In these times there is no bigger liar than hegemonic journalism! So good fiction does a great job of teaching us how to read between the lines and e… - Luisa Valenzuela

Those worlds erroneously called primitive have such rich cosmologies.

(Do you regret anything you've published?) A: There are so many writers who have burned or disclaimed their first books. Borges, for example. What a nuisance. I am very irreverent; I know no shame in that sense. It would mean some kind of censorship, wouldn't it? Of course, there are some books I like better than others-some books still surprise me now, as if someone else had written them. On the other hand, I often regret what I haven't written because I was too lazy or too cowardly. Writing takes real courage and commitment.

(How would you compare contemporary literary life in Argentina to literary life back then?) VALENZUELA: Literary life then was passionate. Literature was really alive; it was something to be taken into account, both in the media and the public sphere. Now we run with the times. Individualism is rampant among the writers, and the media pays much more attention to politicians, starlets and comedians-one and the same-than to intellectuals