His thing was putting his body and voice into it. His presentations were filled like concerts and his presence crossed different worlds. Artist, writer, performer, and pop figure, Pedro Lemebel (1952-2015) built an unavoidable legacy in the cultural scene.
Whether as a performer in Las Yeguas del Apocalipsis, announcer on Radio Tierra, or activist for dissidences, his provocative public appearances and readings of chronicles before packed theaters made him a true rockstar. It was a life marked by fame, the night, and intensity.
But that same voice, which functioned as his main creative tool and perhaps his greatest political weapon, began to fade. Throat cancer emerged as the greatest challenge of his life, confronting the chronicler with the possibility of losing exactly what defined him for so long.
That story is the driving force of Prenderse Fuego, a new biographical series dedicated to the late Chilean writer, directed and narrated by Trinidad Piriz, and researched and written by journalist Pedro Bahamondes (with assistance from Sebastián del Pedregal) for Podium Podcast and the Gabriela Mistral Cultural Center.
The documentary production is structured in six chapters, which premiere with a new episode every Wednesday. Through the audio format, with sound design and original music by Luciano Correa, the project seeks to preserve the record and cultural impact of the author.
“It is an urgent voice to hear in these times and we are recovering it and returning it to a public sound archive so that everyone can hear it for free on platforms,” explains Paula Bahamondes, a culture-specialized journalist, about the central objective of this new production.
The starting point of the project is set in the final months of the author of Tengo miedo torero. Bahamondes explains that the narration takes Lemebel from the critical moment when he realizes he is losing his voice. At that time, the chronicler began recording himself intimately to capture how he sounded and prepare for a possible return to the stage, a space he inhabited until the end.
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But the journalist’s original idea was different. On the tenth anniversary of the artist’s death, the market saw new biographies emerge and Lemebel’s catalog was unfrozen after reaching an agreement between his successors and the Planeta publishing house. In that context, Bahamondes sought to write an article focused on the author’s second novel. It was a work that Lemebel even announced with a title in the press and previewed its plot, but the progression of cancer prevented him from writing it.
During the reporting of that truncated story, the journalist remembered Constanza Farías, a friend and collaborator who accompanied Lemebel during his illness. Bahamondes met her in 2013, when he interviewed the writer for the supplement El Semanal of La Tercera. When contacting her to inquire about the lost texts, he found a surprise.
“I didn’t know he had recordings. I called her just to further investigate that novel story and then she told me. That was the origin,” Bahamondes says to Paula.
From that sound discovery, Prenderse Fuego structured a narrative that advances on two lines. On one hand, it follows the physical decline and the path toward death. On the other, it uses the silences and blackouts in the audios as a bridge to travel to the past, reviewing the multiple creative facets of the artist.
The six chapters of the series address his complete evolution. The narrative covers his first stories in literary workshops, his immersion in performance, the reading of his manifesto, and his leap to urban chronicle. It also rescues his stage as a freelance worker for magazines in the 90s and his influential role as a radio announcer.
“Beyond the literary or artistic records, there is also this journey through Pedro’s voices, which are all different and were his power of seduction in every sense,” reflects Bahamondes. It is precisely that vocal strength that turns his illness into an absolute tragedy, a process that, according to the journalist, is destructive by taking away his main creative tool.
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