Suddenly, dear reader, I realized that this newsletter has been devoting too many installments to the novel or to books whose entrails are closer to a novel than to the story or stories.
As usually happens to me, realizing something like that, I mean, something that was happening without my being fully aware of it, made me angry: how can you be such an idiot as to allow yourself to be carried away by the same inertia that criticizes you for? with a determined voice, to the ecosystem of the book.
That is why in this installment of Letras americanas, seeking to recover some of the lost time or seeking, rather, to rescue some of the books that were passing us by but that deserve to be commented on in this space, various volumes, anthologies, and anthologies are presented. , recoveries and collections of stories and tales – this foolish question of what is the difference between one and the other will not be answered here, because the answer is that, although they are not the same, they are the same, because they are not the same, unless one has a Wikipedia head.
A couple of anthologies and a recovery
“This book is a crucifixion and an INRI”, says the epigraph of the first book of stories published by the Bolivian María Virginia Estenssoro, back in 1937. I make it clear here because, as the genius surely knew, brutal and, from any point of view, seen ahead of its time, Estenssoro, is the first epigraph that, more than opening the door to the reader, opened it to their prejudices: The deceased, in which three stories are presented that account for death, extramarital relations , desire, the limits of what is real and reverie, and an abortion —that of the narrator—, unleashed —as only usually happens with the best literature— a fierce campaign against a writer who, thus, was silenced for too long for reasons that they had nothing to do with the literary quality of his work, which is simply extraordinary.
In Mexico there is a word that, for a long time, should be at the center of all the statements with which we try to reimagine ourselves as a society, as a country and as individuals: tequio. The tequio is, summarizing it to the minimum, a work that is carried out in community and that seeks, solely and exclusively, the common good, that is, a work that renounces the good, the profit or the satisfaction of one. This is what all the texts of Relatos lumbug are about —lumbug is, in fact, the Filipino word for that same task of the tequio that, in the experience of other languages (from which the other stories start), is called mutirāo, ubunta or gadugi —.
Since, for once —in addition to recounting these stories—, as is clear from the previous anthology, we let our newsletter extend its tentacles towards other languages, let us also let this “one time” take us further. : in Chile they have published Diario del Hospicio, an anthology of texts by the incomparable Lima Barreto, another of those authors who, even though they had been condemned to the periphery because of their time, their social condition and their skin color, achieved what those would not. that were applauded: beat time, thanks, solely, to the power of his work.
Expand that of the concave borders of the genre
There are two books of stories and tales that, in reality, expand the idea we have of them, intermingling them with each other and mixing them, moreover, with texts that, at first glance, might seem to be something else, even allowing them to bump elbows and heads. knees with the forms and entrails that we normally adjudicate to the novel, the chronicle or the journalistic text: This story is no longer available, by the Argentine Pedro Mairal, and Children’s Literature, by the Chilean Alejandro Zambra.
And it is that both Mairal’s book —consisting, above all, of short pieces such as shots but in which the longest pieces stand out with their own brilliance— and Zambra’s —composed, above all, of long pieces such as memories of a shot but in which the shortest pieces stand out with their own brilliance—, they do similar things: they present texts that are not novels or chronicles or journalistic texts solely and exclusively by the will of their authors.
By the way, both the Argentinean and the Chilean author carry out a similar operation, which works out very well for both: they condense into small pearls, planted almost accidentally, the meaning not only of a story but of its volumes: “I write with my experience and with the periphery of my experience, what happened to me and what almost happened to me, what I would have liked to happen to me”, writes Mairal.
Some tales inside the convex side
Closer to the traditional form of the story —although in both cases there are texts that break that border, as well as writings that stretch the threads of experimentation— are the books by the Mexican Elisa Díaz Castelo, El libro de las costumbres rojas, and Olivia Teroba, Small manifestations of light. Both books —first works with respect to the short story— give the reader delicate and momentary, but at the same time unsettling and permanent cracks that bend time and perception. And in both volumes there is a greater coincidence, which says something about the world and today’s literature: both Díaz Castelo and Teroba write about a woman who has lost her speech and, in both cases, I think, it is the best of their stories.
Little by little, my need to lessen my debt to the pile of story books and short stories—in which many readings that I have enjoyed will remain, unfortunately—is dwindling. The space of this text, however, shortens with each word I write, so I have just chosen the last two volumes that I am going to mention, I continue: dear reader, please, you have to read Los árboles, by the Bolivian writer Claudia Peña .
And you have to read it because it is one of those books that, in addition to transforming reality with a handful of words, causing it to be inhabited, invaded or supplanted by something that, although it was already there, no one else had seen, makes it clear that it is not It doesn’t matter if the body belongs to one or to our environment, because, after all, everything is interconnected.
Los Árboles also makes another thing clear: that it doesn’t matter if a text is a story or a story, because what matters is that its experience inhabits us. Something that the texts of the last book that I am going to stack here also do: Wild Tales.
And it is that there is finally an edition that condenses the work of one of the best living storytellers of our continent: Ednodio Quintero.
Quintero, as Vila Matas said, is pure text, it is strictly literature.
Coordinates
The deceased was published by Fomento Editorial UNAM. Lumbug Stories is part of a project carried out by eight publishers from different countries and which was published in our language by Almadía. Diarios del Hospice was published by Montacerdos. This story is no longer available was published by Emecé. Children’s literature was published by Anagrama. The Red Ways Book was published by Elephanta, while Little Manifestations of Light was published by Dharma Books. Los árboles was published by El cuervo editorial. Wild Tales was published by Atalanta.
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