me. I can’t take credit for the results—good or bad—of the film
and television versions of my work. The benefit is that they allow
my stories to reach a wider audience, which, in many cases,
doesn’t read. You could say that my stories are being retold by
others. It’s always interesting to see what has been done with
them, regardless of whether the results appeal to me or not.YOU HAVE BEEN VOCAL ABOUT YOUR POLITICAL AND SOCIAL VIEWS
ABOUT CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY, YET YOU HAVE SET MANY OF YOUR
MOST POPULAR BOOKS IN THE PAST. HOW DO THESE TWO ERAS—
TODAY AND HISTORICAL TIMES—INTERACT IN YOUR IMAGINATION?
WHAT LESSONS HAVE YOU LEARNED FROM YOUR READING OF HISTORY,
AND REIMAGINING OF IT, THAT YOU’D LIKE TO PASS ALONG TO THE
NEXT GENERATION?
I don’t hope to pass on anything to the next generation, not least
because a novelist has no moral, ethical, social, or educational
obligations, or whatever you’d like to call them. In this sense [a
novelist] is free to have political and social views, or not. As far as
I’m concerned, my only obligation is to tell good stories in a way
that’s both professional and moving; the reader can draw his own
conclusions. With regard to the past, writing about it is a good
way to better understand the present. As one of my characters
says, “We are what we are because we were what we were.”FINALLY, IS THERE SOMETHING I HAVE NOT ASKED THAT YOU WOULD
LIKE ME TO? IF SO, PLEASE ASK AND ANSWER IT.
On the contrary, I thank you for your questions—especially the
ones you haven’t asked. When all is said and done, the best way to
get to know a novelist is to read his writing, not what he says. ■AS ONE OF THE MOST POPULAR WRITERS IN THE WORLD, WHAT IS
YOUR KEY MESSAGE TO READERS IN THIS AGE OF SOCIAL MEDIA,
THE INTERNET, AND INSTAGRAM?
There is no key message. I’m a professional teller of stories, and
my readers read them. The means by which these stories reach
my readers has changed due to circumstance and over time, but
the stories remain the same. Social networks have the advantage
of putting them into wider circulation, reaching people who
don’t go to bookstores. That’s about it.WITH QUEEN OF THE SOUTH STREAMING
ON TELEVISION IN THE U.S. AND WITH
TWO DIFFERENT ADAPTATIONS, DO
YOU FIND YOUR WORK IS READ
DIFFERENTLY IN TRANSLATION—
BOTH IN ENGLISH AND IN THE
SENSE THAT IT HAS NOW BEEN
“TRANSLATED” INTO FILM?
As a medium, literature is
destined for a specific audience,
while film and television are
destined for another.
[Screen] adaptations are
made by professionals
who know both their
industry and their
audience. It
has nothing
to do withCATCHING UP WITH
AR TURO PÉREZ-REVERTE
BY ED NAWOTKA
Arturo Pérez-Reverte inspires conversation wherever he goes. For the past several months, he has been touring in support of his new novel, Sidi
(Alfaguara), a reimagining of the life and times of El Cid, the 11th-century soldier and one of the most famous figures in the history of Spain.
Pérez-Reverte has said that the novel, which challenges many preconceptions about the man as a hero and conqueror and took him a year and
a half to write, is “the work of a lifetime.” It was published with a first printing of 145,000 copies.
Historical fiction has long been Pérez-Reverte’s milieu, and he was catapulted into worldwide fame with his series about Captain Alatriste, first
released in 1996. His 2002 novel, The Queen of the South, the contemporary story of a Mexican woman who goes on the run to Morocco and
subsequently forges a career as an international drug doyenne based in Spain, demonstrated his ability to capture the headlines—perhaps a
skill he honed after a long career as a journalist, and one he’s never quite given up.
The Queen of the South has had a long afterlife, too, having been adapted into two different television series: one in English for the USA
Network that is now in its fourth season, and another in Spanish for Telemundo, which first debuted in telenovela format in 2011 and had a
second season earlier this year. In September, Univision unveiled El Dragón, another international drug crime telenovela penned by Pérez-
Reverte; this one is set among the drug cartels of Mexico and Yakuza of Japan.
We caught up with the author, who has sold more than 20 million books worldwide, to ask him to reflect on the role of the writer in these
trying times.© carmelo rubio