This book delves into a myth of origin: the neighborhood. Through an exercise of memory and reconciliation, the author goes through different stories that happen in those open places, transit and meeting points, which are the streets, squares, parks, where community is made.
In this making of Sergio Galarza explain how he wrote Moscardó neighborhood (Candaya).
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One of the biggest topics in writing is literary block. It has happened to most of the writers I know, and in my case it has delayed the writing of a book, but it has never turned into a tragedy. At this point I consider tragedies to be other things, like having to fight against hundreds of travelers first thing in the morning, on the way to work, to change platforms because of a broken down train. In any case there is a thicker manual than 2666 but the size of a fist and written by Jason Rekulak, which is titled The Writer’s Block. It is a compendium of ideas to stimulate creation. It’s a lot of fun and I can confirm that it works. It has helped me find my own way of unlocking. Although it didn’t help me write Moscardó neighborhoodwhich was originally titled Dear neighborhoodbecause this is a book postponed rather than blocked.
I started writing it in 2019 with the intention of recovering the most memorable characters from Los Sauces, my original neighborhood in Lima, Peru. I wanted to tell a landscape that is becoming extinct faster and faster in major cities, where tourism annihilates the family in favor of the business of a few with more power than the majority, or where crime and parental terror prevent children from growing up with the freedom of other generations that were owners of their streets. And as support for that landscape I sought to shore up the definition of the neighborhood that I had known: a construction of neighborhood ties that grew with the complicity of the corners, the little stores and the soccer fields, structured by its own language that stretched the meanings like a piece of gum that never lost its flavor. There was room for solidarity and joy, but also hatred and discrimination. The relationships I established with my neighbors as I entered adolescence were marked by the opposition fueled by my parents’ prejudices.. It seemed that almost all of them represented everything I had been told I should not be: lazy, vicious, good for nothing, misio (poor), without higher education. But in that rejection there was a very big omission: only a few of those neighbors had enjoyed the same opportunities that my family, except for the grandmother, had had. And the truth was that thanks to my coexistence with children of all kinds, an idea of society closer to reality had formed in my head than the one defended by my classmates at the private school I attended.: for them the poor had not done their job well (they still believe it).
“I had never worked at night and this forced me to reorganize custody of my children. The only literature that existed for me were railway terms“
I was trying to confront my class complexes and clarify the landscape of my neighborhood more when I separated from the mother of my children and had to abandon writing to concentrate on studying for an opposition, my only financial salvation. I’m not lying if I say I forgot about the file Dear neighborhood. I stopped reading any text that was not a law or the regulations that have governed my six days of work for a few years.. I passed the Public Employment Offer and had to follow a three-month training, at the end of which I had to pass another exam or they would throw me out on the street. Meanwhile, I dedicated myself to refurbishing the apartment that I had bought thanks to the contract with the public company that could kick me out. I wrote summaries on index cards that I had once used to make a map of my novels and story books. My new characters were Traffic Managers and Work Managers and their dramas were, among others, understanding a Lock Book (great coincidence). I passed that new exam and then had an internship at a Freight Station before arriving at my provisional position, a CRC (Circulation Regulation Center). There I had to obtain a license that would allow me to perform the functions of Traffic Manager. It wasn’t easy. I had never worked at night and this forced me to reorganize custody of my children. The only literature that existed for me was railroad terms.
“Although my role as a father fulfilled me, the loss of my other facet made me angry, because one believes that one can handle one’s life and more and at the end of the day the only energy left is barely enough to get into bed.“
And it was not until I reached my final position, another CRC in Madrid, that I opened that file again. I wouldn’t have done it if it weren’t for the constant questions from some acquaintances: “What are you writing now?” I responded that nothing, to which they replied that I should take advantage of my position as a civil servant (they are wrong, I am a labor employee), because I would surely have plenty of time. At his insistence I accepted the abandonment of Dear neighborhoodlike someone who recognizes a bastard son. And as the weeks passed I understood that his writing was a debt to my children. With other people too, but especially with them. When they were little and more demanding due to their dependence, I felt like they were stealing my time as a writer. There were no longer moments to type and the little he read was his children’s stories. Although my role as a father fulfilled me, the loss of my other facet made me angry, because one believes that one can handle one’s life and more and at the end of the day the only energy left is barely enough to get into bed. Then I worked in a bookstore and receiving so much news was overwhelming.
And if in this transition of states things went well even though my prognosis was a personal derailment, it was because my children helped me resist. Dear neighborhood became Moscardó neighborhooda reconciliation with the landscape of my adolescence and the discovery of a place very similar to Los Sauces here in Madrid. It also tells the processes of declassification that I have experienced since I moved to Madrid, it is a testimonial essay, and I think it could be the experience of many others, in this unequal fight for a space that can be called home. It is the book that has cost me the most to finish and the one that has given me back my role as a writer. Now I’m taking notes for the next one. Sometimes I get blocked if I can’t view another chapter. So, I say to myself, paraphrasing a fellow railroad worker when he sees a stopped train: “That book, let it move forward.”
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Author: Sergio Galarza. Title: Moscardó neighborhood. Editorial: Canada. Sale: All your books.