Son Jarocho, Rock and Roll, and Bridges between Cultures

A Conversation with Agustín del Moral Tejeda.

- Dolores Flores-Silva

A gustín del Moral Tejeda was born in Las Choapas, Veracruz, in 1956. An accomplished writer, journalist, editor, translator, and activist, he currently lives and works in Xalapa at the University of Veracruz. He has published two novels, Nuestra alma melancólica en conserva (1997) and Cuéntame lo que me pasa (2009), as well as a work of creative nonfiction, Un Crack Mexicano: Alberto Onofre (2003). For many years he served as director of the university press of Veracruz, a key supporter of literary publication in Mexico. I met with him in his university office in October 2015, and we discussed the roles played by music of the Gulf region (especially son jarocho and rock) in his fiction.

Dolores Flores-Silva: How did the idea of Cuéntame lo que me pasa (Tell me what’s happening to me) start?

Agustín del Moral Tejeda: First, I took on a challenge I set for myself. Before this book, I had published a testimonial autobiographical novel and a biographical chronicle of a soccer player. This means I started, in both cases, with a set of facts that already existed, and my work consisted of giving it all form and structure. The challenge I set for myself with Cuéntame lo que me pasa was to write a book with three long plots that were, basically, fiction, something I didn’t have already at hand to work on. That was a starting point. . . . So I asked myself: What are three things I would have liked to be but did not become?

DFS: So the book has a certain touch of Agustín del Moral’s autobiography.

ADMT: Yes, indeed. With a sense that I wanted to work out in fiction what I couldn’t be in reality. My answer was that I would’ve liked to have been a soccer player, a rock-and-roller, or a revolutionary. Those are the perspectives that fed this book.