"I conceived of Archipelago as fragments of a reading journey that takes the form, precisely, of a group of interconnected islands. One leads to the next through connections that aren't always literary, sometimes casual, but always exploratory, and in the end, they form a geography that is seemingly separate, yet inevitably intertwined.
The books that shape us may not be our favorites, but they are the ones that form a personality and a number of obsessions, for better or for worse; or rather, it makes no sense to ignore these foundational texts because they always return, we always arrive at the same shores. In the 'islands,' I chose a set of books that form a certain core in my tastes, from abject works to the baroque of Donoso and Mujica Láinez, and in the connections, I recount how I came to these readings: favorite publishers, magazines, almost never libraries, rock songs....read more
