WINNER OF THE CERVANTES PRIZE
This well-conceived tale of journey and discovery confirms Pitol’s ability to translate his experiences into interesting reading.
“And suddenly, one day, I asked myself: Why have you never mentioned Prague in your writings? Don’t you get tired of constantly returning to the same stale topics: your childhood at the Potrero sugar mill, your astonishment upon arriving in Rome, your blindness in Venice? Do you perhaps enjoy feeling trapped inside that narrow circle? Out if sheer habit or loss of vision, of language? Is it possible that you’ve turned into a mummy or a corpse, without even realizing it?
Shock treatment can yield amazing results. It stimulates weakened fibers and recues energy on the verge of being lost. Sometimes it’s fun to provoke yourself. Without going overboard, of course; I never ridicule myself in my self-criticism; I’m careful to alternate severity with panegyric. Instead of dwelling on my limitations, I’ve learned to accept them graciously and even woth a degree of complicity. From this game, my writing is born; at least that’s how it seems to me. “
THE SECOND BOOK IN SERFIO PITOL’S GROUNDBREAKING AND INFLUENTIAL “TRILOGY OF MEMORY”
“Pitol is probably one of Mexico’s most culturally complex and composite writers. He is certainly the strangest, most unfathomable and eccentric… His voice reverberates beyond the margins of his books.”
This well-conceived tale of journey and discovery confirms Pitol’s ability to translate his experiences into interesting reading.
-Publishers Weekly
“And suddenly, one day, I asked myself: Why have you never mentioned Prague in your writings? Don’t you get tired of constantly returning to the same stale topics: your childhood at the Potrero sugar mill, your astonishment upon arriving in Rome, your blindness in Venice? Do you perhaps enjoy feeling trapped inside that narrow circle? Out if sheer habit or loss of vision, of language? Is it possible that you’ve turned into a mummy or a corpse, without even realizing it?
Shock treatment can yield amazing results. It stimulates weakened fibers and recues energy on the verge of being lost. Sometimes it’s fun to provoke yourself. Without going overboard, of course; I never ridicule myself in my self-criticism; I’m careful to alternate severity with panegyric. Instead of dwelling on my limitations, I’ve learned to accept them graciously and even woth a degree of complicity. From this game, my writing is born; at least that’s how it seems to me. “
THE SECOND BOOK IN SERFIO PITOL’S GROUNDBREAKING AND INFLUENTIAL “TRILOGY OF MEMORY”
“Pitol is probably one of Mexico’s most culturally complex and composite writers. He is certainly the strangest, most unfathomable and eccentric… His voice reverberates beyond the margins of his books.”
-Valeria Luiselli, author of Face in the Crowd
* Esta contraportada corresponde a la edición de 2015. La Enciclopedia de la literatura en México no se hace responsable de los contenidos y puntos de vista vertidos en ella.
