4
O
viedo
| C
ampoamor
T
heatre
| 15
th
O
ctober
1988
Those who consider the craft of writing as a garden path where flowers spring up spontaneously
often tempt the good fortune we have at being able to work without having anyone standing over
us giving orders. And that is indeed true. If we do not write, nothing serious happens, nobody tells
us off and no-one will fire us. Although it is also true that it is not a spectacular business, but rather
a slow investment, which could well bear as a motto the maxim from Ecclesiastes: “Cast thy bread
upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days.”
The writer’s task is a solitary adventure that entails all the hesitations, uncertainties and
surprises inherent in any venture undertaken with enthusiasm. But in a world in which people
increasingly flee from being alone, the writer is disconcerting, like someone swimming against the
current, and arms emerging from all over wish to annex him to a particular group and enslave him
to their standards and rules. Against this danger, the dissident has no other choice than to continue
resisting in his stronghold, starting from nothing, invoking that youthful faith I spoke of.
No one has stated this in more exciting a way than St Teresa of Avila, whose writing exemplifies
the path taken starting out from nothing and whose exploration calls into question and puts at
stake life itself. Undertaking this task, which she faced as if it were a battle, requires, in her own
words: “… a great and very resolute determination to persevere until reaching the end, come what
may, happen what may, whatever the work involved, whatever criticism arises, (…) even if I die
along the way, (…) or if the whole world collapses.”
Carmen Martín Gaite
—
Prince of Asturias Award
for Literature
1988
Excerpt from the speech given on
the occasion of receiving the Prince
of Asturias Award for Literature
on 15/10/1988.
