Interview with Sergio Chejfec

On the “read next” website they’ve got an interview with Sergio Chejfec, author of My Two Worlds, conducted by the Fric-Frac Club, of which The Quarterly Conversation’s own Francois Monti is a member.

I liked this answer and found it very Chejfec-ian, insofar as I’m allowed to use the adjective after having read just one of his books:

FFC: First literary memory (or emotion)?

SC: My first literary emotion is of a private and defeated sort. I was a very and consistently bored child (I think this was a common thing for my generation, at least it’s what I’ve got to think). One day, it occurred to me to send a fictitious postcard to my mother : it would be written by a sister she had never heard of, who would announce therein that she had numerous revelations to disclose : a dark and scandalous family past, a very sad past, and so on, a real melodrama. In order that the story seem truer, I had to send the card from another country: Paraguay. During my childhood, Paraguay had been for me an exotic country (it was by way of Paraguay that my parents had come secretly into Argentina, after the Second World War). The text was written and I was ready to go buy the postcard at the corner bookstore, on which to to copy it out. But once there, I realized that they didn’t sell postcards for Paraguay, and more problematically even, that I could not send a card from Paraguay! These obstacles proved insurmountable, I had to resign myself finally to the plan’s failure.

I don’t know if there’s some lesson to be taken from this story, or whether to consider it a major defeat. I think that today I would not assign so much importance to details, which seemed so essential then to the making of a credible story. But it was the first time I wrote a fiction and I still remember my anxiety on the walk to the bookstore, in search of a postcard for Asunción del Paraguay.

Also thought it was cool that he would have liked to have written Le Jardin des plantes . . . it would be nice if someone reprinted that so a copy could be had for less than $30.79.

You Might Also Like:

More from Conversational Reading:

1. My Two Worlds by Sergio Chejfec I agree, this is a great book. I'm currently attempting to write something somewhat lengthy and (somewhat) intelligent about the connections between Chejfec and Sebald....
2. Win 12 Books Longtime Chicago indie bookstore mainstay Seminary Co-op Bookstore is holding a flash fiction contest: Look here, we’ve got a contest, see, and this is more...
3. Translate Zama! Interesting to see that NYRB will be publishing Esther Allen's translation of classic Argentine novel Zama. Interesting because last winter when we did Translate This...
4. My Choice to Re-Up I’m a pretty big fan of online subscriptions to print periodicals like the NY Review, etc. This way I can read it anywhere, and it...
5. Excerpt from Personae by Sergio De La Pava I'm told that Sergio De La Pava's new novel, Personae, will soon be going up on Amazon. You can currently get it at Xlibris. (If...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.