RONALD CHRIST
59
at least. What was it like being an Argentine, writing in Spanish, and
having him, a virtual monument who
is
Latin American literature to
many readers, always there?
Puil!.:
I didn 't feel overshadowed or intimidated, simply because Borges is
interested in other things . There was no need to rebel since he's devoted
to such different areas. Ifhe had been writing a serial, I would have been
intrigued ... but that never came up, fortunately.
Christ:
A different point of competitiveness is suggested by Jose Donoso in
his
Historia personal del "boom, "
where he argues that the great Latin
American novels of the 1960s grew longer and longer because the Boom
writers were trying to outdo each other, while the next wave of writers,
including you, reacted and went back to much shorter works.
Puig:
I've never planned the length of my books. I just take the time to
develop my subject, which has varied between 250 and 350 pages .
Christ:
In a sense then, you could be considered as isolated, as writing for
yourself?
Puig:
Absolutely. I read very, very little . I go to the movies a lot. And I
watch old films on TV. I read a lot at one time-between the ages of 15
and 25, but now I only read books about films, biographies or history
books and chronicles, not fiction. I work all day with my own fiction, so
I need something different in the evening. That's no judgment on
fiction. It just doesn't serve my present needs.
Christ:
You are a widely-translated author and, in keeping with what must
be pretty much of a 20th-century custom, you collaborate with your
translators.
Puig:
Yes, and I have had a bad experience with the versions on which I did
not collaborate, such as the Dutch and the German, where I didn 't know
the language. These editions have not been too successful.
Christ:
So the translation is really part of your writing at this point . What
language have you been most successfully translated into?
Puig:
I think English - then Italian, and maybe Portuguese. I think my
work goes well with America. Here there is the same fear of being corny.
The same fear of ridicule. Self-consciousness. This is what makes Ameri–
cans so interesting to me: they never, never take themselves for granted.
There is always self-searching, a certain
desconJianza .
In spite of all the
differences between Argentina and the U.S., there is something impor–
tant in common. The corny side of my characters is understood here,
while in France, for instance, the understanding is very limited . Maybe
it has to do with a country of immigrants, a country of children of
immigrants . At home, Argentines and Americans seldom have the
correct models for speech. Even in Italy, which is certainly not a country
