The writer, critic and essayist Fernando Aínsa was born in 1937 in Palma de Mallorca, to an Aragonese father and a French mother. His family moved to Uruguay after the Spanish Civil War, where he spent his childhood and youth. He worked for two years in the U.S. as a journalist and, with the outbreak of the dictatorship in Uruguay in 1973, he left for his mother's homeland. He lived in France for more than twenty years, where he worked at Unesco as a literary editor director . He later returned to Spain and currently lives between Zaragoza and Oliete (Teruel).

He is a corresponding member of the National Academy of Letters of Uruguay and Venezuela and a member of the board of trustees Real de la Library Services Nacional de España. He has received awards in Mexico, Argentina, Spain, France and Uruguay. His works include short stories, essays, short stories, novels, reviews and poetry developed in his mature years.

He recently visited the University of Navarra'sInstitute for Culture and Society to give a talk on 'Proposals for identity and utopias in Latin America' to the Institute's doctoral students. As he speaks his accent changes, result from having lived in so many countries and having married a Chilean. He leans back in his chair and talks about what he is passionate about: literature, identity and utopias.

Is a utopia possible today?

I vindicate micro-utopias, forms of autonomous, autarchic organization, and not a general utopia, in a country. I have always spoken of utopias and nowadays I am closer to the thought of the Italian philosopher Claudio Magris. In his book 'Utopia and Disenchantment' he speaks of the need to link utopian thinking to certain forms of disenchantment.

Is there a negative view of utopia today, and do you think it is related to the totalitarianisms of the 20th century?

Utopia and democracy have always been divorced because the former is totalitarian by nature. In my work 'Utopianizing democracy and democratizing utopia' I propose to reconcile the two. Democracy needs to be 'utopianized' because it is so deteriorated today. But, on the other hand, utopia needs to be democratized because it is totalitarian by essence.

I believe that things that begin apparently as utopias, quickly derive into authoritarian movements.

How can a democracy be 'utopianized'?

Giving it desiderative contents, wanting to change things, not resigning oneself.

Specifically, you have come to the ICS to present proposals for utopias in Latin America. When the New Continent was discovered, it was seen as the place where utopias could be created. Do you think that this idyllic image has affected the development of the countries?

I don't think anyone today talks about America as a continent-utopia. One of the last ones to do so was Stefan Zweig, a great German writer who was exiled in Brazil by Nazism in the 1940s and wrote a book called 'Brazil, country of the future'.

Yes, there have been political movements that have claimed utopia at some point. At the beginning of the Cuban Revolution there were intellectuals who said that Cuba was the island of Thomas More's Utopia. But they were soon disproved by reality. The Cuban Revolution became what it is and lost that utopian aura and, today, neither Ortega's Nicaragua nor Maduro's Venezuela can claim utopia.

In addition to utopia, another of your major themes is identity. What do you understand by the identity of a people?

Identity today is not what was intended or sought in the 19th century when people spoke of idiosyncrasy. The essential values of identity in the past -territory, language, customs...- have been disappearing and today it is something much more complex. I refer to multiple identities because we are much more mixed with others: identity has become much blurred. The elective affinities of a person are much more important than the characteristics of a territory, a race, a country or a language.

What do you mean by elective affinities?

You choose who you want to deal with, especially with social networks. You can contact people from other cultures in other countries and not just those from your neighborhood or town. There are much more exchange and relationships than there were in the past when identity was predetermined by where you were born, where you lived, your family...

I find it quite regrettable that some people today emphasize a kind of return to the identity of the nineteenth century, even distorting history, when the normal thing is openness and exchange. It seems absurd to me that they want to erect borders where there are none.

If identity can be chosen, when emigrating, is it preferable to cling to the customs of your home country, forget and integrate into the new one or try to mix the two cultures?

You cannot forget. I, for example, cannot forget my years of training in Uruguay and I keep them very present. I always say that I have this 'binational' condition. I have the Spanish part and the Uruguayan part very much shared and I have published many books on Uruguayan culture, on Uruguayan literature and I keep contact with friends, I write, I read the press... I have not detached myself from my adopted country and I have kept a close relationship with it to this day.

I believe that things should happen naturally. For example, when I lived in France in the 1970s, political immigration from the dictatorships of Argentina, Chile and Uruguay was booming. Each one was a different case. Some gathered to drink mate or cook typical meals without even making an effort to speak French. Others simply tried to take advantage of France as a country of asylum and did not know how to integrate. There were others who, on the contrary, did and then stayed even though the dictatorships of the Southern Cone were over.

What has been your experience staff?

I lived practically two years in the U.S. and there I was very much integrated because I was a correspondent and did many interviews for an Argentine weekly and a Uruguayan newspaper.

When I went to France, as my mother was French, I also tried to improve my language and I joined the French university, I am still in a research center at the Sorbonne in Paris. I don't know what would have happened if I had gone to another country, but at least these two - USA and France - have been fundamental. At least these two countries - USA and France - have been fundamental in my training and open-mindedness.

What does it mean for you to return to your home country after having lived halfway around the world?

I am still linked to this country by surviving friends and by the books I publish there from time to time. But the returns are not easy. I would not go back to live there. In my youth and adolescence, Uruguay was an ideal country. It was called the Switzerland of America. Unfortunately, today there is great insecurity; every time I go back I see changes that no longer convince me, especially the deterioration of civic life.

Do you share this 'binationality' with other current Latin American writers?

After the authors of the 1960s, Latin America has seen a great diversification of themes and the emergence of authors of other generations who are characterized, in large part, by not living in their countries of origin. Even those who live in countries where they were born do not necessarily write about their realities. These writers are, above all, those who publish in the large Spanish publishing houses or who are translated into French.

There are also many writers who live in the U.S. and write in English. There is a Latin American literature written directly in English. There comes a moment when nationality disappears. It is what I have called 'The nomadic words': there is a new cartography of belonging.

But, on the other hand, in the countries themselves there are local writers who continue to publish in national publishing houses and continue to have a presence. Sometimes not as much recognition as the others who, because they travel or live in another country, have an echo that they would not have enjoyed in their own country. There is a somewhat unfair divorce because there are excellent works published in most Latin American countries.