Nicolás Yerovi: "Celebramos la sobrevivencia" Entrevista21

How are you, friends of Peru 21? I'm Pablo

Bill, and today I have the great honor of

being with someone legendary, an

artist, a writer, the director

of Monos y Monadas, the legendary magazine.

And to begin, I'd like to read a short

text in his own handwriting, where

he describes himself with more audacity than

I'm

talking about. Don't forget that if you

're ever anxious, moody, melancholic, or

furious, you

have nothing to worry about. Call me. That

's a job for Supermono. We're

here with Supermono, the great Nicolás.

Ready? How are you, Nicolás?

Happily, I'm

still here and very comfortable. Very well,

thank you very much. How have you found this

book fair? How has it been to

return to a fair, to get a little lost, to

stop, to be interrupted along the

way? Well, the first thing that strikes me

is the turnout, which is

huge because I never imagined there were so

many people who knew how to

read in

Peru, and even less so that they had the money

to buy a

book. Let's say in Peru,

reading, culture in general, is

a noble, almost heroic, endeavor,

and one that yields very little fruit. Looking

at our

leaders, none of them can

spell their own names correctly,

and it seems they're the

most

enthusiastic about us not

letting go of our ignorance.

In

reality, all the generations I've seen come and go have been the

result of

our

authorities' efforts to make us increasingly

illiterate, increasingly ignorant, not so we can't understand

anything. A

silent flock, a

victorious ruler—that's been a

constant. Let's talk about monkeys and

monkey business. This book

you're presenting at this

fair

has a peculiar subtitle: "The

Enduring Smile." What does this

book mean to

you? It

represents the synthesis of

almost four generations of writers and

erobi (a type of Spanish humor) in your family. And the

synthesis of the essence of that legacy:

the smile, the irony, the

intelligent wit, the desire to celebrate

life and not stop messing around at the same

time. How did the idea of

compiling this come about? Because I imagine it only

includes a few pages, but the

pages that were left out are in the

thousands. Well, yes, I'm already preparing the

next volume. This book has just

finished appearing,

and to this day I'm

delighted to see how, in a

natural, unforeseen, and unplanned way, I've gradually

created almost a literary genre.

Because it's not a novel, it's not a

short story, of course, it's not a collection of

poems. No, it's not a play; it's

actually a symbiosis of

Peruvian history, the history of a

unique lineage of writers that already

boasts four ancestors, from great-

grandfather to great-

grandson, and now great-great-grandchildren whose lineage we don't

know about. Let's hope there's an

astronaut or a physicist

in the lineage, but anyway, it's the

history of Peru, as I say, and the wealth

of curious stories that can

constitute the repository of

anecdotes from four generations of

public figures,

literature, and

journalism, who have been linked to

public figures dedicated to power, and

who have been

bothered by it. Yes, they've never admitted it, except

from time to time with a few

legal bombshells, persecutions, and

raids. And Don Nicolás, have you ever

stopped to think or reflect? It's

not common for four generations,

starting with your grandfather

Leonidas, to dedicate themselves precisely to

literature, to letters, to

humor, to incisive humor. Why do you think

this happened? How did it happen? It was

word of mouth, telling stories, seeing a little of what

their predecessors did. Well, I

think

that extremely

sensitive spirits, like

artistic spirits, who are very vulnerable and

defenseless against the blows of

fate, which in Peru tend to be

many, tend to

create a kind of protective shield

to avoid these aggressions and hostilities

of life.

So they found—

starting with my grandfather, who

founded the "Monos y Monadas" (Monkeys and Monkeys) group in 1905, 23 years ago—

they found in sarcasm, in

intelligent wit, in grace, and in

ingenuity a way

to avoid

bitterness, and this seems to have become

something

genetic because my father

inherited it, as did his sisters. I have

known one, unfortunately, only

one of my father's sisters, my aunt

Janette, who for 20

years went daily to the

national library to copy from the

newspapers all the verses that

her father had left. Aha, well, these

stories that they

told me have

allowed me to compose

this book. And as I say, my father

continued that tradition, and when

my father passed away, I, who was a poet

dedicated to writing verses to woo

girls—that was my whole purpose in

life—when my father left, I decided to continue

the work he was leaving unfinished

with his departure in

1975. After having taken it from

print media to

radio, radio waves were the quintessential medium of

communication, the

internet of the 40s and 50s, right? So

he took it to radio, and I brought it

back to the world of

print journalism because during

that particular military dictatorship, the government had

taken over all the

radio and

television stations. The

military allowed the reappearance of

old magazines, ladies and gentlemen, and

well, it only took me four years to get

the

license

[Laughter]. I got it,

and with the second edition, they

shut us down again.

It's Peru, speaking of

Peru, Don Nicolás, you describe it as

an adventure sport;

elsewhere you also say it's a

perfectly organized chaos.

What is Peru like? What other description can you give me

of the

country?

Well How to

explain it? Some countries have

rulers, we have

thieves, for God's sake, Menem! You, a country

that has managed to put

two dictators like Fujimori and Pedro

Castillo, who staged their coup, and

a former president extradited to

the United States for

theft in the same prison, all in the same jail! Just one country! So,

those are things that attract

tourism. We have to see the

positive side, exactly. And what memories do

you have of national holidays? There are things

to celebrate on national holidays, of course, the

survival of the country. We still

exist. If you'll allow me to read a

fragment, an open letter that

your

grandfather wrote in 1908. I'm going to read

a part of it, the one he dedicates

to San Martín, to Don José San

Martín, the liberator, and in one part he says,

or if you'd like, could you help me

read it? Of course, with pleasure.

Perhaps this part that has caught my attention the most

is the third and fourth

stanzas, and from that distant date, it is

right that I praise, and that it is

American glory. Oh, Don José, you don't know what

the Peruvian land is.

From the first years we lived

here...

Deceptions since our independence, the

most audacious, not the

capable one, but because of his

audacity, he sat in the presidency and

stole all our

peace. Well, this was written in

1908; it could be written at this very

moment

and no one would notice the difference. It hasn't

lost its

relevance, that's surprising, it's impressive, is

n't it? And how has humor helped us

survive? As you yourself

mention, giving us life. Without a sense

of humor, one dies here throwing oneself

headfirst off the cliff of the Costa

Verde. If we don't laugh at what happens to us,

we are lost. Here, the

only ones who would make a lot of money would be

the psychiatrists and the

funeral home. And what politician? Well, in

all these years that you have

been in the "monkeys and coins" camp, if you

had to mention one or two

politicians who caught your attention

for something in particular, or something

you found laughable, perhaps,

which ones would they be? I would say of

the

recent ones, Valentín Paragu and Francisco

Sagasti.

That is very clear to me, and the reason is

simple: neither of them was elected

in

general elections, neither of them governed for more

than 7 years. Months and neither of them stole the

problem. It's us, it's not, and

also the electoral law, the

Organic Law of Elections that we have, which is

a

disaster. Here, any crook, any scoundrel, any criminal with a record,

comes to wield power,

from

mayors to councilors, no, even

presidents of the

Republic. We have become

specialists in being governed by

the worst of us all,

and once some

politician, perhaps some

ruler, pushed his patience to the limit,

all of them, but to the point of no longer being

funny. Well, what happens is

that I have an essential, intimate practice of

not

keeping those attacks of fury to myself, not in

the deepest recesses of my soul, because if I let myself be

carried away by them,

my mother would say to me, "Son, what's the point? What's the point of

that bad mood?"

So I dedicate myself to taking a

blank sheet of paper and a pen and writing some

verses that allow me and the

public to have a good time when everything indicates

that one should be having a bad time. So, those

expressions of

anger

against the powerful who become

tyrannical, tyrannical and abusive beings, I

leave to the multitudes who at some

point They will reappear and take to the

streets; there is no kind of lethargy.

You believe that in the country, without a doubt, there is, in

my

opinion, a weariness

with this seemingly

endless series of mistakes we have

made. But

why do people choose

badly? And there is a fundamental misunderstanding here.

One chooses among those on the

ballot to be elected, but if they

are all a bunch of ex-personalities, let's

say one is left with no

alternative. Why aren't

the requirements to govern the destiny

of more than 30 million people

more

demanding?

Why have we had to face alternatives on the

ballot

that are simply

pathetic, and

worse times are coming. It

seems we will have,

if not

50, then one candidate for every

million.

Actually, there is a

play that I don't know why no theater

wants to present. I have

written a comedy; I am a

comedy author. I don't know why

no

theater that depends on the state will

present it; they are all occupied or

committed. It is a very funny play

called "The Madam

President." Don't suspect. You, because I don't

understand that there must be a lot of

theatrical activity. So there's no theater available, let's

say, Don Nicol, what would be the

main requirement you would set

for a candidate to run? That they be

someone who has done

something for their country, for

Peru, so that when you review their life and work, you

find a person, not a

buffoon. It's a

seemingly simple requirement, but very

difficult. Well, the way things are going, extremely

difficult, right? Imagine 50

presidential candidates, where has that ever been seen? And

that Organic Law of Elections is leading us to

have the

world record of seven presidents

sworn in in six

years. I say yes, because people tend to

forget about poor Mechita,

Ota, and more than 100 ministers, 142 ministers

in 18 months. They haven't even finished

settling into their seats and they're already

fired. Doesn't that have anything

rational, logical, or

intelligent about it? And

Peru, then, is a country to

laugh or to cry, both

without a doubt. But well, it's

time to act and cry less, right?

And to laugh, we've never stopped laughing.

Because if we hadn't laughed, we wouldn't be here; we would have

already

dissolved into thin air,

transformed into a bundle of fury and

impotence. And Nicolás, to conclude,

the work is also an archive

of Peruvian humor, above all. I think there will

surely be more chapters to

write, and I wanted to mention... I was struck by

a part of a

photograph where you mention, I think it's

also titled... where you

mention the legacy and how, let's say,

Isabel and Salvador could also

continue. There is hope that they will continue. On

what platforms do you also

imagine and rehearse? On what platform will they be?

Well, unimaginable will those

platforms be? And when I started

writing and publishing my first works,

the Linotype existed, the

Linotype with its

molten lead ingots. No, there wasn't even an

electric typewriter, no, a computer was

unimaginable. Radio was newly

created, television came later.

This TikTok thing that

my daughter

Paloma makes me record is something for me, this

Martian, not to mention Instagram and

all these things. In

what dimension of communication will

the members of the fifth

generation find themselves? The Bueno family is already

a crazy thing, admit it,

but

my niece Olivia's eldest son, daughter of Olivia

Yerovi, daughter of my brother Luis

Fernán

Ignacio, just won the

short story prize in

Spain and is already being considered at 17

years old. Why not a nuclear physicist in the

family? What's up with such a

handsome astronaut with his helmet and all that?

So, if Paloma's children

turn out to be

artists, I couldn't say that it would

surprise me.

The platforms won't change, the Jerob

will continue, and the politicians will keep

doing the same things. Let's hope not. Let's

hope not.

The moment has to come when

the garbage truck comes and takes it

all away. Thank you very much, Don Nicolás, you have

been very, very kind.

[Music]