When Rita Indiana is not on a promotional tour, does not play a movie or works on a movie or TV screenplay, she consumes some art and thinks about her next book. If you are asked what you see or read today, you will say that is devoted to horror series and Greek clbadics. But if you were asked while you were building Made in Saturn your new novel, will probably lie between the readings of William Burroughs, Jim Carroll, Virgilio Piñerao Kazuo Ishiguro. What is not clear, is what he would have answered when he was fourteen and that he was selling poems and letters of all styles in his school in the Republic Dominican, although you can guess it. my mother loves it, about a blind boy in the lobby of a hotel, "says Rita . When he was writing it, he already had the habit of reading about three books a week. The first time he published it, he did it in Vetas magazine, the only periodical publication of the literature that existed in the Dominican Republic; There, he wrote poems and stories and began to find his sounds. More than twenty years have pbaded. Today, he is 41 years old.
The literature of Rita Indiana is marked by Ovid, Lovecraft, Philip K. Dick, Richard Wright and Alejo Carpentier ; also by the rhythm of the Dominican words, by the daily life and the past of Santo Domingo, by the migration of its compatriots, by its fixation with the body, the baduality, the magico-religious traditions of the Caribbean, by the music and the mixtures , art and social criticism. Rita Indiana is plural, drinks as many arts and as many concepts as she can, and stories she hears there. "The novel is the space where I feel most comfortable," he says, though he has gone through history, poetry, and music. C is a writer who knew how to paint Latin America, but most of all she is Dominican and does not stay still.
Rita Indiana is plural, drinks as much of the arts and concepts as she can, and stories she hears.
However, it is not through his literature that he has become a public figure in the Dominican Republic. It was for music. In 2011, with her band Rita Indiana and Los Misterios, she released the album El juidero that had an unexpected success for her and that brought her to face celebrity , very strong in his country and – much less – also abroad. His life was turned to social networks and his program was filled with interviews and concerts to play songs that looked like: merengue with a few blues and rock many Latin tropical sounds and lyrics that told stories. Meanwhile, in which she was more singer and composer than writer, she was the Mostra. It was the nickname that the fanatics adopted to refer to Rita and her huge body – the small 1.90 -, slim, androgynous, that does not go unnoticed; a body that she prefers to wear with casual clothes, baggy, tennis – which she used to get used to when she was riding on a skateboard – and big watches. But Rita was tired of the attention her music was giving her and that led her to take up literature as the main project.
Literature and music do not have much difference in it: in both, she can raise her voice And her desire to talk harshly about corruption in her country was born Made in Saturn his new novel, which will be published in Colombia next month (by the Peripheral publisher). This is a story that zoom on a character -Argenis Luna- who appeared for the first time in Omicunlé's Mucama (novel that he published in 2015) and which is now located between the Dominican Republic and Cuba to embody the son of a leftist militant during the dictatorship reduced to silence of Joaquín Balaguer (president in three periods, between 1960 and 1996) Hand in hand with the Dominican Liberation Party, ends up being a politician who represents the status quo Dominican and a piece of corruption.
The novel begins in Cuba, where Argenis happens to be treated for her heroin addiction. This is the first time that this country is the scene of Rita Indiana's work, although it is very close to his interests and affections: "I went to Cuba five times to return visit to friends, "he says. It is a country that I adore and whose recent history obsesses me. It has been the beacon of revolutions, but it has also been a very important cultural lighthouse, the place from where originated Lima Lezama, Lydia Cabrera, Wifredo Lam and Gutiérrez Alea. Avant-garde of thought and art. The other half of the story takes place in the Dominican Republic, home and center of all his work.
But his work has an obvious characteristic that does not exclude any of his novels or his songs: all scenarios that imagine that they can be any Latin Quarter and all the characters may have inhabited any reality on this side of the world Yes, the Dominican Republic is the cradle of its creative processes, but in its fiction it becomes an obvious mirror of any Latin American country. Made in Saturn itself says it, is no stranger to this: "I know a lot of Argenis in Latin America children of former militants who are still looking for their place in the world, crushed by past of his parents or his current performance in international corruption networks. "[1 9659008] Rita Indiana ” src=”data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAIAAAABCAQAAABeK7cBAAAAC0lEQVR42mNkAAIAAAoAAv/lxKUAAAAASUVORK5CYII=” style=” display: inline;” data-original=”/files/article_content/uploads/2018/07/07/5b4100b7796d0.png”/>
"Chochueca & # 39; s strategy" (2000).
His first novel, for which he was linked to referents of the American beat generation.
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& # 39; Papi & # 39; (2011).
It's like a rap that comes out of the throat of an eight-year-old girl
years, waiting for the return of his mafioso father.
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& nbsp; Names & Pets & # 39; (2013).
His most everyday novel.
He talks about badual discovery, the abuse of Haitians, magical stories.
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"The Maid of Omicunle" (2015).
This novel signified the consecration of Rita Indiana.
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& # 39; Made on Saturn & # 39; (2018).
He takes up elements of his earlier work and reviews his own subjects, such as the look at art and criticism of political corruption.
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This is not the first time that the issue of corruption Power has an impact on his literature and last year he broke his musical silence extended precisely for there sing. "I come back, as a troubadour said, to make uncomfortable the one who lives in comfort and comfort the one who lives in discomfort," he wrote on his Twitter account when he shared a new theme with clear shades of denunciation : The Punisher a direct song that speaks of the interior. With a rage that looks like this: "For every weight that they have fallen, the holy sadness of the house will fill them in. The one who takes away the poor is the worst of the cowards." Here, I stand against those who are stuck in this village. "
Another issue that also crosses his story constantly is the weight of what comes from behind. "The effects of our colonial past are everywhere," says Rita, "directly affecting our decisions, our way of life, our feelings, especially towards the other.You must look back to understand certain processes and heal certain wounds. " And in this way, the traces left by the parents, the cities where we live and the cultures we adopt can be so great that they end up defining what we are
C & Is the case of Argenis. The image of Saturn appears like this. In Greek mythology, Saturn and Ops, the goddess of fertility, had six of the twelve gods and goddesses of Olympus. But Saturn, wary of the fact that they were going to steal the throne from his father, Uranus, ate them as they were born. In the novel this story operates as a perfect badogy: the ideologies that are buried to gain some comfort and shame that it means end up poisoning everything that surrounds and annihilates Argenis.
Return, according to a troubadour, to make the person who lives in comfort and to comfort the one who lives in discomfort
The figure of Saturn that was in the head of Rita was that of the god devouring his son, that of the black paintings of Goya, an artist who has interested him: "He calls me attention to his production capacity, his physicality.His pictorial work is very physical and he takes advantage of this One of the ways his work inaugurates modernity is with that self-confidence, with this brutality. "
This particular painting and figure of Saturn appeared when I was writing a chapter of the novel but it's by chance that I've included a picture of Goya. In both Made in Saturn and in The Maid of Omicunle the Spanish artist is a kind of guardian angel of Argenis, a favorite of her and other characters and an excuse to do something in which she believes (and which the protagonist needs): to justify the job of painter.
Before starting to define his daily life with punctures of heroin, Argenis paints and his art is popular in the Dominican Republic In the novel, painting is a symbol of disagreement and contravened l & # 39; established. At the end of the twentieth century, one lost the technical prestige to put on the podium the most conceptual artistic practices but "the painting always returns, like Jason, that of Friday 13 – he says . For me, artistic practices that demand talent, technique and time will never expire. On the contrary, the broadcast on the internet has strengthened painting, urban art, the rescue of the art brut, illustration. All are interrelated phenomena with a new appreciation of painting. "
PLAYLIST, RITA INDIANA AND THE MYSTERIES
There is nothing stealthy in his writing Before devoting himself entirely to writing, Rita Indiana began the career of the Beaux-Arts and the History of Art and its social life in the Dominican Republic is today full of artists, curators and critics. This contact, perhaps Being, is what led her to have in many of her novels small thoughts and dissertations on art, but one must also think of her music as a performance and her books in as pieces of contemporary art. Each of his novels is framed in one concept; each is a piece of something else great. Made in Saturn by example, is raised as the second part of The Maid of Omicunle and it is announced that there is a new novel that completes What unites these books is the critique of power. It is contentious contemporary art and in the struggle.
The Chochueca Strategy (2000), Papi (2011) and Names and Animals (2013) constitute another trilogy, which she Calls "crazy girls", but they are not linked by a character or scenario, but rather by language and by a delirious and sometimes deafening attitude. Papi for example, is a rap that leaves the throat of an eight-year-old girl waiting for her mafioso father to come back as a god. Names and animals are more everyday and more diverse. He talks about the badual discovery on the mistreatment of Haitians, on magical stories. Chochueca's strategy has a more adolescent tone, without neglecting at any point the impulse to represent a furious city; It's a refreshing novel that has been linked to the North American Beat generation's referents. Everyone has a different color and sound, but they are collected by female voices always built with Dominican, Cuban, Puerto Rican street language, with consonant sounds of the Caribbean, with brought English a little and merges for a unique harmony.
These trilogies, although they have points of contact, do not stay in the same territory. His literature can evolve between the spectrum of science fiction and magical realism. He can speak like his mutant, warm and popular music, while presenting a complete X-ray of subjects such as the Latin diaspora and the loneliness of the migrant. His background is always social, but he uses aesthetics and all his supports and possible readings. It's his art. Each of his universes is activist and schizophrenic, but he never repeats himself. Each of Rita's novels looks different.
