Javier Cercas redefines himself with his latest book: "It has changed my perspective on everything."

The new book by Javier Cercas (1962) has not only changed his vision of the Church , but of everything else, according to the Spanish writer, who during his visit to the Lima International Book Fair (FIL) reflects on literature in a world without certainties.

God's Fool at the End of the World tells the true story of an atheist who immerses himself in the Vatican and accompanies Pope Francis on a trip to Mongolia, a story that is becoming a publishing phenomenon because "it's a different kind of book," according to its author in an interview.

"This book hasn't changed my view of the Church, it's changed my view of everything, absolutely . A book that doesn't change your view of things can't be a good book; a book is an adventure, and an adventure that doesn't change you isn't an adventure," Cercas maintains.

In this sense, he said that literature, in addition to being a pleasure, is a form of knowledge , "and knowledge that doesn't change you is not knowledge."

Cercas recalls that the greatest challenge with this novel was to enter the Vatican without prejudice , with a clear perspective, in order to precisely understand, explain, and nuance what happens inside.

Although she says she didn't feel pressured writing about a topic "that everyone has an opinion on," because when she's working she forgets about everything, she did expect the book to generate some controversy.

" My books have always generated a lot of controversy , and what are we going to do? Welcome. If literature doesn't generate controversy, it's not literature. It's there to 'stir it up,' and few books 'stir it up,' very few, which means that literature is becoming more irrelevant every day," Cerca notes, calling it "a disgrace."

The writer defines his latest publication as a "non-fiction novel" that blends essay, autobiography, and chronicle, and which, at its core, follows the model of a detective novel that attempts to uncover a mystery; only this time, it seeks to decipher the mystery of the Catholic faith, "the enigma of enigmas."

The Vatican opened its doors to a writer for the first time, an opportunity that Cercas, despite being an atheist, accepted and accompanied the former pope to Mongolia.

"This invitation is part of the shock that Pope Francis and his collaborators wanted to give the Vatican," declares the writer, who affirms that Francis was very disruptive. But Cercas ventured on this trip motivated by the faith of his mother, a fervent Catholic who was already quite old.

"Compared to my mother's faith, Pope Francis's is rather hesitant. She was one of those people with a rocky belief . When I was approached with this proposal, the first thing I thought of was her," says the Extremaduran author.

He adds that she always said that when she died she would be reunited with her husband, and Cercas understood that she wanted to ask the Pope if that was going to happen, so that she could bring the answer back to her mother.

"When I remembered that, I immediately knew what this book was going to be about, how a 'crazy' man without God, that is, me, a normal guy who was raised in Christianity and who has lost faith, goes to find the 'crazy' man of God in Mongolia to ask him the most basic and at the same time fundamental question , the most personal and the most universal," he says.

During the conversation, he reflects on the fact that we are living in a special time, as Catholicism has been in decline for over a century, and "God is no longer the explanation for everything."

"We are now in what Jean-François Lyotard called the postmodern condition. There are no grand narratives, no grand global explanations (...) We live in a world without certainties, and this is new because people used to live in an ordered world with God, who gave meaning to everything," he says.

Having declared himself an avid reader, he admits that he frequently revisits his favorite authors because rereading his own makes reading go from being informative to something truly literary.

"To tell you the truth , I reread more than I read, but I also read new things . For example, coming to Latin America is very stimulating because you always take home books by authors who aren't widely available there or who are less well-known," he says.

For example, on this trip to Peru, the birthplace of his beloved Mario Vargas Llosa, he read an anthology of essays by the Mexican Luis Villoro , the last volume of the pentalogy by the Italian author Antonio Scurati on Benito Mussolini, and he admits that he always carries Rubén Darío in his pocket.