The advocacy for the literature of Juan Gabriel Vasquez | EUROtoday

On Apr 12, 2025

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L‘Colombian author Juan Gabriel Vasquez composed this vibrant advocacy for literature, important to translate and perceive our world, from the conferences it gave in 2022 on the University of Oxford.

The man has all the time been cautious of fiction. At V^e A century already, Plato was nervous in The Republic “spells” and “ventriloquies” of poets which are too skilful “to express themselves in the name of Télémaque, Démodocos, Ulysse or Achilles”.

The accusations of “cultural appropriation” of which the writers are at present the goal thus register within the continuity of centuries of controversies, assaults and censorship, recollects Juan Gabriel Vasquez.

Inspired and erudite reveries

Marguerite Yourcenar had the suitable to undertake the voice of a Roman emperor to write down his Hadrian Memoirs ? André Malraux to slide into the ideas of Chen, a Chinese communist? Ernest Hemingway in these of Santiago, Cuban fisherman? So many masterpieces to which “appropriation” has given beginning …

Following Hannah Arendt’s reflections in Truth and Politicsthe author demonstrates how “adopting the point of view of another is one of the most difficult tasks there is”, how “this requires high doses of imagination and moral flexibility, curiosity and clairvoyance”.

Exploring the place of literature in our societies, this nice reader of Conrad, Proust, Garcia Marquez, Tchekhov, Zadie Smith and lots of others captivates us with these impressed and erudite reveries, which problem what we’d lose humanity to oust the fiction of our lives.

To uncover

The kangaroo of the day

Answer

“The translation of the world”from Juan Gabriel Vasquez. Translated from Spanish (Colombia) by Isabelle Guignon (Seuil, 160 p., € 20.50).

https://www.lepoint.fr/livres/le-plaidoyer-pour-la-litterature-de-juan-gabriel-vasquez-12-04-2025-2587185_37.php