The Latin American Tradition of Voracious Reader-Writers

Anxieties of Experience, with Professor Jeffrey LawrenceLori talks with scholar, translator, and novelist Professor Jeffrey Lawrence about his book Anxieties of Experience:The Literatures of the Americas from Whitman to Bolaño. Lawrence's thesis is that authors in the United States have traditionally written from experience, ala the mantra, “write what you know.” Look at Ernest Hemingway or the Beats. In contrast, authors in Latin American and the Iberian peninsula come to writing from a tradition of voracious reading. Lori and Jeffrey get into how Borges's reputation amongst Latin American authors evolved during the twentieth century from being criticized by the left as a writer hiding in his library to becoming a master figure for authors like Bolaño, and why the American sections of 2666 and The Savage Detectives feel so real when, by every account, Bolaño never set foot in the United States.The second half turns into a wonderful discussion on recommended Latin novels with Jeffrey recommending Cervantes, Mercè Rodoreda’s The Time of the Doves, Fernanda Melchor’s Hurricane Season, Mariana Enriquez’s Our Share of Night, Rosario Castellanos’s The Book of Lamentations, Ricardo Piglia’s Artificial Respiration, Samanta Schweblin’s Fever Dream, and more! He also talks about two projects of his own: a translation of Marta Aponte Alsina’s PR 3 Aguirre, a 400-page novel about an American-owned sugar factory in Puerto Rico that he thinks would make a great big book for the show, and a Spanish-language bookstore he is opening in Manhattan’s East Village this October.Watch above, or listen wherever you get your podcasts.