Collective residencies / NEW JOURNALISM / Olot
LUIS GUILLERMO HERNÁNDEZ
From Monday, 15 May 2017 to Tuesday, 30 May 2017
Bio
Luis Guillermo Hernández is freelance journalist, professor and PhD student.
He has more than 20 years of experience in the media: newspapers, magazines, television, radio and digital media. He is correspondent in México of the some media of Latin America.
His journalistic work has been published in magazines, newspapers of the Mexico and Latin América and the books Generación ¡Bang! Los nuevos cronistas del narco en México (Planeta, 2012), Entre las cenizas (Sur+, 2012) and 72 migrantes (Almadía, 2011).
He received awards such as Premio Nacional de Periodismo in 2006, Premio de Periodismo Cultural Fernando Benítez in 2011 and he was finallist of the Premio Latinoamericano de Periodismo sobre Drogas in 2013.
Project
During the stay, Luis Guillermo wishes to work on the conclusion of the writing of the first draft of a journalistic novel whose tentative title is La Petrolera or Nomás el recuerdo queda.
It is the literary journalistic story of the life of an anonymous Mexican worker who lives and witnesses the rise and fall of an empire (the mexican oil industry) and that of her entire country, since the time of the “mexican miracle”, when the country promised prosperity, until the social and economic decline of the war for drug trafficking and corruption in the 21st century.
Narrated by two voices, from extensive conversation with the protagonist and historical documentation, La Petrolera or Nomás el recuerdo queda is intended to be the story of the vision of the anonymous, workers who watch the events that mark their time and their lives without being able to do anything about it.
Through paths of Olot
In Olot you have to lose yourself to find the way back. This is not a metaphor, it is a statement: you must walk slowly, without time, the sinuous paths of La Fageda, Natural Park of the Volcanic Area in Garrotxa, to forget many of the things that hinder and return to the starting point, this space where wants to write are kept, stories to tell and need to tell the world what you see, as you see.
It is the best gift you can receive from Faber Residency. The possibility of reunion with your initial impulse. The possibility that your dark days and dark nights are in balance again, as the equinox. This is a rare privilege. A caramel. Especially because you live this surrounded by colleagues, friends with similar interests, with similar stories, anecdotes so similar that allow you to understand that journalism, although it is from places so diverse as Mexico, Russia, the United States, Catalonia, actually it is a series of variations of the same phenomenon: the personal and collective search for modes of expression, the battle against the silence in our regions, the exploration of new narratives, projects that allow journalism remain useful in our societies.
On days when I was in Faber –I did not have any doubt– led me to a place that I did not visited long time ago. Perhaps because of vertigo of everyday work. Perhaps because of the result of everyday life. Perhaps because, as the old song says, one says goodbye imperceptibly to small things. I rediscovered this place while I was walking by paths in Olot, those good days that Faber Residency gave me.