Contributions by Álvaro Bisama
Álvaro Bisama is a writer and literary critic. He holds a Phd in Literature from Pontificia Universidad Católica and an MA in Latin American Studies from the Universidad de Chile. He teaches Creative Writing at the Universidad Diego Portales, and is the author of the novels Caja negra, Música marciana, Estrellas muertas and Ruido. He has also published the short story collections Death Metal and Los muertos, and non-fiction volumes including Zona Cero, Postales urbanas and Cien libros chilenos.
Orellana [valparaíso]
![Orellana [valparaíso]](http://www.buenosairesreview.org/wp-content/uploads/la-foto-crop.jpg)
Álvaro Bisama
translated by Julia Ostmann
My favorite bookstore is a ghost bookstore. It was called the Orellana and was located in the center of Valparaíso. It closed a couple of years ago. It just couldn’t hold out anymore. Its owners were an old couple that had been there since the mid-’50s or ’60s. He was tall and thin; she was tiny and wore thick glasses.
I never knew their names.
My grandmother had kept an account at the bookstore ever since it opened. My grandmother read a lot: in the house where I grew up, my parents’ books were mixed with hers. That library formed or deformed me. Many of those volumes came from the Orellana, easy to recognize thanks to a stamp on the first page. When my parents got paid at the end of the month, they would give … Read More »
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