“I was surprised by the Juan Zelaia Prize. For the last two years I have been making texts, quiet, without objectives... I saw in the press the call for the Zelaia prize, and I decided to sort out, adapt and present a little more of those texts. Even if we don’t give them any prizes, they will get to know each other and maybe publish it,” Fermin Erbiti told us at the starting point of the conversation.

Why did you stop the Three Little Notebooks session?

I have found the starting points of the texts in the books, but not all of them. There are also movies and songs or successive reflections of a phrase heard from someone. Most of them are sentences taken from books. That is why I started to throw away, with the intention of offering my little thought, always without mentioning the last points, but with the intention of contributing my contribution. I took most of the books in libraries. But I couldn't make any comments or point, because I had to return it. I like to write in the book. So I kept three little notebooks. When I filled all three of them, I said to myself. “Maybe you can get some serious stuff out of them, start working.”

Do you have a tendency to go to libraries, people also have a habit of going around you?

The main library was here, next to the house of Comptos; in San Francisco Square. For me, perfect. He has recently been moved to the west of Pamplona, to the other end... I've always used the library a lot. I would say that people use it, and that there are things that are well-ordered, another thing is how they care for libraries. I know some good librarians, that is, politicians also take the library into account. After all, that investment does not give many votes, does it?

“Books are full of ideas that amaze us,” he said.

The book lets you meet a lot of interesting people. For example, I read Primo Levi's books and then I thought, In Pamplona – and in Navarra in general – we will have writers of their style, perhaps not of their quality – of stories about Nazis, but what happened and was written in Navarra in the war of 1936 is very interesting. The accounts of the winners and losers... In the war, some were book lovers, even among the winners. Some Falangists were of high cultural level and there are interesting testimonies of them. We can go backwards and get to know what the losers said.

There's something to explore, I mean.

Yes. Some people want to forget some things today... For example, the Count of Rodezno or the lives of Galo Vierge [The Culprits; Pamiela] are truly interesting. What moved me was what the Vierge said to me: On Friday of Easter the procession in San Antón Street, where the Virgin was, the painful one, is paralyzed. She stays, and a half-crazy woman tells another one: “You cry because you have been killed by a son, for I have been killed by five children.” People were on their knees. Terrible. In other words, we have been told that it was suffering, but how each party has told it, or how the winners have reflected it. It was the same, but everyone tells it in their own way. Knowing that is very important. The case of García Serrano is also there: the Pamplona, his son made an interesting book, they gave him a prize for his book The Great Hope. I met these writers in the search for Primo Levi's book. I mean, there are people like Primo Levi everywhere.

You are critical of the press. Are there many journalists in Spain?

I'm talking about Kapuscinski's passage in this sense. “Good journalists are humble people who respect and show that attitude...” In other words, radio or television is turned on and empathy is lost in the press, especially in the Spanish media. I'm amazed. At the Faculty they told us in a while that “in Spain there is no yellow press, all the newspapers are of quality. In Britain, for example, there are newspapers that are not serious ...". But within what is said here is good, what isn't there? The tone of the media is often predominantly the message.

“Monterroso doesn’t write, he directs.” Oscar Wilde has removed the comma from the text in the morning and put it back in the afternoon. What is your writing experience?

(Laughter) Well, pick up and resume the text. That happens to me a lot. When I worked in the press, I spent a lot of time in the newspaper with commas and others. The next day I read the text again and thought, “Why did I take that coma?” Despite the many laps it gives, it takes this off and it changes. The writing process never ends, once printed you always find some error.

It's also written differently according to humor ...

Writing is the struggle. Sometimes you think you've written something round, but you'll always find something. So I really liked Monterroso and Wilde.

Your program also has an irony point.

Irony is very important in life and literature, of course. Borges said it's important that you take your life ironic or get away from situations, get out of your head. I mean, I have to leave Fermin to see Fermin. It's important to do so, because it shows you that things or events aren't as serious as we think, they're not that big.

You have taken into account, among others, Pablo Antoñana. It deserved more...

What to say about Pablo Antoñana. He is one of the greatest writers in Navarre, and he has shown it very well. Antoñana knew very well Navarra, suffered a lot. How hard is the road, if you walk alone? It says so in Miguel Sánchez-Ostiz's latest book on the situation in Navarre. This is in Pamplona we all know each other but we do not love each other, there is nothing that unites us to the majority. Antoñana wrote a lot about intolerance. You know how well we live under the cloak of the crew, and Antoñana wasn't like that, she was very critical, very literary, and here she was not heeded. Well, the Government of Navarra awarded him the Prince of Viana Prize. Amazing, knowing her trajectory.

“About the degree of intelligence of the interviewer and interviewer” has written in Hiru Koarderno txiki, Salvador Paniker Yellow Notebook for...

It's really interesting to know how others see us. I was recently sent a criticism, made by a philosopher, who saw in my texts things that I did not know.

He has also brought the anecdote of a Basque writer who did not know his book. Our global brand.

Yes. The high school teacher asked the students to write a couple of pages about the book of a Basque writer. A 17-year-old boy, who had a neighbor writer, went home to visit her. He wrote the book keys by the author's hand and presented the work to the professor. The professor tells the student: “I’ve put you five, and I’ve been very generous because you haven’t understood the main keys of the book.”