José Luis Olaizola has died. And with him, not only has the voice of a great storyteller been extinguished, but also that of a man who knew how to live life with coherence and open-mindedness. He was a member of Opus Dei, yes, with nine children, and he also won the Planeta Prize for his novel about the life of a republican and Catholic general, something that many did not like. But Olaizola was like that, a person open to nuances and willing to seek the truth even if it did not play in single-color teams.
Not everyone knows that part of his efforts were devoted to helping Thai girls out of child prostitution. His work "The girl from the rice field"He is a sensational narrator of the drama that takes place on the other side of the world. He got involved in this adventure by chance, when a Buddhist literature teacher, Rasami Krisanamis, asked him to translate his novel "Cucho" into Thai. He agreed on the condition that the profits would go to a charitable cause. Thus was born an unlikely but profoundly human alliance: a Spanish novelist from Opus Dei and a Thai Buddhist who joined the adventure of a Jesuit missionary, Alfonso de Juan, who for decades has been dedicated to taking girls out of the prostitution networks that proliferate in Thailand.
In 2006 Olaizola founded the NGO Somos Uno, which has educated more than 2,000 girls, 200 of whom have gone on to university. She did it without making noise, without ideological banners, without demanding labels, because, as human beings, there is much more that unites us than separates us.
That trait of his -the open mind, the ability to see the other without prejudice- marked both his literature and his life. He was able to imagine with respect and depth a republican general who kept praying the rosary, without falling into the reductionism that usually marks historical or ideological stories. For Olaizola, the human always came before the partisan.
In a time marked by ideological trenches, José Luis Olaizola dared to build bridges: between religions, between cultures, between seemingly irreconcilable pasts. He saw in a Buddhist teacher an ally. In a Jesuit missionary, a brother. And in some Thai girls, his own daughters.
A Catholic who did not pigeonhole himself, a writer who did not seek easy applause, an activist who did not need labels, has died. Rest in peace José Luis Olaizola, a witness of nuances, a sower of hope.
