Luiselli & Schweblin: Advice to the Young

“Literature is always a journey”, agree writers Samanata Schwebelin and Valeria Luiselli in this short conversation. “A journey that promises to learn something new that is vital. It may be just a little detail, but it’s going to be a revelation that changes something within you.”

Both authors continue reflecting and agreeing on a quote by the Russian poet Vladimir Mayakovsky: “The experience of good literature, like great friendships, come out of the revelation of a secret. Not in the sense of revealing something dark, but a passion that is suddenly transmitted or shared.”

Samanta Schweblin (b. 1978) is an Argentinian writer. Her first publications – two slim volumes of prose, ‘The Core of the Disturbance’ (2002) and ‘Birds in the Mouth’ (2009) – immediately led to her international breakthrough. Her short story collections have received numerous awards, including the prestigious Juan Rulfo Story Prize. Her original short novel ‘Fever Dream’ (2017, originally published 2014) is her first novel translated into English and was shortlisted for the 2017 Man Booker International Prize. Both Mario Vargas Llosa and the literary magazine Granta have proclaimed Schweblin as one of the most interesting contemporary young Spanish-language writers. She lives and works in Berlin.

Valeria Luiselli was born in Mexico in 1983 but, the daughter of a diplomat spent her childhood traveling the world. Her award-winning novels have aroused media attention as an important part of a new wave in Latin-American literature. She is the author of the internationally acclaimed novel ‘Faces in the Crowd’ (2014, originally published in 2011), which won the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction. Her 2015 novel ‘The Story of My Teeth’ won the Los Angeles Times Prize for Best Fiction and the Azul Price in Canada. Luiselli is also the recipient of the National Book Foundation ‘5 under 35’ award (2014). Her work has appeared in publications such as The New York Times, Granta, and The New Yorker. She lives and works in New York City.

Samanta Schweblin and Valeria Luiselli were interviewed by Peter Adolphsen at Hotel Rungstedgaard in Denmark in connection with the Louisiana Literature festival in August 2017.

Camera: Simon Weyhe & Mathias Nyholm
Edited by: Klaus Elmer
Produced by: Christian Lund
Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2021
Supported by Nordea-fonden

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