Asentir o desestabilizar

Asentir o destabilizar brings together for the first time the works of literary criticism and opinion that Chirbes wrote for publications such as Ozono, Saida, Reseña or La Calle between 1975 and 1980. A compilation that includes everything from reviews and articles to interviews with great personalities of Spanish literature that the young Chirbes made before making his debut as a novelist and that restore, as a whole, a precise and countercurrent image of those who were the milestones and protagonists of the cultural life of the Transition. Of Camilo José Cela, for example, Chirbes says that he dedicates himself only to "his encyclopedias of eroticism", while he defines Vargas Llosa as "a writer in the process of letting his guard down, allowing himself to be surprised by boredom". Rafael Chirbes lashes out harshly against the literary prizes, the cultural industry ("one more year, Mr. Lara, owner of Planeta, allows himself to deceive and trick the Spanish reader") and politicians, who want "the vast majority of us to accept the rules of a game that has just been invented»; he shoots without awe, demonstrating a fine and innate aim and the lucidity of someone who knows how to rise above common opinion. These texts, collected here in an exhaustive critical edition, make up an implacable chronicle of a crucial period in the recent history of Spain from a proudly countercultural perspective.