Fernando Aramburu told in “Patria” of the ETA terror, in “The Wall Sailers” of the melancholy of aging. A conversation with the great Spanish writer about the endangered democracy, his favorite figure – and why he regularly talks to a cactus.
Fernando Aramburu is one of the most successful Spanish writers of the present. And that, although – or possibly because – he has lived in Hanover with his German wife for decades. The 66-year-old speaks German fluently, but at the beginning of the conversation he says that he would prefer to lead the interview in Spanish. In his mother tongue he could still express himself a little more precisely. Aramburu is a master of nuances, also in his books, which he still wrote in Spanish – “out of respect for the German language”. So he is also a master of the coquetry.