El libro tachado
Patricio Pron

ESSAY | 2014 | 308 pages

Writers love nothing more than telling tragic stories of other writers. What vicissitudes the authors suffered until publication or even afterwards, what tricks the publisher or their family played on them, what illnesses, what losses they suffered (we should understand that the figure of a happy, successful and beloved author is itself a work of fiction).

Yet this somewhat morbid interest very infrequently transforms into an extraordinary book like this one. Because to do so we need a writer who reads (and this book is, above all else, the forceful demonstration of a writer who reads). We need to reflect deeply on the nature of literature, and what the books we don’t have on our shelves have to teach us: the books that have been censored, crossed out, burned and banned. The books that were not written as their authors were silenced, canceled, insane or suicidal. And, with apologies, the books that were plagiarized, pirated or pillaged.

RIGHTS: spanish TURNER

“[...] on the other side of the mirror are the dead and mutilated books, those lost to time, and those held hostage. Pron illuminates this enigmatic path through the night.”
— Félix de Azúa