There's Something About Sergio . . . .

Sergio Pitol, that is. He's one of those writers who makes me want to write. 1   Of course I no longer remember how I managed to bump into him. You know, it just happens. If you keep at least one eye partially open you catch onto all kinds of good shit in this world. But I read the Amazon preview of The Art of Flight, and that was mos def enough to get me interested. But in these days of new-found economic restraint, I didn't immediately buy the three books (a trilogy) that Amazon had available for purchase. No, no, no. I went to the LFPL website to see if they had any of Pitol's books. They had three:  The Vintage book of Latin American Stories, which includes the short story "Bukhara Nocturne" 2  ; A Thousand Forests in One Acorn : An Anthology of Spanish Language Fiction, which includes "By Night in Bukhara"--which I suspect is a different translation of the same story 3  -- but which also promises that "each author's section consists of a biographical introduction (penned by Valerie Miles), followed by an interview broken into three sections, in which the authors explain whey they think the pieces that follow are the best they've ever written and discuss the varying influences on their writing-- the 'acorn' of their works. This is followed by the pieces themselves-- the 'thousand forests' that sprung from that kernel -- as well as a detailed bibliography of all their works in both English and Spanish"--which sounds very cool; and El desfile del amor (why don't they do their titles with proper capitalization in foreign countries?)--a novel which has not yet been translated into English. And I put in requests for all three of those. Yes, even the Spanish novel. The title of which translates as The Parade of Love, by the way. No, I don't speak (or, more to the point, read) much Spanish. But hey, I'm game. And there's always Google Search, y'know.

And then it was over to the U of L library website to see if they could help out.

They had an impressive listing of 15 books . . . but 11 of them were in Spanish, and I only have it in my for one attempt at that kind of thing for the nonce. Of the four remaining, one was a repeat from LFPL (The Vintage book of Latin American Stories); one a book of literary criticism entitled Antiheroes : Mexico and its Detective Novel, which could be interesting; a collection of short stories,  Pyramids of Glass : Short Fiction From Modern Mexico, which includes Pitol's "The Panther"; and Hurricanes and Carnivals : Essays by Chicanos, Pochos, Pachucos, Mexicanos, and Expatriates, which includes a short (12 page) essay by Pitol, "Sienna Revisited" . . . 11 pages of which I found on a Google Books "preview." So I'll just be needing the one page on that one, thanks.

And my old (twice times) alma mater Bellarmine had a mere two books listed, the ever-popular Vintage Book of etc. and the novel The Journey . . . which is, alas, (a) an ebook, and my alumni card does not grant me access to such things, & (b) the second book in a trilogy, so that's kind of fucked up, isn't it? Who makes these kinds of decisions, anyway?

Ahem. So I can get free access to only two versions of one short story, another short story, a novel in Spanish, two essays, and an article about Pitol's writing.

And yet here's the bibliography I found online:


Novels

El tañido de una flauta (Era, México, 1972)
Juebos florales (Siglo XXI, 1982)
El desfile del amor (Anagrama, Barcelona 1984)
Domar a la divina garza (Anagrama, Barcelona, 1988)
La vida conjugal (Era, México; Anagrama, Barcelona, 1991)


Essay-Memoirs

El arte de la fuga (Era, México, 1996 (The Art of Flight, Trans. 
     George Henson; Deep Vellum Publishing, 2015)
El viaje (Era, México, 2000 (The Journey, Trans. George Henson; 
     Deep Vellum Publishing, 2015)
El mago de Viena (Pre-Textos, Valencia, 2005)

Short Story Collections

Tiempo cercado (Editorial Estaciones, México, 1959)
Infierno de todos (Universidad Veracruzana, Xalapa, 1964)
Los climas (Joaquín Mortiz, México, 1966)
No hay tal lugar (Era, México, 1967)
Del encuentro nupcial (Tusquets, Barcelona, 1970)
Nocturno de Bujara (Siglo XXI, México, 1981)
Vals de Mefisto (Anagrama, Barcelona, 1984)
El relato veneciano de Billie Upward (Monte Ávila Editores, 
     Caracas, 1992)
Todos los cuentos (Alfaguara, México, 1998)
El oscuro hermano gemelo y otros relatos (Norma, Bogotá, 2004)

Los mejores cuentos, presentación de Enrique Vila-Matas \
     (Anagrama, Barcelona, 2005)

19 books.

Most of which have not been translated into English. 

Did I forget to mention, forget to mention that in 2005, Señor Pitol  won the Cervantes Prize, which is described (on the Deep Vellum Publishing webpage, at least) as "the most prestigious literary prize in the Spanish language world, often called the 'Spanish language Nobel.'” Which is not exactly mierda de pollo. 

So why is so little of his work available here in the US of A?

I've found this kind of thing to be true of a number of non-English writers.

It's some kind of mierda de pollo, for sure.

Yep, I'm going to try to read that novel is Spanish. 

Mmm-hmm.




1  Karl Ove Knausgaard is another--even though I've yet to finish reading the first volume of My Struggle. (Though I've already bought the second and fourth volumes. Hmm? Well, because it was on sale, silly. Two bucks, to be exact. Wouldn't you? Mmm-hmm.) 

2  Bukhara, by the way, is a city in Uzbekistan. The linguistic proximity to the word bukakee . . . bolstered by the juxta-positioning with the word "nocturne" . . . disturbed me a bit.

3  Which, of course, is right up my alley.