I have known Jaime Bayly since those years when we were both younger, more reckless and probably more naive. I met him when my first books and his were beginning to make their way among readers who still believed that literature could be an elegant form of insolence. He invited me several times to his television program and accepted, with the naturalness and freshness that has always characterized us, that I suggest guests. Some of those guests, once benefited by the media exposure, never had the courtesy to thank him, much less me. Bayly was always available. Or at least he always had the intelligence to understand that public conversation is a collective effort, a chain of intellectual and human complicities.
I have always considered Bayly a great writer and also a friend. Not a close friend, perhaps not an everyday one either. But someone with whom I shared a certain vision of freedom, that word so mistreated by politicians and so necessary for writers. We are not equal. We never have been. Yesterday we had differences and today we continue to have them. But precisely these differences are those that exist between two beings who refuse to belong to a herd.
The defense of freedom in Cuba was one of the points that united us. Other matters separated us. It’s normal. True friendship does not consist of agreeing, but rather accepting that the other thinks differently without having to turn them into an enemy.
Because if something defines Bayly, it is that he has never been a comfortable man. And I love being an uncomfortable woman.
As a writer, he occupies a unique place in contemporary Latin American literature. His novels mix confession, satire, memory, provocation and a permanent desire to exhibit human contradictions. He does not write as an academic or as a priest of culture. He writes like someone who is suspicious of all solemnities. That’s why it has gained loyal readers and passionate detractors. The two things usually go together.
From Don’t tell anyone to his most recent works, Bayly has cultivated a recognizable voice from the first lines. He can talk about politics, family, love, resentment, desire, failure or aging without ever losing that confessional tone that seems born from a midnight conversation. Many writers have style. Few have a voice. Bayly has both.
As a television presenter, he also broke the mold. When he appeared on the Peruvian and then international screen, he showed that an interview could be intelligent while still being entertaining. He introduced a type of irreverent conversation that berates politicians, celebrities and moralists alike. His talent was not only in asking questions. It consisted of creating unpredictable situations.
The interviewees never knew exactly what was going to happen.
And that was precisely the best.
While anesthetized people endured a current situation dominated by calculated speeches and prefabricated responses, Bayly turned spontaneity into a spectacle.
Her most recent article, titled “I Will Never Be a Happy Woman,” published on October 25, 2026, once again showcases some of the best strengths of her recent writing. In that column he maintains his habit of starting from personal and intimate experiences to explore universal emotions. The tone is melancholic, ironic and deeply human, a combination that has been a trademark of the house for decades.
What I like most about Bayly’s current columns is that they seem to be written by a man who no longer needs to prove anything. You don’t have to shock to get attention. You don’t need to manufacture controversies. The stories flow with a naturalness that only writers who have learned to live with their demons possess.
I also really liked his latest book and, in general, almost everything he is doing recently. That does not mean that I agree with him on all his political positions.
I do not agree, for example, with his showcase anti-Trumpism. Nor with what I consider a fishbowl anti-Keikoism. Nor with a certain Mariacorinist enthusiasm that, at times, seems to lean towards an excessively linear reading of Venezuelan reality.
I admire the courage of María Corina Machado. She seems like a brave woman to me. But courage does not automatically make anyone a statesman. Courage can coexist perfectly with populism. And sometimes it coexists.
Bayly, like so many other analysts and commentators, has the right to his preferences and his enthusiasms. It would be absurd to demand neutrality. Absolute neutrality does not exist. The important thing is not to lack opinions, but to express them honestly.
And in that Bayly is usually exemplary.
You know where you stand when you hear it or read it.
He never tries to hide his preferences behind a mask of false objectivity.
Maybe that’s why it generates so many reactions.
There are writers admired by everyone. They are generally harmless and irrelevant.
There are other writers hated by everyone. He and I belong to those.
Bayly belongs to that rare species of people capable of being admired and detested simultaneously. And I think, deep down, he enjoys it. Me too.
Because we both share a certain vocation to bother. Bayly is an annoying guy. Me too, and I love it.
The more numerous the “everyone” we bother, the better we feel. There is something deeply healthy about irritating the ideological tribes, the guardians of orthodoxy, the manufacturers of uniform thought. When only one side applauds you, you are doing something wrong. When you manage to make all sides uncomfortable, maybe you get a little closer to the truth.
We are, each in our own way, a beam in the eye. A lit match next to a cannon. The thread of a thong between the slits, or bars.
We know perfectly well that discrepancy has a price. We have paid it many times. But we also know that intellectual freedom would be impossible without that cost. That’s why I’ve never been too worried about agreeing or disagreeing with Bayly. The essential remains. The writer remains. The interviewer remains. The guy who decided to speak when others were silent remains. The narrator who turned his own life into literary material remains. Above all, the will to challenge conventions remains. And that, in an era obsessed with conformism disguised as virtue, has enormous value.
When I read Bayly’s recent columns I see an author who has achieved something that very few achieve: remain recognizable without repeating himself. He keeps writing about himself, of course. But now he does so from a more reflective perspective, more aware of the fragility of time and the inevitable defeat that awaits us all.
Perhaps that is why his recent texts have a special resonance. They are no longer just provocations. They are also meditations. The irreverence remains, but accompanied by a wisdom that only the years grant.
In the end, when I think of Jaime Bayly, the exact definition of “ball player” comes to mind – which is what I am too, a little Chinaman’s ball player – and, with permission, an unexpected image: the six tapestries of The Lady and the Unicorn, in the Cluny Museum. Especially the last one, the most mysterious of all, the one that is titled “À mon seul désir”, “To my only wish” – like the honorary ball player that I emphasize that I am. Because Bayly, despite all its contradictions, controversies and excesses, has always followed a single desire: freedom. The freedom to write what you think. The freedom to interview whoever you want. The freedom to make mistakes. The freedom to rectify. The freedom to bother. And maybe that’s why I keep reading it. Because truly free writers are increasingly rare. And the real ball-players, even more so.
