07: FICTION

Juan Trejo, writer [Spain]

[Translation (subtitles): Marilena de Chiara]

Transcription:

“For sure fiction is not the first word that Sebal’s readers think of as related to his work, which is focused on memory. Yet, to me precisely the issue of memory leads to this concept: fiction. Because Sebald so very clearly – and his works prove this through different ways – that History, in capital letters, is fiction, but also that history, in lower case letters, is fiction; that remembering is fiction, and memory is ultimately fiction. He also understood that, in order to move forward with a project such as his own, precisely based on memory, with possible doubts on legitimacy, the only thing he needed to accept was that a personal history, or a history in general, even perfectly documented, floats on the waters of time, which flood everything, such as any fiction. Once he accepted this premise, Sebald, with his works, taught us to navigate in a new and brilliant way.”