Countries of Origin

A Conversation with Javier Fuentes, author of Countries of Origin

What is Countries of Origin about?

It’s the story of a young man on a quest to find his place in the world. It’s set over one summer in 2007, and narrated by Demetrio, a celebrated, undocumented Spanish pastry chef whose lack of papers finally catches up with him. He leaves New York City, the only home he’s ever known, and goes back to Spain. On the flight to Madrid, he meets Jacobo, a handsome student from a grand family. They are instantly attracted to each other, but the relationship becomes complicated and tumultuous, as they both struggle with their sexuality and class difference. An unexpected loss forces them to reexamine their feelings for each other and ultimately changes the trajectory of their lives.

You have also called Countries of Origin “a reverse migration story.” Can you expand on that?

Since moving to New York from Madrid in the mid-nineties, I became interested in stories about emigration as I looked for ways to understand my own story. Then years later, in grad school, I studied the American immigrant novel of the 20th century. All the novels I read were about the influx of migrants into the United States and their process of cultural assimilation, but I couldn’t find stories about the reverse journey: People who, after having moved to the United States and assimilated in different degrees, are forced out. That’s how I decided to write about someone going back to his country of origin.

Is it autobiographical?

No, it is not. However, half-way through writing the story something interesting happened. Exploring Demetrio’s feelings about leaving America and moving back to Spain, I began to think about what it would be like for me to return permanently. Like everyone, I have always been prone to thinking about what my life could have been had I not made certain decisions. Moving to America has certainly been the most radical decision I have ever made. In some way, I used this fictional world to better understand the real world.   

Since he was 8 years old, Demetrio lived with his uncle, Chus, on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Can you tell us about Chus and their relationship?

Chus is a free spirit who, after fleeing Spain during the Franco regime, lived through the AIDS epidemic. Parenthood for him was not voluntary or planned. That is the most defining aspect of their relationship because he is not trying to be a father as much as he is trying to be an educator and a mentor. A political activist and an academic, Chus has a very defined sexuality. Demetrio, on the contrary, is not college educated (though he was raised by Chus and grew up in Manhattan, so he is educated but in a different way), and his sexuality is fluid. To a certain extent, Demetrio is Chus’ opposite. As the story progresses it becomes clear that many of Demetrio’s convictions as well as his behavior are a reaction to his liberal upbringing, a way for him to rebel against Chus who, more than an uncle, is a parental figure.

One of my favorite things about the novel is the complexity with which you depict the love between Demetrio and Jacobo. The fight scene at the beach is heartbreaking and I can’t stop thinking about it. Without giving away any spoilers, can you talk about this scene?  

Up until this point in the story their emotions have been bottled up. In Jacobo’s case, coming from a conservative milieu, he is trying to free himself from the heteronormative constraints in which he grew up. Demetrio, on the other hand, struggles with their social class difference and vastly different levels of privilege. The scene you are referring to is the first time they become physically intimate, a climactic moment where these tensions, which have been building since they met on the airplane, finally manifest.

When Publishers Weekly recently named you a “Writer to Watch,” you discussed how Demetrio’s undocumented status restricts the kinds of jobs he has access to. Can you talk more about that?

When it comes to making a living, we tend to stick to what we are good at. Most of us are looking for validation, especially when we join the workforce. If you happen to find early success, it can be detrimental in the long run because you might be good at more than one thing, and there might be something else you might enjoy more doing. Demetrio, though incredibly successful, ended up working in a kitchen because of his lack of papers. When he arrives in Spain and begins to experience the world in a less constricted way, he questions whether being a pastry chef is his true calling. Like the Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset said: “I am I and my circumstance.” That is especially accurate in Demetrio’s case. 

For most of the book, Demetrio feels completely uprooted. Do you also feel split between countries and cultures?

By now I have lived most of my life in the United States so the question about whether I feel more American than Spanish or vice versa comes up often. The truth is that I never felt Catalan or Spanish in the first place. The reason might be that growing up queer, I always felt like an outsider. It is perhaps not a coincidence that I am most at home in New York City where nearly 40 percent of the population is foreign born. I do not miss Spain, but I do miss the Spanish language. One of my favorite things when I visit is to strike up conversations with older generations. I have this inexplicable fascination with hearing words that I grew up listening to that are no longer used. It’s like going antiquing but instead looking for sounds.

What made you want to become a writer? What are some of the books that influenced Countries of Origin?

There is a famous quote by James Baldwin that says: “If you are going to be a writer there is nothing I can say to stop you; if you’re not going to be a writer nothing I can say will help you.” I love the inevitability captured in that statement, how Baldwin frames being a writer as pure fate. I feel that I became a writer because I could not not become one. 

Some of the novels that have influenced Countries of Origin are Light Years by James Salter, Narrow Rooms by James Purdy, Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin, The South by Colm Tóibín, and A Feather on the Breath of God by Sigrid Nuñez.

You didn’t grow up speaking English. What made you adopt English as your literary language?

That is an interesting question that I have been thinking about more lately. Leaving Spain, my country of birth, happened in Spanish and coming to terms with my sexuality happened in English –albeit rudimentary. So establishing myself in America cannot be uncoupled from doing it in a language whose words were new and shiny and free and, most importantly, detached from shame. It is so hard to believe that more than two decades after I fled Spain and with it my mother tongue, to this day, when I utter the word homosexual, which is spelled the same way in both languages, the Spanish pronunciation still haunts me with a feeling of inadequacy that kept me up at night as a kid. I guess you could say that English is the language that provided me with the opportunity to become who I truly am.