The Latest at Goethe

Argentina holds many treasures and many questions. Goethe-Institut writer-in-residence Alissa Walser pursued both; passion for the tango and the Argentineans’ attitude towards nature and aboriginal peoples. We spoke with her about history, dance and the bigger picture.

Ms. Walser, the Argentinean people are famed for being passionate. Where did you encounter it?
Well, doing the tango! I was lucky to be taken along to a tango evening in Buenos Aires. We were in a beautiful place – an art nouveau coffee house ballroom with pillars. You simply show up there on a normal weekday evening and pay a small entry fee. All age groups are dancing the tango there together really happily.

The Goethe-Institut invited you as writer-in-residence. Does an assignment like this change one’s own way of seeing things?

No, at least you try not to allow that. I am a writer and naturally I travel as one. Naturally, it’s on your mind to write a journal. But, I didn’t want to start writing in a targeted way. Taking notes is just as much part of my life as breathing anyway.

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Rayuela: The Goethe-Institut’s Writer-in-Residence project

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In the blog you mention a German-Argentinean similarity: the intensity with which history incises individual lives.

I was interested in the stories of the Guaraní, Argentina’s original inhabitants. The history of their persecution is very dismal. I was simply interested in how the Argentineans deal with it. I was taken to a village where the Guaraní live. These indigenous people simply do not matter because they can’t be used to make a profit.

Would you say that the way people deal with historical brutality against minorities differs in Germany and in Argentina?

At first glance, yes. But, I would not like to make that judgment. I have to examine it more closely. For example, I was told that the Argentineans still laugh at Guaraní and don’t take them at all seriously. That’s hard to believe. Probably there is also a big difference between Buenos Aires and the rest of Argentina. But, perhaps it’s similar in Germany. In the public’s perception, Germany is a country that is constantly reflecting on its own past. This certainly has nothing to do with personal examination of history. I don’t speak enough Spanish to be able to judge how history is discussed in the Argentine media. I meet individual people.

Were you perceived as specifically German?

No, in Argentina, one imagines a “German” to be someone more blond. Once a dark-haired Argentinean woman told me she bleached her hair. In my eyes they looked light brown at most. She said to me, “You must dye your hair dark.”

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What impressed you most about the Misiones region?

It’s the site of the famous Jesuit missions the area is named after. The European Jesuits established settlements there for various tribes of the indigenous population. I went to San Ignacio. Back when the Europeans arrived, the entire region was covered in rainforest. The Jesuits built huge churches in the midst of these forests. They granted the Guaraní a protected haven. I heard that these Jesuits learned the Guaraní languages, compiled dictionaries and – in the rainforest mind you – printed them themselves.

Yet, proselytizing is an ambivalent matter.

Absolutely. Protection in return for faith – the Jesuits protected the Guaraní in their settlements from slave hunters, in return the Guaraní let themselves be converted. Villages were built – all identical in structure and very hierarchically arranged – for different tribes. Apparently they didn’t always get along. Some broke free again and returned to the forests.

You describe a certain uninhabitedness in this huge country. Does this affect the Argentinean character?

I do believe that these expanses characterize the consciousness of Argentineans. I was recently standing at a bus stop and saw a filling station in the background. At first your eyes perceive it as a normal sight. It’s not until you walk over to it that you notice that the distances you have to walk are always comparatively large. They are more generous with space, you could even say more wasteful with it. The same applies to water. Argentineans think there is plenty of water. People clean the streets in the morning in Posadas with drinking water.

The clearing of the rainforests and the farming of large soybean monocultures are not good for the environment either. How did you experience these?

The thing that became very clear to me was the bigger picture. In Argentina, cheap feedstuffs are produced for livestock in Germany. The products are then transported across these enormous distances.

And when we think Argentina, we think of juicy beef steaks. You’re a vegetarian. Is this way of life unknown to the Argentineans?

I did tend to meet with astonishment, especially in the provinces. Most people didn’t really consider what it actually means. They’d set ham in front of me anyway. Then, I’d say, “But this is ham, I don’t eat it.” “Aha! I didn’t know that you don’t even eat ham.”

The name Argentina recalls the aspirations of the conquerors of finding silver. What treasures did you discover in Argentina?

It was very impressive to be in the rainforest even if it was only reforested rainforest. And by all means I encounter characters, I mean biographies, that I am utterly fascinated by – now I have a tangible idea that I want to use in my writing. The journey offered me lots of material.


The interview was conducted by Sophie Rohrmeier.