Contributions by Sergio Pitol

Sergio Pitol was born in Puebla, 1933. Mexican novelist, essayist and translator. His novels are exercises in style which, with erudite humor, bring forth a disenchanted gaze upon reality. He’s published twenty novels and a book of essays, The Art of Flight, forthcoming by Deep Vellum Publishing, of which The marquise… is a chapter. In 2005 he received the Prize Cervantes for his lifelong contribution to literature.

The Marquise was Never Content to Stay at Home

Published on February 13th of 2015 by George Henson and Sergio Pitol in Essays.

Sergio Pitol
translated by George Henson

For Margo Glantz

A feeling of disaster is haunting the world. The novel records it and, in doing so, is resplendent. The more rotten it smells in Denmark—and today Denmark seems to be a large part of the universe—the more indispensable the novel becomes. Ultima Thule: a reflection of an indomitable impulse to survive, of the preservation of form over chaos, sacrifice over apathy, spirit over unformed matter—the novel is that and more. Fueled by extreme tensions, witness to violent upheavals, nourished at times by caviar and quail and other times by carrion, it reappears on the international stage today with enviable health. It blooms with a fullness that roses would envy. Behold it: protean, generous, bold, ubiquitous, skeptical, cheeky, and unmanageable. Each crisis of society causes it to regenerate. When necessary, it sheds its … Read More »






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