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HOMEMAGAZINENUMBER1DOSSIER:RICARDOPIGLIA

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INTERVIEW CURRENT ISSUE

"Literature is a Society without a Number1

The rst issue ofLatin

State": An Interview of Ricardo

American Literature
Todayfeaturesa dossier
of Argentine writer

Piglia
Ricardo Piglia, who
passed away in January
of 2017, and short stories
by the outstanding young
Mexican author Nadia
Villafuerte.
Oriele Benavides

Leeen
ESPAOL TABLE OF CONTENTS

Editor's Note
Editor'sNote:January2017

Chronicles
"AVisittotheCasadehablas"byNstor
Mendoza

Poetry
TwoPoemsbyMikeasSnchez

DosPoemasdeIgorBarreto

ThreePoemsbyAnaEnriquetaTern

Essays
"PlanetCaicedo"byAlbertoFuguet

We can only approach Ricardo Piglia with difficulty, with the timidity and Dossier: Ricardo Piglia
PigliainTranslationbySergioWaisman
contemplativedistanceimposedbyanalmostexcessivesenseofveneration.Itsbeen
years since I reread his work, but Ive never ceased to be surprised by the phrases ASceneofTranslation:AnInterviewwith
withwhichheconstructshisprose,histonethatsoundslikespokenlanguageand,at SergioWaismanbyDeniseKripper
the same time, is denatured, as if pulled out from within the page, his enigmatic
"LiteratureisaSocietywithoutaState":An
phrases, skillfully placed like explosives: literature is nowhere to be found as an
InterviewwithRicardoPigliabyOriele
essence, it is an effect psychoanalysis is the melodrama of the middle class in a
Benavides
sense, a writer writes in order to know what literature is criticism is one of the
modern forms of autobiography literature is a battlefield criticism is a variant of TheRealandItsSecretMiracles:An
detective fiction the ideal reader is the one produced by the work itself history is InterviewwithRicardoPigliabyRodrigo
writtenbythewinnersandtoldbythelosers.Andsoon. BlancoCaldern

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Piglias critical texts, in the form of enigmas, decoys, and traps, do not offer The17thRmuloGallegosInternational
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immediate answers or concrete interpretations of themselves, but rather a sort of NovelPrizeSpeechbyRicardoPiglia
prolific resonance and a displacement, a disconcert, a disease, and a game that
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inhabitsthephrasedespitethephrase,ordespiteourselves:theperplexityofthecritic Featured Author: Nadia
faced with the observed object also becomes, in this case, perplexity faced with the Villafuerte
phrasethatshouldcertifyandsoothe,toacertaindegree,theexperienceofreading. "HappyBox"byNadiaVillafuerte

OnecannotdenythatthecriticalworksofRicardoPigliaareequallyindispensable,
"Whadayalookinfor?"byNadiaVillafuerte
inseparable(andsometimesindiscernible)fromhisnarrativeworks.
"CosmoGirl"byNadiaVillafuerte
In this sense, his receipt of the Rmulo Gallegos prize, which he was awarded last
"TurnAround?"byNadiaVillafuerte
yearforhisnovelBlanconocturno[TargetintheNight](2010),wasanidealoccasion
on which to investigate the paths of literary criticism according to Ricardo Piglia, "Animmigrantneverreallyarrives":An
their relationship with fiction, and the spaces shared by these discourses, and to InterviewofNadiaVillafuertebyArthur
receive, in passing, some advice from this essential figure of contemporary Latin Dixon
Americanliterature.
Interviews

AConversationwithJorgeEdwards:

OrieleBenavides:Howdidyougetstartedwithliterarycriticism?Inwhichspaces BetweenFictionandRealitybyJorge
EduardoBenavidesandCsarFerreira
didyoubegin?

RicardoPiglia:ThefirstthingIwrote,intheyear1968,Ithink,wasanessayover Nota Bene

ManuelPuig,becauseIreallylikedLa traicindeRita Hayworth[BetrayedbyRita NotaBene:January2017
Hayworth],Puigsfirstnovel,whichIreadbeforeitwaspublished.Afriendgaveitto
me, and it really caught my interest because its a novel that produces an effect of BOOK REVIEWS
transformation: its a comingofage novel connected to film. I wrote a review that I HistoriaoficialdelamorbyRicardoSilva
publishedinajournalwehadbackthen.Andyoucouldsaythatmyworkasacriticis Romero

linked to the fact that I, between 1963, when I was a student, and 1983, was always ElsolylacarnebyCamilaCharryNoriega
connectedtoliteraryjournals.Iwasaneditorbackthen,Iformedpartoftheeditorial
Tegustaelltex,cielo?byNadia
ordirectoryboardsofvariousimportantjournalsthatwerepublishedinBuenosAires, Villafuerte
so you could say that I got my start in journals, in parallel to working with fiction I
SitevierasconmisojosbyCarlosFranz
startedtointervenewritingessays,writingcriticism.
ElcolordelEgeobyArmandoRomero
Later,Istudiedhistory.Iwasnteducatedasacriticinthemostclassicalsense.Iwas
UnasuertepequeabyClaudiaPieiro
very interested in reflections on literature, more than in critical reflection. So those
weremybeginnings. CmaranupcialbyJorgeEsquinca

TierraRojabyPedrongelPalou
OB: So it was in journals where you started to try to intervene, as you say, in the
Argentineliterarysceneoftheday? AriesPointbyNancyBird

ElamoreshambrebyAnaClavel
RP:ThefirstjournalIwasinvolvedwithwascalledElEscarabajodeOro[Thegolden
scarab]. It was a very interesting journal where we published short stories by young
writers,andIhadwononeoftheircontests.LaterwehadajournalcalledLosLibros
[The books] that was dedicated to reviewing all the books published per month in
BuenosAires.Thatwastheinitialidea.Butourrealprojectwastocriticizethecritics
from the media, from the magazines, from the papers, the ones who were forming
public opinion about literature. We put them in an awkward position. The critics
werentusedtoseeingtheirownwritinganalyzedforachange.Andtheygotnervous.
AndwebegantochangecriticisminBuenosAires,werenovatedthecriticalspaceof
Argentina.Webegantoincorporateelementsofpsychoanalysis,elementsofmarxism,
elementsoflinguisticsintocriticalreading.Thoseweretheyearsofstructuralism.We
movedinandoutofthosehypotheses,andwetoldthecriticsfromthepapersthatthey
hadbetterstartreading,thattheywerewritingbasedonlyontheirpersonalopinions
of books, and that they had no proper criteria. And, in a way, looking back with

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historicalperspective,wefeltthatwemadesomerealchangesinthewaycriticismwas
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doneinArgentina.
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OB:Anddidacademicspacesanduniversitiesplaysomeroleintheliteraryworldin
whichyouweretryingtoimposenewwaysofreading?

RP:Anotherreallyimportantaspectofthosebeginningswasthattheuniversitieswere
subjecttointerventionfromthemilitaryregime.Thatwasanimportantcircumstance
formygeneration,becauseweweredoingwhattheuniversitiesshouldhavedonebut
werentdoing.Wewerepartofanewgenerationthat,perhaps,wouldhavetaughtin
traditionalacademicspacesand,perhaps,wouldhavebeencreativebasedondifferent
circles and modes of thought if the universities had carried on their previous course,
but that couldnt be done in practice because the military leaders had appointed all
their own faculty. Journals were a way to create an alternative to conventional
universitythought,which,obviously,wasveryreactionary.

OB:Youofteninsistuponthepossibilityofcriticismasadeviantformoffiction,with
other intentions, and even upon the importance of highlighting the critical discourse
thatcomesfromartiststhemselves,inplaceofwhatiswrittenbyprofessionalcritics.

RP:Thisissomethingfrombefore,afieldofinvestigationthatIdontbelievehasyet
been addressed. I think that in the history of criticism, you talk about Auerbach,
Bakhtin, Benjamin, so many critics. But you dont talk about writers as critics. Like
Borges, who is a great critic, and Eliot, and Auden, and Bertolt Brecht, who is an
extraordinarycriticandhadalotofinfluenceonBenjamin.So,duetoaprofessional
technicality, critics dont take into account a critical tradition that has very relevant
importancebecauseitrepresentsawaytothinkaboutliteratureoutsideofthetypical
relationshipsestablishedbycritics.

OB:Whatisthedifferencebetweenawriterwhodoescriticismandatruecritic?Does
itcomefromadifferentestablishmentoftheirrelationshipwiththetruth(ofthetext,
orofcriticismitself)?Orfromtheplaceofenunciationthatconditionstheunfoldingof
theirdiscourse?

RP:Iholdtheclassicalcriticaltraditioninhighregard,Idontthinkitsantagonistic
to the tradition of the writers own perspective on literature. But I think the writers
perspective on books is something different. Lets see. An initial issue is the type of
criticism thats written by writers who talk about literature, about the processes of
writing,andevenaboutthediscoursesthatsurroundthem.Theywriteprologues,they
maketheircriticalopinionsknownthroughinterviews.Sometimestheydontpublish
manyoftheircriticalnotes.Wehavetoreconstructwhattheysay,whichisdispersed
in notebooks, personal diaries, conferences. They dont necessarily write books of
criticism.Andwhentheywritebooksofcriticism,theyalwaysdosoinamannerthatis
notthetypicalmannerofthebooksofcriticismoftheclassicaltradition.

Asfaraswhatyoumentionedabouttheplaceofenunciation,Ishouldsaythatcertain
critics have exceeded the academic world, like Susan Sontag or Raymond Wilson:
writers who have intervened in newspapers, who are very good critics and who,
although they have no university degrees to speak of and they dont write from a
position within the university, do form a part of the great critical tradition. The
writings and reflections of writers do not feature in that tradition, but I think they
should.

OB:Butapartfromthat,istherealeveloffictionalizationadoptedbysomecriticswho
aremoreconnectedtoliteratureinordertoconstructcriticalhypotheses?

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RP: What would the fictional voice consist of within critical discourse? I think the
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fictional voice, or what we call fiction within criticism, comes from the fact that one
always works with examples. The example could be an entire book, or it could be a
ABOUT
momentfromabook.Thatsthebaseuponwhichthecriticalhypothesisisbuilt.Think
ofanyfamousnamefromcriticism,likeBakhtin,whousesDostoevsky.Later,Bakhtin
starts to elaborate upon his hypothesis, but he has Dostoevsky as the nucleus of his
concrete investigation. Dostoevskys work serves as the material around which he
assembleshisinvestigation.

And, well, we writers sometimes invent our examples, we dont only work with real
world cases. Imagine I wrote a book about readers and I took examples from novels,
and I chose the example of Guevara, and sometimes I put together hypotheses and
said,letsimagineareaderwhoisaloneonadesertisland.SoImnotacriticinthe
classicalsensebecauseIdidntdoanyresearchoverreadinginsocietyIdidntwritea
work,letssay,abouthowreadingisdiscussedincriticaltexts.Thebookalsohasthe
peculiarity of being more narrative, because it works with examples that come from
novels,likeAnnaKareninaprovidingilluminationforherreadingwithalamponthe
train.Thatseemstomelikeanimportantelementinrelationtomyowncriticism.

OB:Couldtheconceptofmetaliteraturebereversedinthefictionalconstructionofa
criticalvoice?

RP:Somestoriesaremorelinearandsomestoriesincludereflection.Criticsinvented
theconceptofmetaliteraturesotheywouldnthavetoresignthemselvestosayingthat
truly literary criticism also exists, and they put such stories in a space they call
metaliterature. But what about the Quixote? In the Quixote, there are constant
discussionsofliterature,discussionsthatformpartoflife.So,itseemsverycleartome
that in the great novelistic tradition there are always discussions about literature,
aboutlife,aboutlove,aboutallsortsofthings.Novelscannothelpbutincludeinterior
reflections. Wherever someone is thinking of a novel, we can find implicit criticism.
Would it be possible for a novel to exist in which one didnt say something about an
issue,like,forexample,whatshappeninginVenezuelanliterature?Thereisalwaysa
discussion: two characters go to a restaurant and start talking about literature. And
thoseideasaresometimesveryproductive.

Isayjokinglythatthecriticchasestheauthor,whichistruetosomeextentjustasthe
detective chases the criminal and tries to find his fault, to find the crime he has
committed,ifhehasstolensomething,iftheideaishisown.Thereisanattitudeinthe
veryfunctionofcriticismthattendstofollowthecluesandprintsofthewriter.But,on
theotherhand,criticshaveplayedanextremelyimportantroleinthehistoryofculture
becausetheyhaveallowedmanybookstoberead,ortobereadinadifferentway.

OB: In many cases, nonetheless, criticism tries to establish itself as a discourse of

authority,ortoholditselfupasaforcefoundedinjudgment.

RP:Literaturehasavirtue,andthatisthatliteratureisasocietywithoutaState.We
havetoknowthat.NoonecanforcesomeoneelsetosayhelikesTolstoyandnoone
cantellsomeone,Dontreadthatbook.Literaturehasnoplaceforalawthatcansay
thistextisgood,thattextisbad,liketheStatedoesinsociety.Andwhothinkstheycan
createsuchanorder?Critics.Butthatpowerisalwaysunstable.Becauseyoucanwrite
thatthebestwriterintheworldisClariceLispector,orVirginiaWoolf,thatawomanis
betterthanShakespeare.Andyoucanproveit,andnobodycantellyouyesorno,or
thatyourecommittingsomesortofcrime.Sincethereisnoestablishedlaw,theways
in which literature can be discussed are much more fluid. So there are arguments.
Therearecriticswhohaveprestigeandcanthereforeinfluencereadersopinionsmore
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decisively. But readers will always end up deciding for themselves, even if they allow
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themselvestobeorientedbycriticaltexts.Youwontfindthesamedynamicyoufindin
society itself, its very difficult to do that with literature. Its very difficult to force
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someonetoreadinapredeterminedway.Theacademytriesto,andonemightthink
thatinstitutionssuchasliteraryprizesareanattempttoorganizeliterature:tosaythat
one novel is better than another, which always comes across as somewhat arbitrary
anduncertain.Thereisnotonesinglewaytogivestructuretoliteratureortheliterary
field,andthat,Ibelieve,impliesaveryinterestingculturaldynamic.

OB:CertaintracesofWalterBenjamin,whoalwaysmaintainedanambiguousposition
onthephilosophicalandacademicdiscourseofhistime,andwhomaintainedasense
of tension between the careful aestheticism of his prose and his politicization or
explicative ambitions, seem to be present in the way you construct your critical
stories.

RP: I read Benjamin because there is always an argument in Benjamin. Theres the
Marxist Benjamin, the Benjamin influenced by Brecht, and theres the mystic
Benjamin,influencedbyScholem:histwogreatfriends.InthemiddleisAdornoand
theFrankfurtSchool,whichtriedtopulltheMarxismoutfromunderBenjamin.The
extraordinary thing about Benjamin is that he conserves the two ideas at the same
time,andthatswhyhesagreatcritic.HesaMarxistandamysticatthesametime,
and that produces an extraordinary effect. Ive always read him in conjunction with
Brecht,sincethetwoarealwaysthinkingaboutthesamethings.Andwhatstheidea
there,whataretheytryingtosee?Theyreseekingthematerialconditionsofliterature,
thematterofMarxistreflection:whereliteraturecomesfrom,becauseitdoesntcome
only from its creator what are the social conditions that literature brings into play.
Andinthatsense,BenjaminmadeagreatcontributiontoMarxistcriticism,whichhas
generally been more schematic. Because, instead of asking about the operation of
literatureaspraxis,Marxistcriticshaveturnedtheirreflectionstowardthecontentof
theworks.Theyfocusonwhetherornotthereareworkersintheworkratherthanthe
mode in which literature intervenes in social life: opening new paths and utilizing
techniques what will later be used in journalism, for example. That is Benjamins
position, which interests me very much, as does Gramscis. They were the two great
Marxist critics who did what Marx couldnt do, or didnt have time to do: think up a
theoryofsuperstructure,atheoryofwhathappensinculture,inideas.

OB:Isitpossibletoteachcriticism?

RP:IteachwhatIwrite,IvebeenteachingformanyyearsandnowImalmostretired.
And Ive always taught and discussed these things. Ive given seminars over these
problems:thewriterascritic,paranoidfiction,howtoreaddetectiveliterature.AndI
think that teaching literature must be linked to producing critical investigators who
havetheirownthought.

OB: In your acceptance speech for the Rmulo Gallegos prize, you made a sort of
analogybetweenthemythicalfiguresofUlyssesandOedipus,suggestingthatthereare
two essential types of storyteller. Would you say that the first corresponds to the
archetypeoftheclassicalnarratorandthesecondcorrespondstothearchetypeofthe
critic,ifsuchathingexists?

RP:Ulyssesistheonewhotravels,movesthroughotherplacesandtellsaboutwhathe
saw there. Oedipus is the one who constructs a story in the form of an investigation.
Butthecritic,inthatcase,wouldbeFreud.

OB:Andwhatmakesagoodcritic?

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RP:Agoodcritictransmitspassionforliterature,becausewithoutpassionnothingcan
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happen. It could be a political, literary, or sentimental passion. I think thats an
elementthatisgenerallyleftout,becauseitsmoredifficulttoanalyzeduetotheeffects
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itproducesandthemeaningoftheeffectsitproduces.So,whenIsaypassion,Imean
somethingthatisnotexclusivelyrational.ThatswhatImtalkingabout,thatswhatI
try to transmit when I point out the critics I admire: those who transmit interest in
literatureandwhoseeliteratureasanelementtoawakeninterestinculture.

TranslatedfromtheSpanishbyArthurDixon

OrieleBenavides(Caracas,1983)earnedherundergraduatedegreeinLettersfrom

theUniversidadCentraldeVenezuela(UCV).ShecompletedaProgramofSuperior

StudiesinPsychoanalysisattheNuevaEscuelaLacaniana(basedinCaracas)and

aMaster'sinLatinAmericanLiteratureattheUniversidadSimnBolvar(USB).

Shecurrentlyteachesaspartofthesamefaculty(DepartmentofLanguagesand

Literature),wheresheisworkingonathesisonthecontemporaryLatinAmerican

novel.ShehasparticipatedinconferenceswithinandoutsideVenezuelaonLatin

Americanliterature.SheistheauthorofthecomicbookadaptationofLatiendademuecos[Thedollstore]byJulio

Garmendia(2016).

RecommendedReading:
AConversationwithJorgeEdwards:BetweenFictionandRealitybyJorgeEduardoBenavidesandCsarFerreira

"Animmigrantneverreallyarrives":AnInterviewofNadiaVillafuertebyArthurDixon

ASceneofTranslation:AnInterviewwithSergioWaismanbyDeniseKripper

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