Granta editor John Freeman interviews the author about book piracy in Peru – the subject of Daniel Alarcón’s piece in Granta 109: Work.
Photograph © Claudia Alva
‘Granta editor John Freeman interviews Daniel Alarcón about book piracy in Peru.’
Granta editor John Freeman interviews the author about book piracy in Peru – the subject of Daniel Alarcón’s piece in Granta 109: Work.
Photograph © Claudia Alva
‘We meet at various points in the great swathes of the past that neither of us were alive to witness.’
Allen Bratton on a daytrip to a castle with his older boyfriend.
‘Listening to three white poets, whom I suspect are academics, talk about the state of poetry.’
Oluwaseun Olayiwola eavesdrops on an older generation.
‘I’d been dubious about his company at first.’
Sarah Moss on watching Shakespeare with her twelve-year-old son.
‘She didn’t trust us because, to her, tenants were like children.’
Kate Zambreno on negotiating with her older landlady.
‘A moment now swallowed in embarrassment, I asked a question only a young person might ask an older one.’
Lynne Tillman on trying to understand what makes a generation.
Daniel Alarcón was born in Lima, Peru in 1977 and raised in the southern United States. He is associate editor of Etiqueta Negra, a monthly magazine based in Lima. His novels include Lost City Radio and At Night We Walk in Circles, and his story collection, War by Candlelight, was a finalist for the 2006 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award. He currently lives in Oakland, California, where he is the Distinguished Visiting Writer at Mills College.
More about the author →John Freeman is the founder of the literary annual Freeman's and an executive editor at Alfred A. Knopf. He is also the author and editor of eleven books, including Dictionary of the Undoing; There's a Revolution Outside, My Love (co-edited with Tracy K Smith), and Wind, Trees, a new collection of poems. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and been translated into more than twenty languages. Once a month he hosts The California Book Club, an online discussion of a classic book of golden state literature for Alta magazine. He lives in New York City.
More about the author →‘Being pirated is the Peruvian equivalent of making the bestseller list.’
‘With few exceptions, presidents do not comment on or even recognize an individual loss like this one; they operate on another scale, and there is no room within their discourse for something so small.’
‘It’s about the music of it. “It’s Hollywood,” Mario said, and assured me the same is true of political speech-making.’
‘The strangest parts of a story are not necessarily the fictional elements.’
‘Can bad mothers be taught to be good? Or maybe, can we be incentivized to bond? To love?’
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