Spaniard's travels enrich his fiction
Monday, April 26, 2004
Doug Haddix
Columbus DISPATCH
Francisco Villena-Garrido's La caja de galletas (The Cookies Box), above, is a bittersweet love story. The 26-yearold Ohio State graduate student, who plays flamenco guitar, drew inspiration from a year spent in England.
The manuscript for his first novel was so dark and personal that Francisco Villena-Garrido intended to keep it private.
Eventually, friends of the Ohio State University graduate student from Spain persuaded him to find a publisher.
An Argentine company released the book in Spanish in December, two months after Villena-Garrido submitted it. The 164-page novel, La caja de galletas (The Cookies Box), details a bittersweet love story between the narrator and Cristina, who keep their photos, cards and hopes inside a cookie tin as they move through England.
The 26-year-old drew inspiration for some of the characters and scenes from a year he spent studying in Sheffield, England.
"They start saving everything significant to them in a cookies box. Even in poverty or bad times, having something to believe in is important," said Villena-Garrido, known as Paco to his friends.
Another OSU graduate student from Spain, Monica Fuertes, was one of those who urged him to seek a publisher.
"I really liked it because it makes you realize that when you first go far away from home in a new place with a new home and a new language, you think you're trying to learn a new culture," she said, "but you're really trying to learn about yourself."
Although a tragedy leads to destruction of the box and its contents, Villena-Garrido said, hope endures. "When times of crisis come, people try to live in a different way to survive."
That theme applies to the real-life plot twists of terrorism that have framed his time in Columbus.
He arrived on Aug. 27, 2001 — his first trip to the United States — two weeks before the terrorist attack.
As one of the more than 4,200 foreign students at Ohio State, Villena-Garrido felt lost in the grief and fear that overtook the country.
"The aftermath was even more frightening. My family told me to come home. They said I was crazy to be here."
The tables turned on March 11, when terrorists killed nearly 200 Spaniards by detonating bombs in train stations in Madrid. "I have two cousins who took the 7:15 train instead of the 7:30 train," narrowly escaping the blasts, he said.
The terrorist attacks and his travels through Europe, Mexico, the United States and Venezuela have molded his view of the world. "What changes from country to country is the most superficial cultural practices — how we cook, how we speak. We are the same, with the very same sufferings, the very same things to enjoy."
His perspective has changed the life of Susan Leister of Upper Arlington, who met him while studying Spanish at OSU.
"Through the eyes of Paco, the world has really opened up to me," she said.
Leister met Villena-Garrido at a Spanish "conversation table," where teaching assistants meet informally for an hour each week with students who want to practice their new language.
His humor and wit permeate his teaching.
When one student made a halfhearted effort to read aloud a sentence in Spanish, he observed: "You have a bumper sticker on your car: Proud to be an American."
As for his plans after he finishes his doctorate in Spanish literature and culture next spring, he said: "Do you have this expression in English — on the dole? That's what people do after their dissertation."
He hopes to land a teaching job at a university in a large U.S. city such as Chicago, New York or San Francisco. After a few years, he'd like to return to Spain.
His adjustment to life in the United States has been eased by Leister and her husband, who have made Villena-Garrido a regular guest in their home to give him a better sense of American family life and to expose their three children to Spanish language and culture.
In the summer of 2002, Leister and her two younger children — then 12 and 17 — spent a week visiting with Villena-Garrido and his parents in Spain.
A few touches of Spain stand out in his small King Avenue apartment, including a print of Picasso's Guernica and his flamenco guitar.
"It's very Spanish," he said. "It was made in China and bought here in the United States."
Above his small couch, photos of family and friends fill the wall — a collage that emotionally bridges the Atlantic.
His life experiences have influenced his writing since he was a young boy. With a shade of embarrassment, he divulges that his mother has kept all of his stories. Undoubtedly, his time in Columbus will influence his future works of fiction.
"Everybody that says they don't write autobiographical stories, they lie."
http://pagina.de/lacajadegalletas Send suggestions for profiles to lifestories@dispatch.com or to Mark Somerson, The Dispatch, 34 S. 3 rd St., Columbus 43215.
dhaddix@dispatch.com
Nah, didn't think so. I'm sure he has MANY MANY other ways to better spend his time.
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