yes, as Alonso Quijano and Emma Bovary do, in an insurmountable way”, who are for Closes “two readers ideals”.
He dismantled the cliché according to which “a successful novel is by definition bad”, which would mean “an artistic defeat of the ‘Quxote’ and Shakespeare’s plays, which were also very popular in Elizabethan England”. “Neither Cervantes nor Shakespeare were prestigious writers in their day: we all know that Cervantes would never have won the Cervantes Prize, or at least not without a critical scandal, and that in their day Shakespeare was barely considered literature,” ventured Cercas.
«The proof is that his works were not published seriously before his death; but today no one doubts the place that Cervantes and Shakespeare occupy at the top of the Western canon”, added the author of ”Anatomy of an Instant”. “I am not in favor of popular literature; “I am in favor of the popularity of literature”, he said .
For Cercas “the only infallible literary critic is time”. He knows that an author should not desperately seek the public’s favor “because a true writer only writes what is in his gut, what he has no choice but to write.”
“Today, as always, a true writer can be anything except an idiot,” he said, clarifying that an idiot comes from the Greek ‘idiotes’, meaning a person who only cares about his own business and ignores what is common, which is the public. that is, politics.
“For a writer, authentic immortality is anonymity”, said Cercas, dispelling the misunderstanding “according to which the protagonist of literature is the author”. Giving “excessive prominence to the author”, sometimes “to the point of separating him from the rest of mortals, sacralizing him and transforming him into a semi-divine figure” is for him a “ridiculous” glorification.
For Cercas, a novel “is a score that each reader interprets in his own way, and this is the spell of literature”. «The misunderstanding consists in believing that the protagonist of literature is the author; false: the protagonist of literature is the reader, who is the one who finishes the books. A book without readers is a dead letter”, he said. “A book is like a mirror: if a donkey looks at himself in it, he cannot hope to see a prophet”, summarized Lichtemberg in a single aphorism.
He never thought, says Cercas, of being an academic, but he is already a full academic as holder of the R chair, vacant following the death, in September 2022, of Javier Marías, to whom he dedicated warm praise. He remembered him with cordiality, affection and respect as “one of the greatest Spanish novelists of the last century, perhaps simply one of the great Spanish novelists”. Even as a “quarrelsome man”, as Marías himself defined himself.
Javier Cercas is today the most global, internationally appreciated and awarded Spanish writer of his generation. He made himself known to the general public with ‘The Soldiers of Salamina’ (2001), a novel praised by Mario Vargas Llosa, which started an avalanche that has not stopped growing. He later earned the favor of critics such as Susan Sontag or George Steiner and readers all over the world with titles such as ‘Anatomy of an Instant’, ‘The Laws of
Among his literary friends are Nobel Prize winners such as JM Coetzee and Kenzaburo Oe, as well as authors such as Salman Rushdie, the late Paul Auster, Jonathan Littell and Mathias Enard.
Cercas’ works have been adapted to film, theater and comics – two of which will soon be television series -, are studied in schools and universities around the world and have been the subject of academic articles, doctoral theses and critical editions . His growing prestige led Pope Francis to choose him to accompany him on a pastoral trip to Mongolia and subsequently to give him access to the Vatican underground.
Born in Ibahernando, Cáceres, in 1962, at the age of four he emigrated with his family to Gerona, where he spent his childhood and adolescence. In 1985 he graduated in Spanish Philology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. From 1987 to 1989 he taught Spanish and furthered his studies at the University of Urbana, Illinois (United States). In 1989 he began teaching Spanish literature at the University of Girona. Two years later he read his doctoral thesis and in 1995 won a position as full professor at the same university, where he is now on leave. Since 2003 he has dedicated himself exclusively to literature.
His books have been translated into more than thirty languages and have won awards such as the National Narrative or Planeta in Spain, the André Malraux or the Mediterranée in France; the Dagger’s Prize or Independent Foreign Fiction in the UK; Grinzane Cavour or Mondello in Italy; Athens in Greece; the Casino da Póvoa in Portugal or that of the critics in Chile. Also the Prix du Livre Européen and the Taofen for the best foreign novel published in China.
For his work as a whole, Cercas has received numerous awards, many of them outside Spain, such as the Ennio Flaiano, Sicilia or Salone del Libro de Torino award in Italy, the Ulysse o il Diálogo in France, the Metropolis in Canada or the International Literary Flame Award in Montenegro.
How does Cercas redefine the relationship between authors and readers in contemporary literature?
As a member of the Pontifical Academy of Moral Theology, recognizing the profound impact of his literary contributions.
In his induction speech, Cercas approached the nature of literature with a critical lens, challenging the established norms and preconceived notions that often cloud the understanding of literary creation. He argued that literature has a fundamental role in society, not just as an artistic endeavor, but as a means of fostering independent thought and provoking critical dialog among citizens. His views align literature closely with activism, emphasizing that powerful narratives can inspire readers to think beyond societal norms and expectations.
Cercas’ reflections on the dichotomy of popular versus elite literature serve as a reminder that the merit of a work should not be gauged by its commercial success, but rather its capacity to resonate and provoke thought. He advocated for a more inclusive understanding of what constitutes valuable literature, suggesting that timeless classics like those of Cervantes and Shakespeare were once considered popular rather than highly esteemed.
Furthermore, he posited that the role of the reader is integral to the literary experience, asserting that it is not the author but the reader who breathes life into a text. Literature, he argued, thrives on interaction—each reader brings their own interpretation and context, making the experience personal and unique. This perspective emphasizes the collaborative nature of storytelling, where authors and readers engage in a shared journey of discovery.
Cercas’ remarks on the sacredness of the author raise important questions about authorship and its implications in contemporary literature. By downplaying the myth of the solitary genius, he invites a re-evaluation of the writer’s place within the literary canon. This shift in focus encourages a more democratic approach to literature, recognizing the diverse influences and shared narratives that shape our understanding of art and culture.
Through his thought-provoking speech, Cercas not only honored the legacy of literary giants like Cervantes but also issued a call to action for writers and readers alike to embrace the complexities of literature. By confronting misunderstandings and dismantling the barriers between art and the everyday experience, he champions a vision of literature that is alive, relevant, and fundamentally human. His induction into the Royal Spanish Academy marks a significant moment, not just for Cercas, but for ongoing conversations about the role of literature in our lives.