orbis quintus

Here’s a choppily machine translated interview with Enrique Vila-Matas from Milenio:

The Catalan writer, creator of Historia abreviada de la literatura portátil, today presented his latest work invited by the chair Anagrama-UANL.

Borges, Pitol, Kafka, loneliness, suicide, hikikimori are reasons that push in the construction of literature by Enrique Vila-Matas, an author translated into over 30 languages, in whose pages repica simplicity, strength and amazement. Theirs is not a historical literature, nor realistic, nor documentary, is a creative literature. Vila-Matas is in Monterrey and is presented tonight at the University Cultural Center, at 20:00 and with free admission.

Enrique Vila-Matas, Catalan writer of very high prestige and portentous imagination, ha ido weaving a newspaper in the past three years. Hence arose Dietari voluble, the book that serves as a pretext for his visit to Monterrey, where he attends invited by the Chair Anagrama-UANL.

“This is a book in which he discusses books, travel and events of everyday life, always dimension in the same way, so I do not great distinction between life and fiction,” he says.

What is the structure of this book?
Gradually, and from different angles, discussed the world, which I perceive the world. In that sense, is an achievement and frustration, everything comes from that dream of Kafka in which arose: we must say everything. “

Franz Kafka, Juan Rulfo, Juan Villoro, Cesar Aira and Sergio Pitol are some of the authors focused on Vila-Matas in the pages of this book. “I wanted to talk about everything, but being only a newspaper he had to cut, edit, and he ended up closer to a few authors. The author has haunted me the most is definitely Franz Kafka. “

What is the role of Borges in his vision?
This book intertwined my views on literature with many other elements of aesthetic appreciation. Kafka appears about 60 times in this book, while politicians do not appear ever.

Where does their interest as great in The Lives of Others and the phenomenon of hikikimori?
The Lives of Others represents an approach to cinema now, something abnormal in me, because my relationship with cinema is mostly nostalgia. I am very interested The Lives of Others, and is also a metaphor for my book, because here more than talk about my life I talk about the lives of others. And with regard to hikikimori, you want to say that this is the image, for me, the writer locked up, you’re at home with a computer, locked in a radical way and at the same time productive. I, somehow, a hikikimori since I confinement with a computer, navigate and I trying to open doors… step long before the computer, because it is as if you have a big library, could even say that the computer has replaced the cigar; now breaks I see my e-mail, look for a blog, these are the new pieces on the board…

How do you noted the possibilities of virtual book, how conceived?
I wrote the book on virtual because I wondered what in El Pais. The future of the book is the same as the outcome of the next game of football, we do not know and, besides, we would know nothing.

Is there anything you are interested in witnessing and it is impossible?
I would witness the end of the world, which fly before my eyes dramatically. There would have extreme beauty, but it is something that life does not allow me to see.

Enrique Vila-Matas stops, reflects, he remains silent, we all know that a certain nostalgia. Nostalgia for when it had no success, when it was not known. “I have nostalgia for the innocence”.

Serio Pitol is a new name for me, and hikkomori is a new concept as well.

Tags: books, Enrique Vila-Matas, hikkomori

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 30th, 2008 at 8:15 am and is filed under books. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.