The woman who married to redeem a man sentenced to death

In 1836, in Tucumán, a woman from a patrician and federal family considers the possibility of marrying a Unitarian colonel to save him from the execution to which he is sentenced, and who is not the one she wants as a husband. An emotional and political plot runs through “Agustina Paz” (Emecé) the new novel by Emilio Jurado NaónGraduate and professor of Letters who has published books of poems, stories, and writes the novel series “The Rocks and the I”of which this work is a part. We dialogue with him.

Journalist: What prompted you to recover an unknown fact in the life of Julio Argentino Roca’s mother?

Emilio Jurado Naón: The starting point was a historical anecdote, which refers to a pre-existing literary topic, about a man condemned to death who is saved from the scaffold by a woman who asks for his hand, a knot that I found interesting narratively. From this situation, having Agustina Paz in the center, the rest of the characters begin to appear and characterize themselves and the causes that lead to a series of executions become known, who were facing each other, and how many were the fundamental ones involved. . It is unusual that, at that time, in the midst of wars, frequent confrontations and instability, a young woman from the patriciate decided who and why she was going to marry. I was interested that Agustina was also a political figure.

Q: Political because you are going to save the opponents?

EJN: Political not in the partisan sense, although she was interested in the political and military conflicts that occurred in her province, she was from a family of politicians, from Marcos Paz, she had an idea of ​​how things were handled. But it was not in that sense that I said it but because he had a political, strategic mind to achieve his objectives. She manages to get them to allow her to go out alone, to tour the barracks where the convicts are locked up, to spend a whole day outside her house.

Q: Was it a challenge to tell from a woman?

EJN: I found it interesting to give voice to a minor character in Argentine history, in a key way through one of his children. The one who, while pregnant, told her husband: if he is born in July we will name him July for Independence and Argentine for the country. That voice was provocative. Showing a curious, ironic, calculating, manipulative woman to get what she wants from others. When facing a new text, I always look for an obstacle, a different procedure, and this narrative core covered by a woman from another era was challenging for me. A time when a unitary invasion occurs in a province that fails.

Q: What were they trying to do?

EJN: Overthrow Heredia, the federal governor. The captured Unitarian invaders were led by former governor Javier López, his nephew Ángel, and Colonel José Segundo Roca. Agustina, just by seeing him, was fascinated with Ángel López, something that had happened with many other women. She knows that Ángel is condemned and wants to save his life to marry him. He has read how he should act and puts together a stratagem to achieve it, but when he arrives at the barracks with that purpose, they have already shot him. To justify his presence he comes up with the possibility of saving the other convict of treason: José Segundo Roca, who lies staked in a chicken coop.

Q: Is it a romantic, historical novel or a portrait of a lady?

EJN: It is a romantic novel, absolutely. In a contemporary and colloquial sense because there is a romance, although totally anti-romantic. There is no love between those who marry but commitment and complicity. It is romantic because, as in the genre of 19th century romanticism – without going any further than “Amalia” by Mármol – its protagonist is a woman, her interests and feelings. In that sense the novel is a tribute, a conversation with that tradition.

Q.: What led you to include a repeated reference to Mama Antula, the first Argentine saint?

EJN: She is a relative, an ancestor, of Agustina. Antula is María Antonia de Paz y Figueroa. In the 18th century Mama Antula began her pilgrimage and continued with it. She was a lay member of the Jesuit order because women could not be part of it institutionally, but she walked and walked through the northern provinces and performed miracles. Last February Francisco canonized her, and she is a character from Argentina before Argentina. I really like those anachronisms, confusions, contradictions, overlaps of nationality, I always use them.

Q.: What does “Agustina Paz” have to do with your previous novel “Los Pincén”?

EJN: They are episodes of the same project called “Los Roca y los yo”, I as the first person pronoun. I have already published the book of short stories “Tópicos de los dos viajeras”, the poems of “Zanja grande”, the novels “Los Pincén” and “Agustina Paz”, always around the figure of Julio Argentino Roca, the generation of the 80s, the current situation regarding those moments and those historical figures.

Q.: Why your such strong interest in Roca?

EJN: It is a figure that condenses many tensions of history and national politics that still exist. He is a figure who, like very few in our history, continues to move passions today. The 19th century always attracted me literaryly. The distance it allows is ideal for making fiction.

Q: What are you writing now?

EJN: Stories for an anthology that has to do with Argentine history that would be titled “What would have happened if…?” Each participating author must imagine what happened in a historical episode to the extent that a key event would have occurred differently. In my case the plot has to do with the conflict with Chile during Roca’s presidency, the war that broke out when a peace agreement was not established, which in reality was achieved at the last minute. This story came to interrupt the writing process of a novel called “Autonomous City”, a narrative project that is currently taking place in the Federal Capital.