Q: What served as the inspiration for this story?
A: One event that served as an inspiration was a visit, many years ago, by my Cuban aunt to my mother in Miami. It was supposed to be a six-month honeymoon reunion for the two of them but it ended after only a month with much acrimony on both sides. I didn't witness the reunion, but for years afterward I heard each sister complaining about the other. That got me thinking about what happens to siblings and family when they've been apart for a long time and how they go about reconciling what divided them in the past and in the present. I also became interested in Cuba's natural history. Studying it became another way to explore loss, extinction, and the nature of memory.
Q: How would you describe the themes of your latest novel?
A: It is a story that explores how family myth evolves and how history is made. This is a subject that has always fascinated me--particularly when it comes to Cuba--because there are always so many different versions of the truth. In The Agüero Sisters, I tried to develop a narrative where there were many conflicting realities that had to be reconciled. I wanted to see what survived from this while also considering the ongoing dialogue between memory and loss. This story also gave me an opportunity to explore the extent to which the past continues to inhabit the present and how we transform the past to accommodate it with our current sense of self. How do we live with the past? How do we tailor it so we can go about living our daily lives?
Q: You were born in Havana but moved with your family to New York when you were two. Do you have any memories that survive from those early years in Cuba?
A: None whatsoever.
Q: You first began traveling to Cuba when you were in your mid-twenties. How did that change you?
A: Going back to Cuba was instrumental in the resurgence of my own Cuban identity, which really didn't take hold until I began writing fiction. There's something in the excavation process that one goes through in creating a book that allowed me to reach areas that I didn't even know existed within myself. The Cuban aspect of my identity has, to my surprise, become my wellspring. It is now an indelible, strong, and very visceral part of my identity.
Q: The theme of mystical religion--in this case santeria--plays a large part in this novel. Has it played a large part in your own life as well?
A: It didn't when I was growing up, but in recent years--particularly during my trips to Cuba--it is something I have explored. I happen to have a cousin in Cuba who is a santera. Through her I've had the privilege of access to santeria ceremonies and to an intimate discussion about the daily living of that religion. Santeria was publicly disdained for a long time in Cuba and dismissed as a form of African mysticism. It is, in fact, a very powerful force in the daily lives of millions of Cubans.
Q: Many reviewers have described you as a "magical realist." How would you define magical realism?
A: To be a magical realist, from my point of view, is to use reality as a departure point for the imagination. It means having a lack of imaginative inhibition and taking reality to its furthest possible extreme--and then some. In many ways it's harder to do than realism. You have to be that much more specific if you're going to have your readers suspend their disbelief. The specificity, texture, and detail that you need in order to pull it off is much more demanding than that needed for a book that merely records daily events.
Q: Do you consider yourself a magical realist?
A: There are definitely surrealistic elements in my books, and I'm definitely influenced by magical realism as it exists in contemporary Latin America fiction and elsewhere. My first encounter with magical realism, however, was with Kafka's Metamorphosis. There are stories with magical and mystical events from many cultures and traditions. And although all traditions contain some elements of mysticism, I find those of South America to be particularly baroque and lush.
Q: In exploring the reasons Ignacio Agüero murdered his wife, one reviewer has written, "Blanca betrays her husband...but he is so much under her spell that only by killing her can he break free." Do you agree with this interpretation?
A: I won't dispute that interpretation any more than I would dispute fourteen other interpretations that I've read. I wanted to leave readers to draw their own conclusions when it came to deciding why Ignacio murdered his wife. I'm not really sure myself as to what ultimately pushed him to pull the trigger. It was a confluence of many events at that precise moment that made the murder inevitable. If the moment had come five minutes later, maybe he wouldn't have pulled the trigger.
Q: Various chapters of this novel are written from various perspectives. Was it difficult moving from one "voice" to the next?
A: I like using different voices to tell a story because I find it creates a varying texture for the narration that you don't get if you use a monolithic omniscient voice. A multiplicity of voices is also a more effective way to surround what I'm trying to get at in my stories.
Q: Does the sisters' eventual reconciliation, and the unraveling of the mystery surrounding their mother's death, imply the possibility of a national reconciliation?
A: That wasn't my intention but I certainly see how one could interpret it that way. I personally would love a national reconciliation, but that wasn't the aim of this book.
Q: There was a lot of media attention paid to the Pope's visit to Cuba in 1998. What are your impressions of that visit and what do you think it accomplished?
A: I think the Pope highlighted the societal downside of the revolution and what the revolution has done to families and to people's priorities in Cuba. When I visited Cuba, I was dismayed at the utilitarian nature of many relationships. It's almost as if leaps of faith, true romance, even basic optimism, are in short supply there. Cuba can be a rigid, closed off country. That's been changing a lot because of tourism. But the kind of access or exposure provided by tourism is not necessarily the best thing for a developing society. I hope the Pope's visit will create a bridge that will ultimately reconnect Cuba to the rest of the world.
Q: Your debut novel received much critical attention including a National Book Award nomination. One reviewer recently characterized you as "a new star in the American literary firmament." What sort of pressure comes with that kind of success?
A: I never realized how successful my first book was. I was pregnant when Dreaming in Cuban was published and gave birth six months after it first hit the bookstores. As a result, I was rather preoccupied. It wasn't until The Agüero Sisters came out that I did a real book tour, met a number of my readers, and began to fathom the impact of my work. Having said that, however, I must admit that I did feel quite a bit of pressure to follow up with a strong second novel. My efforts in that direction became a struggle. In fact, The Agüero Sisters is my third book. I worked for two years on another novel that I eventually decided to shelve.
Q: How does the writing process work for you?
A: I work in a small office outside my home that has no telephone or means of communication with the outside world. Ideally I try to put in six hours of writing per day but I rarely accomplish that. Usually I end up getting four or five hours of writing time per day. The key, for me, is that I make my time and space inviolate. I allow no visitors and no one knows where I am. It's only when I know I won't be disturbed for several hours on end that things begin to coalesce. At home I get too distracted. There are too many interruptions. I need that inviolate time and space to work.
Q: Do you ever suffer from writer's block?
A: I did with that moribund second novel. At one point, I was stuck for months. That's because the book wasn't viable. I knew it, but it took me a long time to admit it. Dreaming in Cuban had been percolating inside me since the early 1980s. I gave it all I had. But I didn't realize how depleted I was after it was finished--a depletion that was compounded by having a child. When I began The Agüero Sisters, after taking time off and struggling with the second novel, I feared that Dreaming in Cuban was the only book I had in me. So I decided to write The Agüero Sisters as a book for myself. I let it develop organically. I didn't invest it with all the anxiety and pressure that I had felt while working on the follow-up to my debut novel. As a result, the writing became pleasurable once more and created its own momentum.
Q: What advice do you offer for the young writer who is just starting out?
A: You need to carve out, and protect, uninterrupted time for yourself on a daily basis. Getting in the habit of taking time seriously is important because time is the ultimate factory for these novels. They don't get written without it. And you have to be comfortable with solitude because novel writing is not a collaborative process. Party animals need not apply when it comes to being a novelist.
© Copyright 2009 by Christina García. Reprinted with permission by One World. All rights reserved.
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