LATIN AMERICAN WRITERS AT WORK

Name: LATIN AMERICAN WRITERS AT WORK
Author: George Plimpton
ISBN: 0-679-77349-5

edited by George Plimpton ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 25, 2003

A worthy entry in the long list of Paris Review interview volumes, of considerable interest to students of world literature...

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Collection of interviews from The Paris Review with ten authors addressing many subjects but a single overarching theme: What does it mean to be a Latin American writer?

“I despise the term ‘Latin America,’ ” declares Cuban novelist and essayist Guillermo Cabrera Infante. “Better call us Mongrelia. We are mongrels, a messy mix of white, black, and Indian.” For Colombian Gabriel García Márquez, it means to be a descendant of the Cuban Revolution, which, having “turned into an article of consumption,” ignited interest in a literature hitherto ignored both abroad and at home. “What was really sad,” García Márquez adds, “is that cultural colonialism is so bad in Latin America that it was impossible to convince the Latin Americans themselves that their own novels were good until people outside told them they were.” Argentine fabulist Jorge Luis Borges finds the question uninteresting. “For about the last seven years,” he remarks in an interview from 1966, “I’ve been doing my best to know something of Old English and Old Norse. Consequently, that’s a long way off in time and space from the Argentine, from Argentine writers, no?” Chilean poet Pablo Neruda dances around the matter, and a couple of dozen others, with a dazzling mix of erudition and Stalinist sophistry, while exiled Argentine novelist Manuel Puig makes a case for the writer as a citizen of a private world. Other stars take a turn in these pages, with Octavio Paz, Carlos Fuentes, and Mario Vargas Llosa weighing in to throw out gossipy tidbits, offer advice to young writers, and speak to favorite causes. Curiously, only one woman is represented: Argentine journalist and novelist Luisa Valenzuela holds her own just fine, but one wonders at the omission of, for example, Isabel Allende and Laura Esquivel.

A worthy entry in the long list of Paris Review interview volumes, of considerable interest to students of world literature and creative writing.

Pub Date: March 25, 2003

ISBN: 0-679-77349-5

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Modern Library

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2002

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE MAN IN THE FLYING LAWN CHAIR
by George Plimpton & edited by Sarah Dudley Plimpton

- BOOK REVIEW
HOME RUN
edited by George Plimpton

- BOOK REVIEW
PET PEEVES
edited by George Plimpton

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.