Interview With Cultural Historian & Author Diego Moldes

 

 

1. What inspired you to write this book?

My inspiration was contemporary Jewish creators in the arts and sciences. As a film historian, I noticed the disproportionate number of directors, producers, screenwriters, and distributors of Jewish origin in the film industry in general, and in the United States in particular — since 1911—. I started with cinema, then moved on to literature (where the Jewish presence over the last 200 years has been enormous), and I completed my research over two decades or more. 

2. What exactly is it about — and who is it written for?

My book explains that it is impossible to understand the modern world, the world of today, without knowing about the contributions made by Jews in all areas, from human rights to medicine. The book is aimed at the public, not specialists, even though it is a scholarly work. 

3. What do you hope readers will get out of reading your book?

Readers will be so surprised that, after reading and rereading it, they will realize that Jewish inventions, discoveries, and contributions are present in their daily lives everywhere, without them even noticing. When they connect to the internet, when they turn on the TV with a remote control, when they sign a check or pay with cash, when they eat yogurt or drive a gasoline-powered car. In a thousand things in everyday life, they will realize that a very important part of human progress over the last 250 years is due to Jewish entrepreneurs from the diaspora. Including AI. I am not exaggerating. My book is unbiased and explains this with almost encyclopedic objectivity. 

4. How did you decide on your book’s title and cover design?

The design of the cover and the entire book, including the covers, interiors, typography, etc., is the work of Sophie Appel —sophieappel.com—, a great designer from New York. It was supervised by my editor, Robert Mandel. It took us months to come up with a cover as attractive as the one she designed. The idea of using the names of Einstein and Kafka as a metaphor, as perhaps the two greatest examples of the 20th century in empirical science and literature, the arts, stems from a trip I took to Prague in March 2011, when I learned that Einstein and Kafka, a hundred years earlier, in the spring of 1911, began to meet at the Café Louvre. Coincidentally, I returned to Prague and had lunch at the Café Louvre, now, on September 15 and 16 of this year, just as the book was published in the United States and Canada. A Jungian synchronicity. 

5. What advice or words of wisdom do you have for fellow writers – other than run!?

Having written 15 books — I have published 15 and have two more scheduled for publication in 2026 and 2027— in completely different genres and styles, I can only give one piece of advice to all young writers:

Don't take advice from anyone!

Write whatever you want. 

6. What trends in the book world do you see -- and where do you think the book publishing industry is heading?

Contrary to what doomsayers believe, never before have so many books been written, published, printed, translated, and read as today. Thirty years ago, we were told that ebooks would have replaced paper books by now. That has not happened. The printed book is irreplaceable. The publishing industry competes with what Soshana Zuboff called “surveillance capitalism”, the Big Tech companies that are developing a new digital cultural ecosystem, and economic system, based on data rather than quality content. It is based on capturing attention (leisure time is limited). The publishing industry should not focus on market countries but on languages, because reading boundaries are not national, they are linguistic. Spanish and Chinese are the languages that will grow the most, followed by Arabic, Portuguese, and Hindi, English will remain the world's leading lingua franca for decades to come, while for demographic reasons, the book industries in German, Russian, Italian, Japanese, and perhaps French will decline. As for the life of the paper book, it will continue to be dominant —no longer hegemonic— until approximately the 2050s or 2060s. After that date, the paper book industry will disappear and the book, as an object, will become something of a minority, exclusive, perhaps even a luxury item.

7. Were there experiences in your personal life or career that came in handy when writing this book? 

Yes, of course, the research process itself, my various jobs — in television, marketing, foundations, and academia, in the education and cultural sectors— have influenced the book, as have my travels to various countries in Europe and the Americas. My book devotes more pages to literature and cinema because that is my area of expertise. 

8. How would you describe your writing style? Which writers or books is your writing similar to?

My close friend Alejandro Jodorowsky, filmmaker and writer, told me almost twenty years ago: “Don't try to write to make money, try to make money so you can write.” That's what I do. Unlike in the US — a huge, global book market—, in Spain and almost all of Europe, writers have other jobs: we don't make a living from writing. Given this, creative freedom is much greater, because the writer's brand is not tied to a style or genre, as is the case with the great literary stars (I'm thinking of Stephen King, the living author most adapted to film and television in the world). That creative freedom allows each book to be in a different style, in different genres. In my case, none of my books are anything like each other. A journalist once told me that my books seemed to be written by different people. I don't know if it's a virtue or a flaw, but I write each book with its potential readers in mind, not myself. In Spain, I am a writer for educated minorities. I don't sell many books, but I am read by the people I want to read me, educated readers who, in many cases, are influential in Spain. 

9. What challenges did you overcome in the writing of this book?

The challenge was to eliminate readers' prejudices and, to do so, I first had to eliminate my own prejudices, those I had when I was 18 or 20 years old and which I have since freed myself from. We are all immigrants, temporary travelers in this world, and we must walk with the only thing that defines us as human beings: our education and our culture. Humanism. Almost everything else is superfluous.  

10. If people can buy or read one book this week or month, why should it be yours?

If you read my book, you will understand why anti-Semitism or Judeophobia exists and is wrong, and why philo-Semitism (philo, φίλος —Greek phílos—, meaning “lover of,” i.e., love) is necessary. Anti-Semitism is the oldest racial hate crime and is the serpent's egg from which other crimes are born: racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, Hispanophobia, Gypsyphobia, etc. We are living through the most turbulent and dangerous geopolitical times in 80 years. In the face of violence, war, and discrimination, I advocate for peace and love. For CULTURE, with capital letters.

About The Author: Diego Moldes is a Spanish writer, an essayist, novelist, poet and historian of cinema and culture. He holds a PhD in Information Sciences (Complutense University, Madrid), a BA degree in Advertising and Public-Relations, an MA in Publishing and an MA in Foundation Management. In 2019, Galaxia Gutenberg published his book Cuando Einstein encontró a Kafka: Contribuciones de los Judíos al mundo moderno. His latest cultural studies book is En el vientre de la ballena: ensayo sobre la cultura (In the belly of the whale: An essay on culture, 2022). To date, Diego Moldes has published 15 books. For more information, please see: www.diegomoldes.com

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For the past three decades, Brian Feinblum has helped thousands of authors. He formed his own book publicity firm in 2020. Prior to that, for 21 years as the head of marketing for the nation’s largest book publicity firm, and as the director of publicity at two independent presses, Brian has worked with many first-time, self-published, authors of all genres, right along with best-selling authors and celebrities such as: Dr. Ruth, Mark Victor Hansen, Joseph Finder, Katherine Spurway, Neil Rackham, Harvey Mackay, Ken Blanchard, Stephen Covey, Warren Adler, Cindy Adams, Todd Duncan, Susan RoAne, John C. Maxwell, Jeff Foxworthy, Seth Godin, and Henry Winkler.

 

His writings are often featured in The Writer and IBPA’s The Independent (https://pubspot.ibpa-online.org/article/whats-needed-to-promote-a-book-successfully). He was recently interviewed by the IBPA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0BhO9m8jbs

 

He hosted a panel on book publicity for Book Expo America several years ago, and has spoken at ASJA, BookCAMP, Independent Book Publishers Association Sarah Lawrence College, Nonfiction Writers Association, Cape Cod Writers Association, Willamette (Portland) Writers Association, APEX, Morgan James Publishing, and Connecticut Authors and Publishers Association. He served as a judge for the 2024 IBPA Book Awards.

 

His letters-to-the-editor have been published in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, New York Post, NY Daily News, Newsday, The Journal News (Westchester) and The Washington Post. His first published book was The Florida Homeowner, Condo, & Co-Op Association Handbook.  It was featured in The Sun Sentinel and Miami Herald.

 

Born and raised in Brooklyn, he now resides in Westchester with his wife, two kids, and Ferris, a black lab rescue dog, and El Chapo, a pug rescue dog.

 

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