The Interview : Isaias Fanlo

Rachna Singh, Editor, The Wise Owl talks to Isaias Fanlo, a writer, scholar, cultural manager, and translator. Isaias teaches Modern and Contemporary Iberian Cultures at the University of Cambridge, and is a Fellow in Iberian Studies at Fitzwilliam College. His monograph El llibre rosa (‘The Pink Book’, 2004) was a pioneer work on gender and sexuality in Catalonia. He also contributes to generalist media in Spain, where he writes about scenic arts, culture and queer activism. His new novel, El pes de la boira (‘The Weight of the Mist’, 2025) has recently come out, published by Pagès Editors.

In addition, Isaias has developed a successful career as a cultural manager in the scenic arts. He has been editor, dramaturgist and creator of contents for Barcelona’s Teatre Nacional de Catalunya, artistic advisor for Barcelona’s Teatre Lliure, and literary advisor for different stage projects in Barcelona and Chicago. He founded Terrats en Cultura, Barcelona’s awarded rooftop scenic arts festival and an active member of the European Creative Rooftop Network.

Thank you Isaias, for taking time out of your busy schedule to talk with The Wise Owl.

RS: El llibre rosa (The Pink Book) was published in 2004, and now, nearly two decades later, you’ve released El pes de la boira (The Weight of the Mist). How has your creative voice evolved in that time? Did returning to writing after years of academic and cultural work feel like a homecoming or a reinvention?

IF: Thank you so much for having me in your magazine, and thank you for promoting literatures written in minoritized languages, which I think is essential to understand the true diversity of voices in our shared planet. You are right to mention the fact that that both books are separated by two decades —but the truth is, I never stopped writing. I published El llibre rosa quite young, when I was 23, and it was thankfully very well received. However, after publishing that book I was pushed into a spiral of self-doubt and writing became an impossible task: I was struggling to write a single sentence, let alone a whole book. Bit by bit, I came to terms with my writing self through short stories and articles in the press, and writing my PhD thesis reminded me of the discipline needed to complete a long manuscript. Feeling strong again, I decided to tackle this story, which I had been willing to write for many years. And it was worth the wait: I feel more mature in my mid-forties, more prepared to tell a complex story. I hope this novel reads like that.

RS: El pes de la boira (The Weight of the Mist) delves into themes of memory, loss, and identity. Can you share the inspiration behind the novel and what drew you to explore these themes at this stage of your career?

IF: First and foremost, I wanted to share some of the stories that my two grandmothers, who experienced the Civil War in Spain, had told me through the years. I had a Word document with all these stories, added some other stories to them, mixed them up, and poured them onto fictional characters. Amongst other things, this novel is an ongoing dialogue between a grandmother and her grandchild, in which the generational gap represents all the voids and the secrets that needed to be kept in a time of authoritarianism. I did not want to write another novel about the Spanish Civil War (there are already way too many), but I wanted to talk about the consequences, the ghosts, the debts, the inheritance.

RS: Your work often engages with queer identities. How does queerness shape your narrative voice and the stories you tell? Do you see fiction as a space for activism, or do you prefer to let the stories speak for themselves?

IF: Well, this is a coming of age queer novel. The protagonist, León, is fifteen at the beginning of the text, and struggles to understand his feelings for both his best friend, Esmael, and for his mysterious upstairs neighbour, who seems like a dark reverse of his own self. I wanted to ask the following question: how does one learn to love and desire outside the norm? Not through your biological family, and certainly not at schools. In this novel I wanted to address the beautifully painful process of discovery, through books, through failures, and through meeting with other, more seasoned queer people that might be able to teach us a thing or two if we’re ready to listen.

Regarding fiction and activism, I think the stories, as you say, should speak for themselves. I was not interested in writing a moralistic story —but I wanted it to be profoundly ethical.

RS: How does your experience in theatre and performance influence the way you structure and write fiction? Do you find yourself visualizing scenes in a theatrical way, or is the process distinct from your work in the performing arts?

IF: In theory, theatre is a completely different literary genre —although, inevitably, each writer has their own way of telling stories. I do have to say that some people that have read the novel have mentioned that the strong presence of dialogues show how involved I am in theatre. Maybe, who knows. I do love theatre, but I also love fiction and poetry. And I hope some of this love for all genres can be seen in the novel.

RS: As a scholar at Cambridge, you engage deeply with theatre, literature, and queer studies. How do you balance academic research with creative writing and cultural management? Do these roles ever come into conflict, or do they complement one another?

IF: It’s not easy to combine them, and I guess each writer and academic does it in their own way. I feel that both my academic and my writing persona are complementary. But, in any case, my academic writing is not obscure —I believe critical thinking and a taste for style are not opposed to one another. In fact, I wrote the first draft of El pes de la boira while I was writing my PhD thesis, and it was quite an interesting (and exhausting) process!

RS: You founded Terrats en Cultura, an innovative festival that transforms Barcelona’s rooftops into performance spaces. What was the genesis of this idea? Did you encounter any resistance to the concept, and how did you navigate those challenges?

IF: We created Terrats en Cultura (Barcelona Rooftop Festival) with a double intention: first, in order to provide a platform for outstanding scenic art projects in a time of crisis, when many traditional theatres were closing down due to the global recession. And second, in order to promote a more sustainable way of living in Barcelona, a city threatened by gentrification and massive tourism. The rooftops are a key element of Mediterranean architecture: thanks to our mild weather, they function as a space for meetings, to hang clothes, to gather. Reopening rooftops (which were being closed by owners because tourists would organise parties there and neighbours would complain) to promote a better way to living Barcelona through ephemeral events is our way of being urban activists. Our festival is now fully established in the city, and it is celebrated as a loved initiative —something that I am very proud of. In addition, we have been lucky to showcase amazing artists and memorable shows!

RS: As a cultural manager, what do you see as the most pressing challenges facing theatre and the performing arts today, especially in a post-pandemic world? What role can independent and experimental projects play in shaping the future of performance?

IF: I think I have addressed some of this in the previous question. I would like to add, though, that performing arts are being profoundly damaged by the pressure to be profitable in these neoliberal times. Art, an essential, definitory trait of what makes us humans, shouldn’t strive for profit. It needs financial support. And this should be out of discussion: even profitable sectors such as big pharma or the automobile industry get substantial public funds! Creative people’s only pressure should be to produce good works, works that ask fundamental questions about the world we live in.

RS: As a translator, you navigate between languages and cultural contexts. What do you find most rewarding and most challenging about the process? Is there a particular work you’ve translated that was especially difficult or fulfilling?

IF: Translation allows people to grasp a myriad of cultures —it opens doors, it builds bridges. As a translator, you have the privilege of getting to know the works you work with in a deep, intimate way. My most fulfilling translations, perhaps, are works by authors that have also been friends and mentors: Bent, the influential and brilliant play by Martin Sherman about homosexuality in Nazi concentration camps —which I translated for its premiere in Cuba!— and the Spanish translation of Jaime Manrique’s novel If You See Me Along The Way, which is still unpublished in English. In this case, I got the privilege of working side by side with Jaime, polishing dialogues and adjusting the original for a Colombian audience. I learned so much from these experiences, I can only be grateful.

RS: If you could stage or adapt any literary work—classic or contemporary—for today’s audiences, what would it be and why?

IF: Given that two of my favourite novels —Juan Rulfo’s Pedro Páramo and Mikhail Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita— have already been adapted and staged, I would say that it would be very interesting to see Dino Buzzati’s The Tartar Steppe (onstage. I can imagine this Italian novel in dialogue with Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. However, as much as I appreciate adaptations (and Catalan theatre has thrived these last two decades in providing adaptations of classic novels), I have to admit that I tend to prefer those pieces that were conceived to be performed onstage in the first place. At the end of the day, playwrights struggle enough to find venues and resources to have their work produced.

RS: What excites you most about the future of Iberian literature and theatre?

IF: I’d refer only to Spanish and Catalan cultures, which are the ones I’m more familiarised with —Iberian cultures include works written in Galician, Basque and Portuguese, among others, which have their own idiosyncrasy and have produced many extraordinary works. I want to be optimistic and say that I am excited about many emerging Iberian novelists that write in Spanish and Catalan: Eva Baltasar, Ariadna Castellarnau, Pol Guasch, Sebastià Portell, Irene Solà… all of which have been translated into several languages. In Catalonia, there is reasonable concern about the decline of Catalan language, more specifically in an international city such as Barcelona, but at the same time it is undeniable that Catalan theatre has been doing very well. Authors such as Guillem Clua and Josep Maria Miró have been extensively produced throughout the world. Irene Solà’s novel When I Sing, Mountains Dance won the European Union Prize for Literature in 2020. Eva Baltasar’s novel Boulder was shortlisted for the 2023 International Booker Prize. There is reason to be alert, but there is also reason to be optimistic.

RS: Are there any new projects, ideas, or collaborations on the horizon that you can share with us?

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IF: I just spent a month in Colombia, where I finished revising the Spanish version of El pes de la boira and completed the manuscript of what will be my second novel, which is my love letter to Chicago, which was my home for seven years. I am very excited about the future, and hopeful that that these books will find houses that want to publish them in other languages. But, at the end of the day, that is my agent’s job!

Thank you for taking time out to talk with The Wise Owl. We wish you the very best in all your creative endeavors.