Ian de Toffoli / Perhaps in a little while the theater will be the only truly democratic place we will have left

«I write to understand the world» says Ian de Toffoli. The 43-year-old writer who is at the center of Luxembourg’s new literary scene was in Athens a few days ago for the presentation of his new book “The Man Who Couldn’t Find His Country” (published by Nisos). Direct and torrential, just like his writing, with the mood of an explorer of our time, he immediately conquers his interlocutor. He looks more like a Mediterranean citizen than a cold Northern European. After all, in his books he talks about experiences, anxieties and transformations that the societies of the western world share. Writing novels, short stories, plays, he traces “people who have been crushed by the mechanism of the capitalist world, leaving behind only empty molds”, as he characteristically says. Smiling and willing to talk about everything that makes up the monologues of his new book, which, although it is written in his plays, has all the ingredients of a very good literature. Today’s man, unable to reach and understand the changes happening around him, is at the center of his stylus. The old world that is being lost and with it the roots of societies, the “global investor” that oppresses places and people, politics, human relations, loneliness and despair are outlined in a stunning way in the pages of “The Man Who Couldn’t Find the Country” of”. On the other hand, the author, with the valuable help of Alexandros Papadimas-Leite in the translation from French, guides us to his country, to its literature, to its theater, to its daily life. “Luxembourgish literature may have something to say about the state of our Western societies,” he says, while underlining that “perhaps in a little while the theater will be the only truly democratic place we will have left.” Artificial Intelligence worries him, “if we leave it without strict supervision, it will cause enormous damage” he says. He finds that today we “cut off any means of thinking and make them mere machines of consumption,” insisting that “we must be in constant battle against it.”

Who is the man who could not find his country?

His identity is not that of a particular person, it is a kind of man who responds to Western post-industrial societies, which are based on productivity, competitiveness and so-called individual well-being. All these things caused this man the opposite, the loss of meaning, the loss of himself. The country he does not find is his inner country.

Why are your heroes so desperate, lost and alone?

Because the more globalization progressed in the world, the more man was “cut off”. He was cut off from himself, from others, from God or let’s say from spirituality. I depict people who have been crushed by the machinery of the capitalist world, leaving only empty molds behind.

In “Tiamat,” one of the one-act plays in your book, you go deep into the system of what you call the “global investor.” Are you concerned about this condition as it has been shaped and as it has almost replaced the political system?

Yes, absolutely. Technocratic governments bowing to the economy, such as, for example, Macron’s government in France, but also Luxembourg’s government, clearly take the side of big business at the expense of people’s everyday needs. And we know their arguments: work, prosperity… But the result is always the same, prices skyrocket because a minority owns the majority of resources and does whatever they want, increasing impoverishment for all but a few, work is being devalued, social assets are disappearing, and instead of dealing with corporate tax evasion (or even demanding fair taxation), we go after poorer benefits and public spending (schools, hospitals). And the gap between the rich and the poor is widening.

In the monologues of your book you trace life as we experience it in almost all Western societies, with people unable to keep up with the speed with which their lives are changing. Alienation, loneliness, dominance of money and consumption, need for communication and human contact. Where are these transformations?Do you experience them in your country? How is it experienced for them personally?

I experience them as oppressive forces that we must resist every day. We must seek contact with our fellow human beings, with the people around us. To show a radical solidarity to those whose future seems uncertain. We must despise the stupid advertisements that try to convince us that buying a new car is a form of freedom when it is the exact opposite. My country, in a way, is no different from other European countries except that the residents have more money to spend, but the problem is that they end up thinking that this frenzied consumption is the norm.

You write about these issues. Do you think that literature, theater can help the citizen to understand what exactly is happening in his time?

I’m absolutely sure it is, or I wouldn’t be writing. I believe that the theater should assume the role of a space open to public discussion. The role of the ancient Agora. But for this it must be open to as many different audiences as possible.

Ancient Greek myths are often found in the texts of your book. Why;

Because myths are exemplary stories. Real life analysis tools. They help us understand what is happening to us. That is why they were sung to so many centuries ago.

In my country, unfortunately, we don’t know much about Luxembourgish literature and theatre. Do you want to introduce them to us?

Yes, of course, with great pleasure. My country’s literature and theater are struggling to gain visibility in the rest of Europe. About Luxembourg, most people only know the clichés, the position of its economy and the system of economic plunder it applies, but they are unaware that there is a recent but exciting literature and a theater of life. Only in the last decades did theater and literature, in three languages, French, German and Luxembourgish, begin to acquire a professional level, join the European network and slowly become known in Europe, mainly thanks to translation . As in my case, with the publication of a collection of my works by Nisos publications, but also in the case of authors such as Elise Schmit, who were translated and published in Greek, or as soon to be Jean Portante and Jeff Schinker, whose translations into Greek are being prepared in various Athenian publishing houses.

Luxembourg, with its position in the heart of Europe, with its cosmopolitan character, 48% of its inhabitants are not Luxembourgish but from many different countries, and its important position as a founding country of the European Union, on the one hand, and, on the other , as a tax haven where spotless buildings often hide suspicious and problematic cogs of the economy, can be a source of interesting literary subjects. Politics is at the heart of these issues, but so is the conflict between uprooting and identity, domestic prosperity and unfair tax competition, between materialism and lost reference points. Luxembourgish literature may have something to say about the state of our Western societies.

When did you start writing?

I don’t remember exactly, it’s like I’ve been writing forever.

Do you consider writing to be a political act?

Obviously. The function of transmission as well as analysis that characterize writing makes it a highly political act. And especially in the theater, where, as I said before, I believe that we need to strengthen its political dimension. In the theater we reflect on society. As did those who watched the Greek tragedies and comedies in Athens two millennia ago. The Greek theater raised questions about Democracy. The State was at the center of his narrative. They were discussing the rights of citizens. And this remains the most important role of the theater.

Is writing also a good reason to dream?

I would say the opposite. Dreams feed literature.

The issues you deal with are political, identity (issues of identity), existential. What do you aim for by writing?

I am not pursuing anything in particular beyond writing to understand the world. I analyze the world through literature. The theater for me is something like a laboratory of reality. My works often start from reality, from real events or documents, which I transform aesthetically or artistically, I reduce them to ideas (as Plato also said), which allows us to observe the various aspects of reality. I challenge reality. I try the most nightmarish parts of our globalized world. As I said before: the theater as a space for public discussion. We put things on the table and talk. Perhaps in a little while the theater will be the only truly democratic place we will have left.

In your book we distinguish it SOS that you broadcast about today’s man and his place in onen “new” world, without roots, without identity. Do you think it has been cut off from its roots?

Indeed, I believe that one of the problems that our globalized world has is that people are cut off from their roots. But for me these roots are not a nation or a language, but a concept of collectivity or spirituality. Today we push people to be more and more “unique”, imposing on them a sick concept of individuality, based on consumption and materialism, and we feed them crappy series on Netflix or on TV, cut them off from any means of thinking and make them to be mere consumption machines. We must be in constant battle against it.

In the era of rapid development of technologies and science, I wonder whereIs the identity of a citizen, a people, defined anymore?

We must distrust attempts to define a people’s identity. Peoples are made up of various identities. It was always like this. Monocultures are a false construct. But, on the other hand, what the new technologies bring, against which we must also fight, is the homogenization they put into practice, big data and social networks that turn us into products, into numbers, into data to be used, for sale or bargain. I do not accept the idea that an analysis of my data can predict my actions and my decisions, just as I do not accept the idea that Artificial Intelligence can create a work of art. All it can do is imitate techniques.

Many people consider language to be their homeland. Do you share it? If so, how do you manage this issue living in a country with three official languages?

I believe that the great advantage of coming from a trilingual country is that you are suspicious of all kinds of nationalism. I see myself in a denationalized way, and that’s really great. In Luxembourg there is a far-right minority who believe that we should impose Luxembourgish as the only language throughout the country (at the expense of the other two official languages, which are French and German). It’s not just absurd, it’s ridiculous. It’s like someone wanting to cut off both of their hands because they think it will do them good. To believe that the language is a homeland is like being locked inside it. It is as if we forget that the majority of people in this world speak more than one language. Monolingualism is a minority.

With Artificial Intelligence Piohare you doing

Artificial Intelligence worries me a lot because, while it is a tool that could be very helpful to our societies (creating wealth and liberating humans even more), it is only as good, responsible and trustworthy as the people who they build it, develop it and operate it. And it is clear that for technology companies the so-called technological progress must be pursued at any cost, regardless of our safety and respect for our planet. Artificial Intelligence, if left without strict supervision, will cause massive damage, if nothing else, from power consumption. Each question we ask on ChatGPT is matched with an LED light that stays on for 1 hour and 50 minutes. Or, if we take water as a unit of measurement, every 20 to 50 questions corresponds to half a liter of water.

How do you see the future shaping up in Europe and in our world, a liquid world, with two wars in our wider neighborhood, with politics giving way to the financial system?

We live in dark times, with extreme divides, political dialogue now resembles mindless emotional screaming, no one seems to be listening anymore, and the political class is moving away from us at breakneck speed to build forts on Mars. Sometimes I’m very afraid. Sometimes I find it hard to get up in the morning…