Redaccion
El event will take place at the Biblioteca de Bidebarrieta as the closing of the Bilbao Book Fair, which ended this past Sunday
The Mexican writer, screenwriter, and filmmaker Guillermo Arriaga (Mexico City, 1958) will present «El hombre» (Alfaguara) on Monday at the Biblioteca Bidebarrieta in Bilbao, his new foray into the novel genre where he reconstructs, in a literary tone, the origins of the United States and its capitalist model towards the end of the 19th century.
The event at the Biblioteca de Bidebarrieta, framed as a post-fair closing of the Bilbao Book Fair, will take place at 7:00 PM and admission is free with prior reservation of tickets at www.bilbaokultura.es. Arriaga will chat with journalist Sara Cabrera.
«El hombre» revolves around Henry Lloyd, a man with a «mysterious past» who amasses immense wealth in the mid-19th century leading an army of freed slaves alongside his two mixed-race sons. After leaving his wife’s estate in Alabama, he heads towards the Mexican border, then a conflict zone since Texas’ independence process and annexation to the United States, where he seizes lands, loots, murders, and solidifies his power.
Arriaga constructs Lloyd’s biography through a choral narrative with six different historical voices, each centered around the central character, providing readers with insights into the origins of the United States as a nation and its economic power, built on «brutality, slavery, and ambition underlying great fortunes.»
As reported by Alfaguara, «El hombre» is «a polyphonic and monumental novel that delves into the western genre, containing a story of love and frontier that examines slavery and the origins of family sagas, whose fortunes, built on violence, end up ‘whitewashed’ over time.»
AMERICAN ARCHETYPE
Lloyd is the figure that intertwines all the narrative threads, drawing inspiration from «the chiaroscuro of the American archetype of the self-made man,» where characters provide their interpretations of his persona, seen as «a visionary hero by some, a monster by others, or a common upstart for new generations of ‘good families’ who classify the world through a prism of classism,» as emphasized by the editorial.
According to Alfaguara, «the voices of several protagonists alternate throughout a narrative that, partly told from a subjective third person, zigzags through time, gradually incorporating the loose pieces of a story with blind spots,» where Arriaga «reconstructs the origins of American capitalism and the barbarism it is closely associated with.»
In his new novel, Arriaga weaves interconnected stories in a narrative that pays homage to his literary influences, such as writers William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Shakespeare, Scott Fitzgerald, or Cormac McCarthy.
Arriaga looks back to ponder «how we construct historical memory, and on what truths and omissions the legends that legitimize us are based,» addressing «the foundational stains» of the United States, combining «slavery, the extermination of Native Americans, and the plunder of territories like Mexico.»
The novel touches on themes like the loss of Mexican territory, wars with Apache tribes, racial violence, patriarchy, and impossible loves but, as emphasized by Alfaguara, «it is also a meditation on power, identity, and collective destiny.»
CAREER
In the literary realm, Guillermo Arriaga is the author of novels like «El búfalo de la noche» (1999), adapted for film, «Salvar el fuego» Alfaguara Prize 2020 and his best-selling work to date, «El Salvaje» (2016), and «Extrañas» (2024), among others.
As a film screenwriter, he is behind the trilogy of films he shared with director Alejandro González-Iñárritu, «Amores perros» (2000), «21 grams» (2004), and «Babel» (2006), as well as «The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada» (2005), directed by Tommy Lee Jones. As a director, he helmed «The Burning Plain» (2008).
