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Roberto Bolaño, disappearances, and the Welsh
“To the south they discovered rail lines and slum soccer fields surrounded by shacks, and they even watched a match . . . between a team of the terminally ill and a team of the starving to death, and...
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The Holy Coyote
What are the chances of bashing your head on the protuberant arm of the TV bracket twice in your hotel room in the space of ten minutes? The second time my head bled so profusely by the time I got to...
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Books and guns in Guadalajara
One of the great pleasures of the Guadalajara Feria del Libro is the spirit of festivity and celebration. Being a Latin affair, the partying is intense and persistent. Fortunately for his readers,...
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Advice to aspiring writers, and smoking by the riverside
The question – the recurrent question – asked at those events (after a reading, say, or at a literary festival) when the author is expected to wax lyrical and wise on all manner of subjects is ‘what...
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Fiction Fiesta
We met up in Nick’s bar, The Promised Land, to discuss literature in translation with some friends, editors, writers and such luminaries from the field of literary translation as Christopher...
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Traveller of the Century
Many of my readers will know that I am a fan of Andrés Neuman’s writing, and have translated some of his poetry and several of his short stories over the past two years, including for the ‘Best of...
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‘Terra Nostra’ by Carlos Fuentes
Incredible the first animal that dreamed of another animal. Monstrous the first vertebrate that succeeded in standing on two feet and thus spread terror among the beasts still normally and happily...
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Tales of the Alhambra (or thereabouts)
The house of a thousand turds Strange that in one’s memory a house takes on a different shape, a different context, becomes a dream house. When I was living rough, a quarter of a century ago, I spent a...
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