AN INTERVIEW WITH ANTONIO ROLANDO

Yes, I’m happy. Especially having published my fourth book “El juego de los errores”, a narrative book, short stories, in October 2020, in available book formats: Epub, Mobi (Kindle), Pdf, Irf, Pdb, Txt , Html, with the publisher Smashwords, which can be located through Google. It is an advance for me that makes me feel fulfilled.

I say that it makes me feel fulfilled because since I started as a writer I wandered through the streets of the City of Mendoza like any Julio Cortázar in search of a publication, an editorial that would specify the edition of my writings. I spoke with Culture officials in government offices in search of a place for my poetry, I spoke with other writers from Mendoza (Argentina) such as Carlos Levy, Raúl Silanes, Jaime Gelfman and Dr. Adolfo Ruiz Díaz with the intention of accessing an apprenticeship for my literary activities.
I learned typing to type on the old “Underwood” and “Olivetti” typewriters and now in this digital world starting little by little, once again, to make my literature concrete.

I spent time writing letters to publishers in Buenos Aires, such is the case of Editorial Sudamericana that led Gabriel García Márquez to win the Nobel Prize from Argentina, which ended with a return by mail of my aspirations and a “Thank you very much, but due to the economic situation in Argentina we cannot face the publication of his book ”.

Anyway, I’m happy because with online publishers I managed to get my books to be located in different online bookstores such as Apple Books, Rakuten Kobo, Scribd, Bol, Mondadori Store, Smashwords, Amazon and although the sale of copies is slow, I had the idea of spread a selection of stories in calls for digital magazines and in a podcast of Fuerza Creativa by Jaime Alejandro: CLICK HERE FOR YOUTUBE VIDEO

My motivation as an author is to express myself artistically through literature: poetry, short stories, novels and short essays, for the moment. Then translate that written expression into a set, in a group that includes it, traditionally called a book. Printed work. In other words, a minimum of forty-nine pages and hence it motivates me to exceed three hundred pages.

Although there are positions that say that a reader does not support more than one hundred and fifty pages.
I am interested in reflecting experiences. Think and make a character unfold freely. I seek to plan spaces and make temporality disappear. It is a challenge.

Sometimes, I play with words. But I strive to go further. I want to reflect thought and reflection through a character. In that task I am now. A novel will emerge from this endeavor, from this enthusiasm of mine. There is the motivation in the very doing, in the ability and ability to specify what one proposes. That is why the task of the writer is very different from the task of the politician. The task of the writer is in “doing” and the task of the politician is in “saying.” The writer performs his work, the concrete. On the other hand, the politician, even if he does not do it, passes.

The best thing about my writing is seeing my literary work reflected in others. Not in the congratulations, not in the like. But in the adequate and balanced reception that another person serves the reading of my literary work and uses that reading to enrich themselves and interact in their life experience.

An example is this poem from the book “Diálogos internos” that says: “Latin American poetry / Malnourished cocaine / of the Chagas people. / Street inflation, / not meat. / And the English of the stories / among black marijuana. / And the anarchist / wise intellectual concoction. / And the romantic teenage minstrels. / Among butterflies they sail! / England. / The pamphlet. / Borges. / And love. / The love of a people / that is hungry. / ”

My first book is “Interrogantes”. It is a book of questions, of questions alone and without answers. The reader has the possibility to rehearse the answers or to ask other questions.

The second book I published is “La página del buffet; una publicación literaria diferente”. It is a compilation of the literary magazine “La página del buffet” that I published and distributed at the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the National University of Cuyo, in Mendoza, Argentina, with the collaboration of writers who studied there and others writers who lived in Mendoza.

The third book is “Diálogos internos”. A book that brings together my poetry written between 1982 and 2014.
The fourth book is “El juego de los errores” and brings together my first works in narrative and includes “El diario de una villa” (The diary of a villa) with which I won the Ana María Agüero Melnyczuk Prize for Research – 2014, and that merit made me realize this book.

It is the second time that I have come across this question and I don’t really like it because I am not one to give advice or guide others. I seek my own voice, I seek to express myself literary, I seek to have my work finished. That is my purpose.
I know of authors who carry out literary workshops and place themselves in the role of “father” or “mother” of those who attend.

I do not do that. So, encountering this question puts me in an uncomfortable situation because I always sought to write and approached other writers with the intention of receiving advice. The truth is that I did not like those advice and I continued writing, in the sun like ants, after the year of the Malvinas war.
Now I have four published books and the best advice is to read it and see in me a writer who is concerned about improving himself.

This is also the second time that I come across this question and on the first occasion I answered that I was not a problem because I took advantage of the “Writer’s Block” to go for a walk or to go to the cinema to see a movie or to go to have an ice cream in the city. But after that interview I decided to study the subject well to give a more substantial answer.

Writer’s block is the loss of the ability to carry out a literary work that can take a few days or can go beyond, in a couple of years.
The strategies suggested are to participate in classes, in conversations, in writing diaries, practicing free writing, brainstorming, grouping these contents and committing to literary work.

I have faced serious inconveniences. I started writing in my high school classes and had written a poem about planet Earth. I was in Anatomy class. The teacher came to my table and found out what I was doing. He pulled the sheets from me and tore them on the spot. Worst of all, he took the torn pages among his belongings and I could never get back what he had written.
Another problem that I face on a daily basis is the inability of editors. It takes me years to find a publisher who will agree to publish a book of mine without my putting a dollar into trying.
Another problem that I have had to face has been the misunderstanding of the culture officials of the Argentine government who promote calls with requirements that leave aside the writer with his career and his literary work to favor those who do nothing and take budget money

I started writing poetry, songs. I read poetry from an early age. Then I got involved with musicians and suggested lyrics for the repertoire.
I did brief essays while I was studying Literature because they required it to pass the curricular spaces. I started to write stories, short stories, because I made better use of the blank paper and could specify an idea with a logical balance, even with an open ending.
Now I am taking advantage of my time to write a novel. I do it because it is a pleasant experience, it is a challenge and because I can express myself more skillfully.

It is a nice day where there may be wind or it may be a cloudy day with a little drizzle.
The truth is that it is a day where I sit in a chair, turn on the computer and start writing in Word. Having a question, it doesn’t take long to check with Google.

I may finish what I write in one day. Then I save it in a file to later review the writing and approve it. Or it may take more days to finish what I write and sometimes mark the date in day, month and year, and then continue writing in the following days. Sometimes I add other annotations that I move around or use other sheets to write the ideas that come up on them and save them on file.

I don’t have a fixed place. I am moving around the house with the computer. One day I’m in the kitchen, another day I’m on the couch. Sometimes I go to my room and write from bed. Or I go out to the patio and sit among the pots with plants to write.

In the beginning I used Book Fairs to get in touch with potential readers. Then I realized that in Mendoza, my province, it was not so necessary to be present at the Book Fair, because I used to go to the park, I would go out for a walk in the city, I wandered around my neighborhood. So anyone could talk to me there, greet me or just see me.

Later, I realized that social media made it even easier to interact with other people. This is how I am on Twitter, on Instagram and on Facebook.
Twitter: @NewaraNet
Instagram: antoniorolandoarenas
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/antoniorolando.arenas