Enrique Vila-Matas: "I'm really bored with Trump."

Spanish writer Enrique Vila-Matas , who gave a lecture in Rome about his long and renowned literary career , is growing tired of US President Donald Trump, whom he once criticized : "He bores me a lot," he said.

Conversations at the Gianicolo. ROME.

"My attitude is that, as Anne Carson said, no matter how hard life is, what matters is making something interesting out of it. And this has to do with the physical world, with looking at things, the snow and the light and the smell of the door (...) pic.twitter.com/6b37sDnxBo

— Enrique Vila-Matas / Web (@TomMir7) June 28, 2025

"I haven't been focusing on the subject lately. Television and the media are constantly on it . Frankly, I'm really bored by Trump," explained Vila-Matas, one of the most important European authors of today, whose works have been translated into 32 languages.

The writer commented that he was quite critical "at the time, when he appeared" of the US president, whom he once described as "a deranged lunatic" and "a buffoon," but he is no longer interested.

Asked what he thought of Trump threatening Spain with retaliation before the world for refusing to increase defense spending at the recent NATO summit, he was quite eloquent: "Words are carried away by the wind."

Vila-Matas (Barcelona, ​​1948) was the protagonist of the third conference organized by the Cervantes Institute in Rome , with the support of the Spanish Embassy and the Association of Italian Hispanists (AISPI), with important names in Spanish literature, after those of Eduardo Mendoza and Juan Jesús Armas Marcelo in 2023 and 2024.

"This is a meeting attended by Hispanists from all over Italy, and therefore, from a literary point of view, it seems very important for me to be here and to be accompanied by Elena Liverani, who has been my translator for years at Feltrinelli," he said.

The lecture was "a kind of literary biography of what I've written," from "the beginning to the present day, my work and how it has developed, a few autobiographical words about the construction of literature."

And he expressed his delight at the event, adding "Italian writer friends, who for me are undoubtedly among the best of their generation, such as Andrea Bajani and Gennaro Serio, a Neapolitan author living in Paris."

Not to be forgotten were members of AISPI and authorities such as the Spanish ambassador in Rome, Miguel Ángel Fernández Palacios; the director of the Cervantes Institute in Rome, Ignacio Peyró; and the Spanish Minister of Agriculture, Luis Planas.

Vila-Matas stated that he feels highly valued in Italy and grateful for the awards he has received.

" I've been widely read and awarded many prizes here, in a place where I don't have the popularity of others, because I write a special kind of literature," he says of his work, which blends irony, argumentative wit, and metaliterary reflection, which at the beginning of his career raised doubts about whether it would be easy for the reader.

But " little by little, over time, they have become familiar with it , with many readers" and the proof is the presentation of the last book I published in Spain, with which I toured the entire country and with a large audience."

" There is what is called a sect, which is not really a sect, with quite a large following , which can be seen in contact with people in different places," he says, citing Madrid and Barcelona, ​​but also Pontevedra, Granada and Gijón, after a "long tour in which it could be seen that it is true that there is this series of followers who have increased in recent times."