PARTICIPACION DEL PERU EN CONVENIOS INTERNACIONALES

‘Molly, would you like to say something’, prompted Carlos. My heart started beating faster and I stuttered into motion, always hesitant to criticise and doubting my ability to truly judge the stories read aloud in Spanish, especially of a genre with which I am less than familiar.

‘Yes, I liked it. But, I think you read too quickly. I liked the plot, but I didn’t understand all of the details as I found the speed at which you read difficult to follow’. I knew that what I had said was relatively empty of value to the writer but saying anything was good enough to ‘participate’ and Carlos moved on to the attendee sitting to my left. I felt upset that I could not add more and

found the need to do more than listen stressful as times. In Espacio Abierto, there was such a demand on giving feedback. Most of the time I was not sure if what I was reading was good or bad, as I was not familiar with the genre. The science fiction always felt heavy handed, for instance I noted that day there was a story in which the powerful, omniscient leader was named ‘The Eye’, but I never knew if that was genre specific so was very hesitant to say anything. There were many attendees including three very well-established authors of science fiction and fantasy in Cuba, which made me feel even more foolish when it came time to sharing opinions.

The next writer to share was a writer from the provinces who had sent his work in through email to be read aloud by Carlos. When Carlos finished, he started to solicit feedback, noting he would write it down and submit it through email to the author. Trying to take notes, my hands started freezing up due to the air conditioner running on high and I sat on them to try and warm them back up. As Carlos moved around the circle, a few of the initial participants gave light praise or criticism. The story did not seem to solicit a strong reaction in them. Getting to Yoss, a very well- published author, about halfway around the circle, Carlos asks for his opinion. Stopping to think pensively, Yoss answers:

The characters are not being introduced well enough. There isn’t enough context to make them comprehensible. For instance, who is this character S.A.P.O.33 _{[por ejemplo, quien es la}

personaje de S.A.P.O.]? There needs to be more context for the reader to fully understand the characters and the world of the story.

Other attendees seemed to agree as they continued to repeat the criticism as Carlos moved around the rest of circle. People repetaed: ‘Que es S.A.P.O.? No entiendo… que es S.A.P.O.?’ [What is S.A.P.O.? I don’t understand… what is S.A.P.O.?]. It was a point that had been well made. Agreement in the room was obvious not due to the nodding of heads or verbal concurrence, but rather due to the same comment being repeated by participants. I was unsure if this agreement was due to genuine consensus or rather due to the methodical procedure in which everyone had to say something;

33_{The name of the character of S.A.P.O. is an acronym because the character was not clearly human, but possibly a}

collective representation, like ‘big brother’ for example. I apologise for the limited description, but like the critics in the taller, I am not sure I understood fully who or what S.A.P.O was.

when pressured into giving criticism, repeating a well-thought out critique by a prolific author seemed safe.

Espacio Abeirto practices their openness through rigid structure. Everyone and anyone can join the group, share their work, and everyone must provide criticism. It creates a place of forced equality, which when tested seems to collapse. The forced participation of criticism was

intimidating for me and also for a few other participants who regularly parroted comments previously said or said something empty of value, as I had in the vignette above. In contrast to the forced participation, the workshop provides a fantastic place to learn what constitutes good science fiction and fantasy. While the goal of the taller is universal participation, it seemed as if many people were there to learn, not to teach. In short, they were there to find ‘exemplars’ not only through reading good literature (like Poe and Lovecraft), but by hearing from and seeing how to be good science fiction and fantasy writers. Humphrey (1997) writes about exemplars as a necessary means to learning how to be a person in Mongolia – ‘a person with no teacher is no-body’ (34), she notes. This is something that is reflected by Carlos, the convenor of Espacio Abierto, when he noted, in the quote that opened this chapter, that ‘you have to learn from the people who are doing well. You always have to learn from somebody. And it is best to learn from people who have done the best writing in the past’. While there may not be a connection between learning to write fiction and morality, as is the subject in Humphrey’s paper, her examination of the teacher/disciple

relationship contrasts interestingly with what is happening the Espacio Abierto taller. The forced participation in the group is intimidating because, while they spoke of openness and equality, the reality was that there were great differences in literary power between participants. Ignoring the differences does not create equality among the writers and could account for the reason the openness does not feel so welcoming at times for young writers. To return to my original question, people participate in Espacio Abierto for different reasons – some to learn and some to teach – but this was not reflected in the structure of the meeting.