Letter Killers Club by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky
Moleskine Literario points me to an interview with Daniel Sada, the Mexican novelist whose book Casi nunca previously caught my attention.
Now I'm doubly interested in having someone translate this guy.
la vivo y creo mi realidad personal. Este pacto lo tienen que entender
los que me lean. Siento que el escritor enteramente realista es el más
enriquecido, el más conservador de todos. Si uno no apuesta por algo
fantástico, por los lados ocultos de la realidad, si uno no prevé que
puede haber otros enigmas en la realidad, como escritor y autor está
muy limitado. Argentina es el único país con tradición fantástica,
estamos encerrados en el realismo. Ni siquiera la magia y el
pensamiento del realismo mágico hay que inventar. La realidad mexicana
a lo mejor es fantástica. . . .
En las universidades norteamericanas se está analizando el problema de
la concentración en la lectura y si antes un estudiante de Harvard leía
tres horas diarias, ahora difícilmente lo haga más de una hora. El
mundo moderno nos instala una gama de distractores por todos lados.
Estamos saturados. Uno tiene que tener en cuenta el hecho de que el
lector se puede escapar en cualquier momento. Todo se está
contaminando, no hay purismos en nada, ya no hay totalidades, ni del
lenguaje, ni de la novela, ni de nada, todo está como en piezas… Como
diría Rubem Fonseca: el que ha muerto es el lector, no la novela.
For what it's worth, Sada's contribution to Best of Contemporary Mexican Fiction is excellent, one of the best in the anthology. It really embodies what Sada describes above as the "occult sides of reality." Somewhat similar to Roberto Bolano, the story feels completely flat and even banal, but it's suffused with a feeling of something more, unseen but definitely not unfelt.
Although, the Spanish is fairly difficult. Not sure if this is a matter of archaic words or what, but if that story is any indication, I don't think I'll be reading him in the original.
More from Conversational Reading:
- Someone Translate Daniel Sada After reading this review in Letras y Libres, I’m amazed that none of Daniel Sada’s novels are available in English. (Although, to Dalkey’s credit, a...
- 450 Pages of Never-Published Cortazar Coming It turns out that there’s a lot more than three unpublished stories from Julio Cortazar. As Ñ reports, a 450-page book containing collected stories, poems,...
- The Latinos Love Onetti Interesting. Mario Vargas Llosa has written a sort of homage/critique of the works of Uruguayan literary titan Juan Carlos Onetti. For the Argentine publication of...
- Cuban Publishing in Decay Letras y Libres has an extensive article on what’s become of Havana during the Castro years, especially as pertains to its arts scene. Among other...
- HermanoCerdo 21 The Hermanos have unleased a new issue, so–Spanish-readers among us, go to it! Among other treats, this issue features the always-worth-reading (and author of a...
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