Angélica Gorodischer Quotes

Writing and translating are part of the same miracle that is language—that which made us human.

As Borges, the Master, said: “When I heard Funes speak, then I had the story.” One has to let the character speak.

Of course, one never writes alone. One writes in the company of all one has read.

I believe all of us are constantly writing the text-that-is-the-world.

I’ve written about all kinds of things and every one of my books is very different from the others, which delights me. You can say that I have carved a style out of all my various resources, out of being different in every book.

(about Argentina's government) But in all this there is an advantage: they have stolen everything from us — our money, our future, public education, work, everything except culture. And they can’t steal this from us because it doesn’t interest them. And it doesn’t interest them because they don’t understand what it’s about. But those of us who write or paint or sculpt or make movies, this is something that we do understand.

We must remember who they are and what they did. Because the future grows out of the past, we must stay alert.

I think that fantasy is inserted in our cells, in the double helix. Sometimes it works and there appear works of pure, magnificent fantasy. Other times authors try to tame her and don’t let her come out, but she’s always there and she ends up doing what she wants.

(about the Kalpa Imperial stories) I thought I was writing a Western version of The Thousand and One Nights. But in 1983 when the initial volume was published, I realized it was all about terror. The fictions brought me round to reality.

People are the same everywhere, in Buenos Aires, in Ulan Bator, in Paris, in Roldán, in Toronto, etc. People always want the same things, to have food, a house, warmth in the winter, cool in the summer, to go to the movies on Saturdays, to go on vacation . . . and to be told stories. To listen to stories is a basic necessity. And everything is a big story: journalism, television, radio, religion, film, everything. We are all readers, active or potential. “Tell me a story,” the reader says. “I am going to tell you a story,” says the author, “but you have to believe me.” “I will believe you,” says the reader. And thus, on the basis of this agreement, those of us who write set ourselves to tell a story. Which can be a novel, or theater, poetry, but that will always be a story. And so we fulfill one of people’s basic needs. As important as food and shelter.

As Borges said, everything that was ever said in the world is a great story. History, philosophy, cookbooks, religions, scientific formulas, tango, novels, boleros, popular songs—all are stories about some part of the universe.

(about Argentina) Its tendencies are self-destructive. Everything here is concerned with death, not life. Argentina functions opposite to the way it should, that’s why it’s surreal.

The crucial task of the writer here is to remember, to try to remember. Not that we should all literally note down facts and events. But memory is inscribed in a literary text in a process I don’t think anyone really understands.

(Who are currently your favorite writers, be they Argentine, Latin American or from elsewhere?) AG: Borges, of course. Borges always. Balzac, also always. Alejo Carpentier, Clarice Lispector, Armonía Somers, Juan Rulfo, Mercé Rodoreda, Grace Paley, Marcel Proust. Oh, so many people, so many!

As Borges said, one must write in a state of innocence. My writing has changed—change is an integral part of writing—and that to me is good. I’d go so far as to say that all of our writing has changed. We all live with the knowledge that during the Dirty War, some left, some stayed, some collaborated, some were tortured. I suppose to some extent we all encode that knowledge so we can go on living and writing with it, so it doesn’t destroy us.