Friday, February 28, 2025

Q&A with Ericka Verba

 


 

 

Ericka Verba is the author of the new book Thanks to Life: A Biography of Violeta Parra. Verba is Director and Professor of Latin American Studies at California State University, Los Angeles.

 

Q: What inspired you to write a biography of Chilean musician and artist Violeta Parra (1917-1967)?

A: Violeta Parra’s music has accompanied my life’s journey ever since I was first introduced to it by a Chilean family who moved to my town when I was in high school. The more I learned about her life the work, the more curious I became.

 

I ended up writing my undergraduate senior thesis on her autobiography in décimas, a traditional poetic form found throughout Latin America. As a musician, I have been performing her songs for decades. Their lyrics have become part of my internal language, coming to the surface of my mind when I need them the most.

 

As a professor of Latin American history, first at California State University Dominguez Hills and now at Cal State LA, I decided to pursue writing Parra’s biography.

 

It turned into a years-long project that has taken me to Chile, Argentina, France, and Switzerland, and has put me in contact with fellow Violeta-maniacs throughout the world. I can truly say it has been my life’s work.

Q: How was the book's title chosen, and what does it signify for you?

A: “Thanks to Life” is the English title for Parra’s most famous song, “Gracias a la vida.” The song has been translated into more than 20 languages and performed and recorded by an ever-expanding roster of musicians, including country music star Kasey Musgraves, cellist Yo-Yo Ma (instrumental version), Latin pop singer Shakira, K-pop duo Davichi, folk singers Joan Baez and Mercedes Sosa, and Cuban singer Omara Portoando of the Buena Vista Social Club.

 

Parra wrote the song in the last years of her life. In it, she gives thanks for her senses and what they enable her to see and hear, for sounds and the alphabet and what they allow her to express, for her tired feet and the many places they have taken her, for her heart that allows her to discern good from evil, and for laughter and tears that let her distinguish joy from sorrow, the materials of her song, which is also your song and everyone’s song.

 

I found the simple phrase “thanks to life” a perfect title for her biography.

 

Q: The scholar Matthew B. Karush called the book a “deeply moving biography and provocative meditation on the production and uses of authenticity.” What do you think of that description?

A: I was very pleased to hear my book described as “deeply moving.” Although a historian by training, I knew that I wanted to write Violeta Parra’s biography so that it would be accessible not just to academics, but to a broad audience curious about her life and work.

 

Karush’s words made me feel as if I succeeded. His reference to authenticity is a reflection of how Parra projected herself and was perceived by others, as “authentic” is the term most frequently and consistently associated with her, during her lifetime, through her impressive afterlife.

Q: How did you research Parra’s life, and did you learn anything that especially surprised you?

A: My book draws on decades of research, virtual and in person, in archives across two continents.

 

They include the Violeta Parra Foundation; National Library of Chile; Archive of Chilean Popular Music; Center for Documentation and Research of Leftist Culture (Buenos Aires); National Library of France; Archive of the Museum of Decorative Arts (Paris); French National Audiovisual Institute; the archive of the French Communist Party (Saint-Denis); the Geneva Library; World Festival of Youth and Students Collection (International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam); Kansan Archisto (central archive for the Finnish Left); BBC Written Archives Centre; and the personal archives of Alan Lomax, Paul Rivet, Jorge Edwards, and others.

I’m not sure how much it surprised me, but what impressed me the most about Parra was the way that she did not seem to understand the concept of “impossible.” On the contrary, she seemed confident that she could accomplish anything that she wanted if she put her mind to it

 

To give just one example, when she was a well-known musician in her early 40s, she decided to try her hand at the visual arts. She ended up creating vast embroidered tapestries using old burlap sacks and scraps of yarn, as well as oil paintings and wire sculptures. Within a few short years, she was showing her art in galleries and museums across Europe.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: I am hoping to get my book translated into Spanish and French, so my next project is to find the right translators and publishing houses to assist me.

Q: Anything else we should know?

A: One question I am often asked when I tell people about Violeta Parra’s life and work is: “Why didn’t I know about her before?” That so many people ask me this makes me very happy because I wrote Parra’s biography precisely because I think people will find her as amazing as I do once they learn more about her.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb

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