32 Quotes by Álvaro Enrigue

If you read the poets of the 19th century in Latin America, you would see that Havana or Mexico City or Buenos Aires are incredibly modern and global cities that they were not. And eventually they became real, and they became real because people read these books and tried to live in a better world.

Vivian Abenshushan and Veronica Gerber write brilliant books that defy generic conventions.

I was not able to be the front forward of a soccer team - that is a way to make people super happy every Sunday. What I can do is tell stories and try to put my coin in that discussion.

In 'Where the Air is Clear', Carlos Fuentes composed a polyphonic portrait of Mexico City amid the growth and modernization brought on by the economic boom of the 1950s. The novel can be read as a jazz interpretation - free and in a Mexican key - of John Dos Passos' 'Manhattan Transfer'.

'Flaubert's Parrot' is an amphibious book in which what appears to be a personal essay about Flaubertian writing is gradually, delicately transformed into an extremely sad novel in which the differences between character, author, and narrator are less clear than they appear at first glance.

Caravaggio was a tormented, defiant, bisexual, angry young man - a maestro who looked nothing like a maestro.

I work with history because I come from a country that has a tremendous thirst for reality.

I don't believe in inspiration at all. We live in a world that demands explanation. And fiction has the capability to offer explanations for things.

I don't think that books are wondrous, magical things that come from nowhere. It's important that a book has clues about where and how it was written.