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`We are the generation after Marquez, Neruda'

Jaime Collyer is trying to establish his own identity as a Chilean writer, says Mandira Nayar...

Jaime Collyer might not be a familiar `dust jacket' name in India at the moment. The next generation after Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Pablo Neruda, his book in English is only available in Amazon.com at the moment. But award-winning author Collyer is trying to break through the Latin American landmass to establish his own identity as a Chilean writer. "Most people have only heard of Neruda and Marquez. We are the next generation. At the seminar at Sahitya Kala Akademi there were authors from Chile, Mexico and Peru, so that people are familiar with the new movements," said Collyer in the Capital recently.

With the same reference points as literature lovers around the world, Collyer often uses quotes from Kafka, Neruda and Dostoyevsky, the other `big guys'. He might have read it in a different language, but has been touched by their carefully constructed world and finally the magic of their words. Talking about them, it might have been his first trip in India, he has found many `old friends'.

"We need to know each other again. At the moment all that we know of each other is through the outside world. We are only postcards to each other. Just stock pictures for each other. We need to deal with it," he believes.

A psychologist-turned-writer, Collyer has written three novels and several short stories.

While all his work is in Spanish, one of his stories "People on the Prowl" has been published by Latin American Literary Review Press in Pittsburgh in 1996.

"I think it was great for mankind in general that I never became a practising psychologist. Mick Jagger, the lead singer of the Rolling Stones, is a trained economist. A British Member of Parliament once said fortunately Mr. Jagger is a rockstar. The same thing applies to me," he said laughing.

Having quit psychology when he was in his third year of residency to switch away from analysing people on the couch, Collyer believes that psychology and literature are at contrast with each other.

"I couldn't stand the point of view. Psychology neutralises fears. All the great literature exacerbate it. Look at all the big guys. The psychologist looks at the issues in their books and their delusions through the eyes of doctors with a white robe," he says. While he shrinks from sterilising fears and usual thought processes of the big guys in world literature, his writing is surprisingly `neutral'. With the exaggerated claims by the authoritarian governments, his generation has chosen not to break all the rules of English like Indian writers have done by introducing local flavour.

"I lived in Madrid and worked as a translator. There were people from Ecuador and Argentina. We had suffered through many repressive regimes. For me and many of my mates, it changed our language. We started using neutral Spanish when started publishing in mid 1950s," he says.

Fighting for freedom of another kind, his rebellion against the system was to use simple, straight Spanish. "The language of dictatorships in Chile had perverted the words and we wanted to fight it. We wanted freedom from the horrors of `democracy' as the dictatorship had described it. It was anything but that," he adds.

Back in his homeland once again, Collyer is now teaching in Santiago. In a rapidly changing country with the pressures of globalisation and the big `M', he has finally found his connection with India that is not only about words. With the world in a flux, the similarity of people trying to find their feet is unmistakable. "We are from a developing country where people still speak loudly on the phone in an international call. We are still finding out who we are, trying to create something ingenious. We are not Europe and we want to be Argentineans, but we are much more handsome," he says laughing.

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