Mario Bencastro on the character of words.

• Author: Mujica, Barbara
• Position: Interview

MARIO BENCASTRO stepped into the international limelight with his first novel, Disparo en la catedral (A Shot in the Cathedral) set in his native El Salvador. Published in Mexico in 1990 (after being selected as a finalist in the 1989 International Novedades y Diana Fiction Competition), Disparo en la catedral describes everyday life in San Salvador during a period beset by unemployment, hunger and violence, culminating with the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero on March 24, 1980. The author meticulously depicts such chilling scenes as arriving home to find one's room ransacked and family members gone. However, rather than a political message, this novel is a portrayal of the perseverance and ultimate triumph of the human spirit. Bencastro's characters go about the normal activities of working, raising children, singing and dancing, and falling in love, despite the terror that permeates the atmosphere and affects every aspect of their existence. Recently, Disparo en la catedral was selected for the Seventh International Romulo Gallegos Novel Award.

Bencastro is also an accomplished writer of short stories--his pieces appear in various anthologies, including Where Angles Glide At Dawn (1991) and Texto y vida, edited by Barbara Mujica and scheduled for publication by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich in 1992. He is currently working on a second novel which deals with the dilemna of the Hispanic immigrant in the United States.

Mario Bencastro was born in Ahachapan, El Salvador, on March 20, 1949. Since 1978 he has lived laternately between the United States and his native country, maintaining ties to both cultures. Not only has he achieved wide recognition as a writer, but he has also pursued a successful career in the visual arts, exhibiting his paintings in over 45 individual and collective shows. In contrast to his literary work, which almost always carries a social message, his paintings are abstract--visual exercises in color and form.

Bencastro has also worked in the audio visual medium. In 1987, he wrote and directed the video documentary La historia de Carmelo, el indocumento, which focused on the problems of illegal migrant workers in the United States.

More recently, Bencastro has poured his creative energies into theater. His first play, La encrucijada (Crossroad), has been produced in the U.S. and is soon to be staged in El Salvador. The author is now adapting the text of this play, a subtle combination of politics and philosophy, for publication as bilingual edition. In a recent interview for Americas, Bencastro elaborated on his approach to theater.

Americas: When and how did you begin writing plays?

Mario Bencastro: I started experimenting with theater in 1980, when I was writing my novel Disparo en la catedral. One of the stories--that of a newspaper of unofficial line, "The Popular Tribune," whose office is mysteriously burned--is written like a play. Later I wrote a one-act play. At around the same time I participated in the formation of the theater group of the Hispanic Culture Society, which I later directed in its performance of La encrucijada (Crossroad), my first performed work.

With regard to the creative process, what differences exist between writing novels and composing plays?

When I write plays I immediately imagine a stage and, of course, an audience. I think strictly in terms of physical space, a set, and of actors and their movements, expressions and words. Perhaps the greatest difference is that in theater, the actors' voices are the principal vehicle for projecting...