Luisa Valenzuela Quotes

You cannot make a writer-it is an innate way of seeing the world, and a love of language, and a lifetime commitment.

(How does Argentine feminism differ in its objectives and its methods to its American counterpart?) Well, feminism in the States was overpowering during the eighties, while it was quite isolated here. But now the scale has flipped, and it is important to point out that finally, here in Argentina, women’s struggles are intense and out in the open and that force is taking over the streets in a very courageous and powerful way, as you might have well experienced. What is absolutely fantastic here is the power of the women’s movement—the fight is very intense at this point. But we do have a history of courageous and combative women; think of the mothers and the abuelas of Plaza de Mayo. And now the young people are really joining in the demands; it is moving and very heartwarming.

My only real possession was a dream and they can't deprive me of my dreams just like that.

(Which other Argentine and Latin American writers do you appreciate? Or writers from farther afield?) Oh, the list is vast, a movable feast if we may say so. Cortázar is the one who is closest to my way of understanding the act of writing. And nearer to my heart. I admire Carlos Fuentes on the opposite extreme of the equation. That is why I wrote a book on both of them, Entrecruzamientos: Cortázar/Fuentes (Crossings: Cortázar/Fuentes). It is astonishing to discover how much they connect in their so different personalities. But if you ask me for a list, it can go from Clarice Lispector to Haruki Murakami, with innumerable names on the way.

Borges has this wonderful phrase in a short story: "La falta de imaginación los movió a ser crueles" (the lack of imagination moved them to cruelty). Though cruelty with imagination can be the worst of all-just think of certain torturers in our respective countries. As a tool, imagination should only be used by writers, in their writing.

I never felt I had anything to say. Just the curiosity to explore

Those worlds erroneously called primitive have such rich cosmologies.

I suppose El Mañana is my ars poetica.

(Do you think hard times fuel creativity?) Let me separate this question in two. No, I don’t think that hard times necessarily fuel creativity. Often it silences you. Freud knew that very well. I had this ongoing discussion with Joseph Brodsky at the New York Institute for the Humanities; he used to affirm that censorship is good for literature but bad for the writer. But at home it could be seriously bad not only for the writer (who finally takes responsibility for his or her words) but also for everyone around us, even innocent people who appeared in our phone books. And, on the other hand, I did write a lot during those terrible times. But I was one of the very few, and it all started before the military takeover.

(What do you think about the idea of women's language?) VALENZUELA: I openly fight for it. I think there is a different charge in the words-women come from the badlands of language. Women know a lot about ambivalence and ambiguity-which is why, I think, good, subtle political writing by women novelists is dismissed in Argentina. Women are expected to console, not disturb the readers.

he took me in his arms without saying a word, not even holding me too tight but letting all the emotions of our new encounter overflow, telling me so much by merely holding me in his arms and kissing me slowly. I think he never had much faith in words, and there he was, as silent as ever, sending me messages in the form of caresses.

I believe fiction is a search shared with the reader.

Here’s a very short list of Latin women novelists I think should have been considered part of the Boom…Mexico: Elena Garro, Rosario Castellanos. Costa Rica: Carmen Naranjo. Brazil: Clarice Lispector. Uruguay: Armonía Somers. Chile: María Luisa Bombal. Argentina: Silvina Ocampo, Nora Lange, Elvira Orphée, and (why not?) my mother Luisa Mercedes Levinson who was a very original writer. If we can stretch it a little I would add Sara Gallardo.

Otherwise the division is clear. You inhabit another realm when you are writing a novel. It's like being in love-being "in novel." At times, the need is unbearable. During those periods, I don't want to write short stories. On the other hand, I might get a spark or an idea for a story; then I need a certain willpower to start pulling the thread, with the exact tension and patience so as to discover what lies behind the glimpse. Cortázar said that when the moment came he had to go to the typewriter and pull the story out of himself as if he were pulling out some kind of creepy creature, una alimaña. It sometimes feels like that.

(Having lived for many years outside of Argentina, what is your conception of home?) VALENZUELA: I lived for over three years in France, one in Normandy and then in Paris. Practically a year in Barcelona. And ten glorious years in New York, from where I moved back and forth to Mexico and, at least once a year, with trepidation, home to Buenos Aires. I don't miss anything anymore, neither people nor places. Many writers say that language is their real home. I am all for that notion. During the last military dictatorship it was said that the writers who had left the country would progressively distance themselves from their roots until one day they would no longer be Argentine writers. It was a way of dismissing those voices, the only ones capable of being critical and objective about the regime. I, for one, don't need my roots deep in the ground; I carry them with me-like the aerial roots of our local clavel del aire. Anyhow, you can never really return home. Buenos Aires has changed so much that is no longer my city. It is a good place to clam-in and write, and the mother tongue is crucial. One thing I discovered in coming back is the importance of your own intonations as background noise. I left New York when I started dreaming in English, talking to myself in English, thinking in English. The Argentine language is a home I don't want to lose.