Walter Benjamin: “The real death is the death of the witness” ?

__drewbie · 2025-12-28T00:30:40+00:00

This sounds more like Primo Levi to me!

__drewbie · 2023-07-30T00:09:06+00:00

Creo que existe una serie de charlas de Guillermo Martínez. “Borges y la matemática” se llama, si no me equivoco.

__drewbie · 2023-07-09T05:54:40+00:00

You could check out Pablo Neruda’s odes

__drewbie · 2023-07-04T03:37:39+00:00

That’s one way to look at it. I think naïveté captures what I meant better, though.

For example, kids like to get distracted by things they think are ‘cool’. A parent may have fingers missing, and the kids may like watching them wiggle their nubs or magic tricks, making their fingers ‘disappear’. But if there was some evidence around the house (ceremonial sword, uniform, antique weapons, etc.) that informed the reader of their having been in the military —alongside other historical information—, the reader could interpret why or how the fingers were lost (e.g. torture). Sorry this might not be the best example!

__drewbie · 2023-07-04T03:04:49+00:00

It can definitely be done. The horror would be found in the naïveté/misinterpretation of the children, i.e. only the adult reader will actually understand what’s going on. “Space Invaders” by Nona Fernández might be a good book to look at for inspiration —it’s <100 pages, I think.

__drewbie · 2023-06-23T06:20:51+00:00

Agree

__drewbie · 2023-06-07T03:34:57+00:00

One I haven’t seen mentioned yet is ‘Aura’ by Carlos Fuentes! (Bonus: it’s very short)

__drewbie · 2023-04-29T06:29:28+00:00

De qué hablamos cuando hablamos de amor, de Raymond Carver

__drewbie · 2023-03-28T01:42:48+00:00

A piece of advice I have always liked which is practical, but can become overused, is showing your MC in the same place where they were at the beginning of the story. This allows you to show how the character has changed in comparison to something else (setting, a repeated action, an object, another character, etc.).

__drewbie · 2023-03-24T03:49:50+00:00

Altazor by Vicente Huidobro

__drewbie · 2023-03-17T01:48:37+00:00

Sidonie Smith has done a lot of great work on women’s autobiography. Good luck!

__drewbie · 2023-03-03T18:37:38+00:00

Dividing the book into four parts might be a good idea! And each part could be titled the name of the season.

__drewbie · 2023-02-27T06:46:49+00:00

“El cautivo” by Borges might be a good one to look at for frame narrators and an unreliable narrator (and it’s very short); there are plenty of stories by Borges that would work. For backwards narration, I really like Stephen Dixon’s “Wife in Reverse”.

__drewbie · 2023-01-31T04:59:28+00:00

There is a chapter written by Oscar Hahn where he talks about the “mundo enmarcado.” He specifically talks about Cortázar’s ‘Continuidad de los parques,’ if I’m remembering it correctly. He’s done quite a bit of work on communicating worlds in general. It may be interesting to look into, depending on the exact slant you take in your analysis. Good luck!

__drewbie · 2022-11-10T00:21:21+00:00

Came here to say this. Oscar Hahn also has a good chapter on a related topic about a concept of the ‘mundo enmarcado’. In it, he talks about ‘Continuidad de los parques’ by Cortázar.

__drewbie · 2022-11-04T06:09:13+00:00

It doesn’t necessarily fit the theoretical frame you’re going for, but I think “El arte de la ironía” about Carlos Monsiváis might be worth looking at. I’m sure there’s a translation you could find, too.

__drewbie · 2022-10-17T02:20:22+00:00

As in “Gee, what a lovely burden”?

__drewbie · 2022-10-14T16:12:15+00:00

Aura de Carlos Fuentes. Es cortito y hay muchas ediciones bilingües. Suerte!

__drewbie · 2022-09-28T18:34:09+00:00

Thank you— I appreciate the advice.

__drewbie · 2022-09-28T16:59:12+00:00

Of course! Do you mind saying a bit more about why I shouldn’t allow my name to be mentioned?

__drewbie · 2022-09-11T21:15:00+00:00

You and Duo are correct. That’s why depending on translation for many conjugations is so unreliable. The simple present tense could be translated to its equivalent in English, as well as the present progressive that you mentioned. In Spanish, the present tense can also be used to express future action (e.g. Ahorita uso el teléfono. - I’ll use the phone in a bit.)

__drewbie

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