Daniel Tur­tel spoke with acclaimed author Eduar­do Hal­fon about his new nov­el, Taran­tu­la, a haunt­ing exam­i­na­tion of mem­o­ry, the Holo­caust, and lega­cies passed down. The book strad­dles coun­tries and decades, with for­ma­tive expe­ri­ences in a 1980s Jew­ish sum­mer camp in Guatemala that pro­pel the sto­ry forward. 

Daniel Tur­tel: I think it’s impor­tant for read­ers who may not be famil­iar with your work to under­stand the dis­tinc­tion between Eduar­do Hal­fon the writer and Eduar­do Hal­fon the char­ac­ter. Like your oth­er work, Taran­tu­la is fic­tion. Has Eduar­do Hal­fon the char­ac­ter tak­en on a life of his own, and are there any dif­fer­ences between the two?

Eduar­do Hal­fon: Yes, there are stark dif­fer­ences between the two. Eduar­do the char­ac­ter was born in The Pol­ish Box­er. That’s 2008 for the Span­ish edi­tion of the book. He just arrived there when I start­ed writ­ing those sto­ries — with his own voice, which is not mine. With his own tem­pera­ment, which is also not mine. As you know, he smokes a lot, and I do not. He trav­els — he trav­els bet­ter than I do. He says things that I would not have the courage to say, per­haps. And he’s also open­ly lost. He doesn’t know. He doubts. I tend to be much more ratio­nal than that. Very engi­neer-like. He has tak­en on a life of his own. And I just follow.

DT: A reporter pos­es the ques­tion: what are the books you’ve nev­er read that have had the great­est influ­ence on you as a writer? This seems to under­score the ten­sion at Taran­tu­la​’s heart — between what can be inher­it­ed, and what must be per­son­al­ly expe­ri­enced. Is that a ques­tion you’ve been asked? Would Eduar­do Hal­fon the writer have the same answer as Eduar­do Hal­fon the character?

EH: This is a great ques­tion because it does go to the heart of the mat­ter. What can be inher­it­ed and what must be per­son­al­ly expe­ri­enced? I’ve wres­tled with this because what you’re real­ly ask­ing is what makes up our iden­ti­ty. Do we inher­it who we are — the fam­i­ly we’re born into, the coun­try we’re born in? Is that all already in the mod­el? Or do we acquire parts of our iden­ti­ty — the lan­guages we learn, the places we live in, the things we do or don’t do? My learn­ing Eng­lish and mov­ing to the US must have affect­ed who I am. My becom­ing a father nine years ago undoubt­ed­ly affect­ed who I am. So I believe it’s both. I believe there are things that we inher­it from our grand­par­ents and great grand­par­ents, but I also believe there are traits or pieces of iden­ti­ty that are acquired along the way. In the begin­ning of my nov­el Can­ción (2021), that oth­er Eduar­do Hal­fon is invit­ed as a Lebanese writer to Tokyo, and he goes. He puts on his cos­tume, his Lebanese dis­guise, and he arrives — as he says — dressed as an Arab. He is play­ing the part that he inher­it­ed from his Lebanese grand­fa­ther. So the ques­tion with­in the ques­tion is this — if we play the part long enough, do we become it? If I pre­tend to be some­thing, if I role play some­thing long enough, does that become part of who I am, part of my identity?

DT: Speak­ing of things that need to be expe­ri­enced — that sum­mer camp. Of all the shock­ing things about it, I was par­tic­u­lar­ly struck by the notion that par­ents actu­al­ly send their chil­dren there. We can prob­a­bly assume (because we learn that a law­suit was filed) that what hap­pened was not explic­it­ly on the brochure. And yet, we don’t know what was on the brochure, and this point remains open because we nev­er see Eduar­do con­front his par­ents about send­ing him there. What did they think was going to happen?

EH: This type of camp is called a Machane or Machon in Hebrew. They were very pop­u­lar through­out Latin Amer­i­ca, and I have been to sev­er­al. They’re like the boy scouts — earn­ing how to build a fire, walk­ing in the woods, and play­ing with your friends. They’re fun when you’re young. And the ones I had been to before this one — because the one in the nov­el is based on a per­son­al expe­ri­ence — had all been fun. But this one turned dark. This one is an extreme exam­ple of one approach to teach­ing chil­dren. And so, no, that wasn’t in any of the brochures. My par­ents were scan­dal­ized. Nei­ther of them knew that was going to hap­pen. And what’s inter­est­ing now is how many emails I have got­ten since pub­lish­ing the book almost two years ago in Span­ish, French, Hebrew, amongst oth­er lan­guages, of peo­ple who went through the same expe­ri­ence as Jew­ish chil­dren grow­ing up in the 1980s. So this seemed to be a rel­a­tive­ly com­mon prac­tice back then: that is, a recre­ation and a reen­act­ment of a con­cen­tra­tion camp as a teach­ing device. Using the­ater to teach chil­dren. You have re-enact­ments all the time of the Civ­il War, for exam­ple. In this case, the reen­act­ment was tak­en very seri­ous­ly and we were forced to participate.

DT: The char­ac­ter of Samuel plays the role of know­ing vil­lain in this sim­u­la­tion, but shows no remorse when con­front­ed about his actions. He presents the case for the camp’s neces­si­ty clear­ly and com­pelling­ly, argu­ing for the ethics of sim­u­lat­ing hor­ror. While the adult Eduar­do char­ac­ter does not hide his dis­gust, he stops short of express­ing that Sam is flat-out wrong. Can you talk about the deci­sion not to refute that posi­tion, and the val­ue of pos­ing ques­tions with­out answer­ing them?

EH: For me, it was very impor­tant, when writ­ing the book, to give Samuel Blum the oppor­tu­ni­ty to explain him­self. Why did he do this? And I think he does, as you say, make a com­pelling case. You can, in the­o­ry, under­stand how using reen­act­ment or the­ater as a didac­tic exer­cise can be effec­tive. I remem­ber when I arrived in the US, in the ear­ly 1980s, I had a teacher in mid­dle school who had us mem­o­rize the tes­ti­mo­ni­als of slaves and then act them out. It’s using the­ater, using reen­act­ment, to under­stand the part you’re play­ing. And in the book, I’m very care­ful to be objec­tive. I’m let­ting him speak. I’m putting the micro­phone in front of him and let­ting him explain him­self. But you can sense what that nar­ra­tor is feel­ing with­out him hav­ing to say it. And that was impor­tant. That it was not a con­dem­na­tion. There are more ques­tions at the end than answers, I believe, because that’s the way lit­er­a­ture works. I am not here to tell you what I think or what I believe, but to present the sto­ry for you to make up your own mind and for you to answer those ques­tions for your­self. Is he right? Is he wrong in doing this? That is not for me to say.

DH: Samuel rejects Eduardo’s mem­o­ry of a Nazi flag being hoist­ed, and giv­en how hon­est he is about the oth­er aspects of the camp, we don’t have real rea­son to dis­trust him. The impli­ca­tion is that Eduardo’s mem­o­ry — no mat­ter how salient to him — may also be up for inspec­tion. It struck me as a read­er that this is both a very impor­tant, but also a com­plete­ly avoid­able point (it occu­pies about one para­graph). Can you talk a bit about how this ties into a nov­el which is very much about the inher­i­tance of victimhood.

EH: I’ve always been fas­ci­nat­ed with the almost con­tra­dic­to­ry aspect of mem­o­ry. Of mem­o­ry as some­thing vital, some­thing we need, some­thing we cher­ish and pro­tect, but also — at the same time — incred­i­bly fal­li­ble. It’s untrust­wor­thy. And that is what’s hap­pen­ing here. Not only with Eduardo’s mem­o­ry, with Eduardo’s father’s mem­o­ry — with that sign in front of the golf course. Both of these exam­ples — and there are oth­ers, not only in Taran­tu­la, but in my oth­er books — speak to the unsci­en­tif­ic aspect of mem­o­ry. It is some­thing that we cre­ate, that we change and edit and manip­u­late. Anoth­er exam­ple: when I was writ­ing, I con­tact­ed many of the kids who went through this expe­ri­ence with me, and each of their respons­es was rad­i­cal­ly dif­fer­ent. Every­one remem­bered the same event dif­fer­ent­ly. One of them answered, ​’What are you talk­ing about? That nev­er hap­pened.’ And my only answer, my only pos­si­ble expla­na­tion to that, is that he blocked it out. I also spoke to my broth­er, who remem­bered things dif­fer­ent­ly. He remem­bered things that I had for­got­ten. So mem­o­ry is won­der­ful for fiction.

DH: Samuel’s hon­esty points to the idea that a lot of wrong is done with the best of inten­tions, and that per­haps we ought to fear zealotry more than pure evil. In par­tic­u­lar, this nov­el is set in two places — Guatemala and Berlin — which have his­tor­i­cal­ly expe­ri­enced great evil in the name of the greater good. Eduardo’s answer in Guatemala is to run, and in Berlin it is to remain rel­a­tive­ly silent while Sam makes his case. Is Eduardo’s resis­tance to fight­ing back a recog­ni­tion of his own uncer­tain­ty as to whether or not he is right, or is it more of a deci­sion to avoid reac­tive zealotry?

ED: I think my reac­tion to these evils that I inher­it­ed — the Guatemalan geno­cide of the indige­nous Mayan peo­ple, and the Holo­caust — is to write about them. And my char­ac­ter of Eduar­do reacts the same. In my writ­ing, in my desire to get clos­er to what hap­pened, I keep return­ing to the Guatemala of the 1970s and 1980s. And the same goes for Berlin. Per­haps that’s why I’m still here. We live in Wannsee — a red flag for all Jews — about a kilo­me­ter or two from where the famous Nazi con­fer­ence took place. Which means I live on the out­skirts of Berlin. I’m not real­ly in Berlin, but Berlin is in me, in a way. My grand­fa­ther spent the most time in con­cen­tra­tion camps right here, in Sach­sen­hausen, just out­side of Berlin. I’m almost return­ing to the place where he was impris­oned through my writing.

DH: In Eduardo’s present-day con­ver­sa­tion with Regi­na, the girl he met at the sum­mer camp, we learn that one thing that Eduar­do does expe­ri­ence is the more sub­tle anti­semitism of being renamed ​“Israel” by his Ger­man Guatemalan class­mates, while the Jew­ish girls were called ​“Sara” —a rein­car­na­tion of 1938’s Law on the Alter­ation of Fam­i­ly and Per­son­al Names. ​“An entire peo­ple reduced to two names,” as you so apt­ly write in the nov­el. Can you talk about the dif­fer­ences in reduc­ing one­self to two books and an oppres­sor reduc­ing you to two names? It’s an inter­est­ing parallel.

EH: I had nev­er noticed that — two names and two books. It was not a con­scious thing — most things when writ­ing are not — but there is def­i­nite­ly an inter­est­ing par­al­lel there. The Ger­mans reduced the Jews with this 1938 law to two names, which is basi­cal­ly a way of remov­ing cer­tain parts of their iden­ti­ty. It’s a dif­fer­ent way to num­ber them, to remove the human­i­ty from the Jews. In my case, it’s just a metaphor, these two books that I haven’t read but that have influ­enced me the most. I guess it’s also a way of mak­ing it sim­pler to under­stand. There are these two big pil­lars upon which I am built. The Jew­ish pil­lar and the Guatemalan one, rep­re­sent­ed in this case by the Torah and the Popol Vuh. Which is an overex­ag­ger­a­tion, a hyper­bole, per­haps, but it makes the image very clear.

DH: You’ve been com­pared to Rober­to Bolaño, and the com­par­i­son is clear. One big dif­fer­ence — in Taran­tu­la, at least — is that the vio­lence here is play-vio­lence, even if it doesn’t feel like it to the chil­dren. For a nov­el that cov­ers what Taran­tu­la cov­ers, it is sur­pris­ing­ly qui­et, and a lot of work is done off the page. Even Regina’s hor­ri­fy­ing back­sto­ry — as told by her — avoids the actu­al moment that her head is shaved, pre­fer­ring the per­spec­tive of her moth­er. Can you talk about the advan­tages and dis­ad­van­tages to this more sub­tle form of violence?

EH: This is the way Guatemalans live. We live with the promise of vio­lence, with the fear of vio­lence, all the time. You’re about to be kid­napped, you’re about to be shot, you’re about to be held up at gun­point. It’s ever­p­re­sent in dai­ly life. Usu­al­ly, if you’re lucky, it nev­er arrives. But you’re just as immersed in this mesh of vio­lence, which is almost worse. The fear of vio­lence is almost worse than the vio­lence itself. And I tend to repli­cate this in all of my books — the vio­lence, although always present, nev­er arrives. There is a sus­pense gen­er­at­ed by the fear of vio­lence, which makes it stronger for the read­er. The ten­sion that is gen­er­at­ed by not stat­ing it. By not show­ing it. Just hint­ing at or allud­ing to a vio­lent out­come makes it much more violent.

DH: Final­ly, it’d be hard not to notice that the hatreds which dom­i­nate this book are more notice­able today than they were even a few years ago. Is hatred — like trau­ma — some­thing which is inevitably passed down? 

EH: I don’t know if hatred is passed down, but it def­i­nite­ly is learned. You can teach peo­ple to hate. You can teach peo­ple to hate those who aren’t like you. And you can also teach to love and respect those who aren’t like you. I think it depends on us, doesn’t it? Which teach­ing are we going to pass down to our children?