What is the greatest dream of every writer in the world? No, it’s not the Nobel. The Nobel is just a pathway to this holy grail, this pinnacle of achievement. Without this one thing, you aren’t even a real writer, no matter how famous you are or how many copies you sell or how many awards you get in your native Mexico, Russia, Spain, Morocco, or Japan.
My currently most favorite writer in the world, Rafael Chirbes, was about to reach this shining pinnacle of writerly success when he died of lung cancer. He still got it, of course, but posthumously.
More about Chirbes’s last book in the next post.
A scathing review from someone famous? Some literary magazine? Knowing how tricky your questions are, I had to go for a totally counter-intuitive option.
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Look at the list of the countries I gave. I didn’t mention India, for instance. ☺
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An English translation.
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Yay! Exactly. That was fast. ☺
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Your hint made it a bit too easy. 🙂
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” I didn’t mention India, for instance. ”
IINM more Indian writers write in Indian languages than in English. I’m not sure what the domestic market for literature in Indian languages is but I assume it’s not trivial.
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Yes. Have you read Antonio di Benedetto’s novel Zama? It was translated last year. Now it exists outside of Argentina.
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