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Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel. Malabo, 1966. He was born and raised in Equatorial Guinea , a country without bookstores, and even so he became a writer and is the most translated author in his country. The documentary The writer of a country without bookstores , in Filmin, reviews his life.   

Are there really no bookstores in Guinea? Really. I grew up without knowing any. There may have been a shop that offered second-hand books at some point, but nothing more. I don't recall a bookstore in Guinea until 2010, when a writer and someone else opened a bookstore in Malabo. But while we were filming the documentary, that bookstore was closed. I grew up without ever seeing a bookstore. But at school they would have books, right? When I was in elementary school there was a book, yes, but it was a teacher's book. If the teacher wanted us students to practice reading, he would pass the book among us one by one. Maybe there were a total of 15 books in the whole school. We grew up without books, and how does someone who grows up without books end up being a writer? I have always been very attracted to books. In the house where I grew up there was a volume of an encyclopedia and books with the phrases to pray, to follow the mass and to do the litanies. I still couldn't read and I was already fascinated by books. I didn't learn to read at school, my mother taught me at home, I suppose so that she would read the prayer books I was talking about. And when I learned to read, my attraction to books increased, I looked for books among the students of higher grades. Until one day, many years later, I started writing poems. And later, starting in 1980, I started writing to participate in the literary contests organized by the Spanish-Guinean cultural center, which was opened after the coup that deposed Francisco Macías in 1979. And did he win? Yes, on more than one occasion. I think I started being a writer there, participating in those contests. How many books have you written since then? About 15 books. Although some are discontinued because they were published several years ago. And do you have more poetry books or more novels? Right now I'm more of a novel writer. My last book is titled "When you went to Guinea by sea" and it came out in November 2019. And then your books are not in Guinea, a country without bookstores? Effectively. The Spanish cultural center did promote the publication of books in Spanish and brought books published in Spain, so some of my books must be there. Do you always write in Spanish? Yes in Spanish. Guinean children are taught in Spanish, only in Spanish, even today. In Guinea there are several African languages, they vary from one ethnic group to another. I am, for example, one of Equatorial Guinea's ethnic minorities, the Annobonese, who number about 8,000 in total. It wouldn't make much sense for him to write just for them. In Guinea he says there are no bookstores ... And cinemas? And theaters? In colonial times there were two cinemas in the capital and in the other important city of the country there were also. But those cinemas were fundamentally for the Spanish who were there. By the time Obiang came to power in 1979, those cinemas had been closed for years. There was an attempt to rehabilitate them, but failed. Those of my generation had neither bookstores nor cinemas nor theaters. In Guinea there are no bookstores, there are no cinemas, there are no theaters. But there are churrerías, right? Yes. We still have some Spanish traditions, and in Guinea there have been more than one churrería. For us Guineans, churros are for some special occasions, for some kind of celebration. When did you leave Guinea and why? I left in February 2011 because of my open opposition to the Obiang regime. I had been writing articles critical of the regime for a long time in a digital magazine. But in the middle of the 'Arab Spring', a large delegation of members of the Spanish Parliament went to Guinea to see the dictator Obiang. I did not understand how in North Africa they were trying to kick their dictators out and yet ours, the one who has been oppressing us the longest, was being backed by Democratic MPs. I went on a hunger strike, but I felt very alone, very little supported, there were very few of us who were willing to protest. And so I decided to go to Barcelona, ​​where I had contacts, and I took my hunger strike there. Can I make a living from books? No. I have some income from my books and with that money I could allow myself to live in another country much cheaper than Spain. Here, you pay a thousand euros a month for rent, it is impossible. Teodoro Obiang has been President of Equatorial Guinea for more than 40 years. How is it explained? It is explained because it does the same thing that Fidel Castro and other dictators did. But, above all, it has taken advantage of the fact that Guinea is a decolonized country to do whatever it wants, knowing that it would be difficult for a foreign country to intervene. How does Guinea imagine ten, twenty years from now? As a country very similar to today. Obiang would not be there, of course, but there would be another. If Obiang died today, it is most likely that someone close to him rose to power. In Guinea there are about 20 generals, and about 15 are cousins ​​or brothers of Obiang. Being a military regime, when Obiang dies, it is most likely that one of them will rise to power and do the same thing that Obiang has done these 40 years.

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