The following article is my translation of «Chavez, c'était Patrick Sébastien devenu dictateur»: interview appeared in the column BibliObs de The news Observer.
When he heard the news of Hugo Chavez's death, Charles Dantzig "had the feeling that an important character in his book was disappearing, was in disarray." This is because, the writer had made it a central element of On an airplane to Caracas [A plane to Caracas, ed], the novel he published in 2011 (Grasset). We therefore asked some questions to this author who denounces populism, in Venezuela but also in literature.
BibliObs – Why did you choose to evoke Hugo Chavez in your novel?
Charles Dantzig – Chavez is not one of the main characters of my book, but a shadow on the characters. One of the chapters is titled Vie de Chavez for small children and adults [Chavez's life for children and adults, ndt]: here the narrator transcribes the version that Chavista propaganda gives of his existence, and then explains what he actually did. And what Chavez has done is to create a new form of populism.
Instead of Mussolini's militarism, in which the dictator wears a bright uniform and visits the troops, he invented this mélange very dangerous of militarism and histrionics. It's a bit as if Patrick Sébastien had become dictator [a well-known French variety personality who hosts mostly comedy TV programmes, is an impersonator, an actor, a cabaret artist, ndt].
Its beginnings were not very original: a soldier who attempts a coup d'état, ends up in prison, is freed by a democratic president and gets himself elected president in turn. Numerous similar examples are already known.
Once in power, he understands that he must have a pleasant air. The military uniform is no longer fashionable. So he decides to exploit television and entertainment, especially with his television program Hail President, during which he answers carefully filtered questions from viewers and even sings live.
He overturned the codes of populist dictatorship: until him, dictators carried out their tasks like brute soldiers. He established this extravagant mixture of quasi-dictatorship and spectacle through an exploitation of sympathy. And when I say quasi-dictator, the quasi is also too much: he was elected in rigged elections, he persecuted his opponents and abolished the separation of powers at the basis of all democracies by destroying the judicial power. All this mixed with the spirit of the variety song.
What makes Chavez a fictional character?
In my novel, a French intellectual, Xabi Puing, goes to Caracas because he finds Chavez admirable. It is a discussion about modern dictatorship and the way in which a French intellectual - for example - can be fooled by a certain rhetoric of sympathy. Chavez and Xabi are symbols, they represent the shadow that vulgarity projects on spiritual things, which is the definition of populism. I believe that Chavez was symbolically this form of modern dictator.
In an editorial that appeared on Le Monde in 2012, you also denounced realism as a form of populism in literature…
Nowadays, there is an exploitation of literature by the realist movement. Realism, which claims to be all literature, seeks to make it useful, to give it a political and social, that is to say moral, utility. This new realism is not only perceived in the subjects, but also in the rejection of form: it is believed that all work around form is boring, superfluous, frivolous, hateful, when in fact it is the very essence of literature.
In the attempt to give form to the formless, it is what best opposes power. As Pasolini said: «Nothing it is more anarchic than power, the power ago practically what he wants.». In denying the form, one wants to position literature as attentive to you. It is a form of populism. Literature is never alone, it lives within a society. Now our society is going through an economic crisis; and all crises favor the emergence of populism.
What do you think of Nicolas Maduro, whom Chavez has designated as his heir?
I'm not able to talk about it; I do not know him. But there is a curious thing to say: the dictatorship is an eternal monster, which has always existed and which will exist even after Chavez and also in other countries. It's like a Loch Ness monster that constantly changes places: when things get better in Venezuela, the dictatorship will rise again in another country.
Interview by Louis Blanchard
English 
Italian