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he now lives and works, he purges the sins of both. No other novelist has been able to convey the complexity of the megalopolis Mexico City has become, and no one has revisited the horrors of the coup d’état in Chile and the Dirty War with such mordant, intelligent writing.
    To echo Bolaño’s words, “reading is more important than writing.” Reading Roberto Bolaño, for example. If anyone thinks that Latin American literature isn’t passing through a moment of splendor, a look through some of his pages would be enough to dispel that notion. With Bolaño, literature—that inexplicably beautiful bomb that goes off and as it destroys, rebuilds—should feel proud of one of its best creations.
    Our conversation took place via e-mail between Blanes and my home in Mexico City in the fall of 2001.
    CARMEN BOULLOSA: In Latin America, there are two literary traditions that the average reader tends to regard as antithetical, opposite—or frankly, antagonistic: the fantastic —Adolfo Bioy Casares , the best of Cortázar , and the realist—Vargas Llosa, Teresa de la Parra . Hallowed tradition tells us that the southern part of Latin America is home to the fantastic, while the northern part is the center of realism. In my opinion, you reap the benefits of both: Your novels and narratives are inventions—the fantastic—and a sharp, critical reflection of reality—realist. And if I follow this reasoning, I would add that this is because you have lived on the two geographic edges of Latin America, Chile and Mexico. You grew up on both edges. Do you object to this idea, or does it appeal to you? To be honest, I find it somewhat illuminating, but it also leaves me dissatisfied: The best, the greatest writers (includingBioy Casares and his antithesis, Vargas Llosa) always draw from these two traditions. Yet from the standpoint of the English-speaking North, there’s a tendency to pigeonhole Latin American literature within only one tradition.
    According to Bolaño, the Argentine writer Adolfo Bioy Casares (1914–1999) wrote “the first and best fantastic novel in Latin America.” He was close friends with Borges and married to the writer Silvina Ocampo. The collaborations between Bioy Casares and Borges were many and varied. In 1990 he was awarded the Cervantes Prize, the highest honor in Spanish-language literature. His major work is
The Invention of Morel
(1940).
    Perhaps Bolaño’s favorite author, Julio Cortázar (1914–1984) influenced scores of Latin American authors. Bolaño refers to him as simply “the best.”
    An early force in Spanish language literature, Teresa de la Parra (1889–1936) was the daughter of a Venezuelan diplomat. She was born in Paris and raised in Europe but returned to Venezuela when she was nineteen. Her major work,
Iphigenia
(1924), is a work of modernist realism.
    ROBERTO BOLAÑO: I thought the realists came from the south (by that, I mean the countries in the Southern Cone), and writers of the fantastic came from the middle and northern parts of Latin America—if you pay attention to these compartmentalizations, which you should never, under any circumstances, take seriously. Twentieth century Latin American literature has followed the impulses of imitation and rejection, and may continue to do so for some time in the twenty-first century. As a general rule, human beings either imitate or reject the great monuments, never the small, nearly invisible treasures. We have very few writers who have cultivated the fantastic in the strictest sense—perhaps none, because among other reasons, economic underdevelopment doesn’t allow subgenres to flourish. Underdevelopment only allows for great works of literature. Lesser works, in this monotonous or apocalyptic landscape, are an unattainable luxury. Of course, it doesn’t follow that our literature is full of great works—quite the contrary. At first the writer aspires to meet these expectations, but then reality—the same reality that has