Next Sunday, November 30, he will be in Mexico and ask for forgiveness. I will ask you to forgive me for not participating in the last concert of his farewell tour with Joaquín Sabina. The Guadalajara Book Fair, the most important Spanish language festival, will be dedicated on this occasion to Barcelona to highlight the importance of the city and Spain in contemporary culture. It would be an illusion for me to be there, in my brother’s country, but I’m sure I would be more than happy to share his last concert with Joaquin. And it’s not like I’m not separating what’s going to happen, because I have the opportunity to watch three of them on this tour. When I went to one of them, Joaquin asked: What number is there? And how he answered, with wise intent, that he was 69 years old. Then everything would be fine, he said with a smile. Soon, thousands of people were singing his songs.
Poetry has a lot to do with isolation. One tries to be honest, to define the adjective or verb, and to adhere in every word to one’s conscience. When friendship becomes intimate, the other’s songs, poems, and stories seem to form part of his own isolation in a reduced circle. After his exile in London, he succeeded in meeting Joaquin more than 40 years ago, when he returned to Granada, the city where he studied and became a poet. Since then, we have shared books, shipwrecks, love, summers in Bahia de Cádiz, as well as cold winters with each of us. So I could fall into trying to confuse Joaquin with a personal treasure. Therefore, when I see Movistar Arena filled with thousands of Koreans enthusiastic about her songs, I feel convinced that behind the isolation there are others who still reserve the right to melancholy and shared hope. In Mexico I will be asked to forgive myself for moving to the Barrio de la Alegria.