A personal essay on literary interviews and the power of questions—and a story about finding a writing teacher.

Foreword by Daniel Saldaña Paris.

Is the question the beginning of all writing? Or does it come about through contact, reading, books—the teacher, as in this case? Is it a craft that can be taught and learned? Valeria Tentoni narrates a desire that becomes a sketch, then a writing, finally a book and learning, through always personal and random paths. In this ode to the interview, in this admiration for the teacher, we see the journey through which a writer constructs herself reflected in others.

«The first time I met my teacher was as a student, not as an interviewer. After that initial class I became obsessed with his work. I got all the books I could, all that I managed to buy or borrow. The amazement left me breathless. Opening one of his novels was to be knocked out of orbit, to enter into a pact outside the pact. To read him was to accept his delirious laws. Perhaps that is why I felt the urgency to interview him.» —Valeria Tentoni

«I cannot say that I have had a teacher in the sense in which you speak of him: someone whose words, but also vital attitudes and even silences, open a possible path in your writing. That is why I am moved by the way in which, inadvertently, the essay that begins with your reflections on the interview as a genre becomes a profile, a tribute, a story about a gentle giant who covers his books with white paper.» —Daniel Saldaña París