News From the Empire with Ron Restrepo

The name Fernando Del Paso was new to me two and a half years ago when author, publisher, and Dalkey Archive Press alum Martin Riker introduced me to Palinuro of Mexico. What a revelation this late Mexican novelist! Here was an author who wrote wildly, exuberantly, and explored consciousness, memory, and the ineffable mysticism of the world in such a compelling way. It didn’t take me any time at all to go out and purchase a second-hand copy of his only other novel to be translated into English, News From the Empire, a thematically different novel than Palinuro, but with that signature, uncontainable writing style. It’s such a pleasure, then, to find a fellow fan of Del Paso, who, like me, wants to foist these novels on adventuresome readers in the US. Ron Restrepo is one of the most intrepid readers I know, and I had fun talking to him about News From the Empire. We discuss that wonderful style, the novel’s polyvocal narration, and how Del Paso interrogates notions of empire and historiography. I hope that this conversation will persuade you to read this exuberant, funny, and tragic novel. Or if not, perhaps you will enjoy our discussion of the brief reign in Mexico of two European royals: Maximillan of Hapsburg Austria and his Belgian bride Charlotte, the daughter of King Leopold, I, and how Europe’s imperial ambitions in Latin America were debated, at times resisted, and other times poorly implemented, with the United States, France, Spain, and the Church in Rome each exercising its power in pursuit of conflicting interests.i