Roberto Perinelli: Not only in Argentina, but also in Latin America and much in Spain. In Germany, more than microfictionists, what have been developed are the studies of Hispanic American microfiction. The same thing is happening with microfiction as with football. An old player from the romantic era of football said “football was easy until the technicians and journalists arrived”. Well, microfiction was easy until the literary theorists and critics came along. What is good about microfiction is its many varieties which make it very difficult to define. It can be said that it is a short story, but there are texts that are closer to poetry and others to aphorism or joke. In Spain Javier Tomeo specialized in theatrical microfiction. An author can produce stories in different subgenres. Its appeal is that it grants great freedom. The other attractive, misleading, is that since there are five lines they are written quickly, the truth is that to write them one can spend two months thinking and rethinking them. Making a book with a hundred microfictions takes the same time as writing a novel.
Q.: In our country, the short story has a great tradition that goes through Lugones, Macedonio, Girondo, Borges, Bioy, Anderson, Cortázar, Denevi…
PR: I suppose that what happened to me happened to many, who wrote microfiction without knowing it. I began to write them a bit to rest from theater writing, from texts about the history of theater. Doing them allowed me to play games with humor, which interests me a lot. I advanced in the writing of those stories until in 2006 I was invited to the First Meeting of Argentine Microfictionists, which was held in the premises of the cultural sector of the Spanish embassy on Florida Street. That’s where we microfictionists met and we formed a tribe that from that moment on we are quite consistent.
Q.: The model is “When he woke up, the dinosaur was still there”.
PS: That story by Monterroso is taken as the iconic microfiction. I like Hemingway’s “I’m selling unused booties” better, absolutely tremendous. Arreola has “The hippopotamus is the paperweight of History”. The one from Lomelí “El emigrante” “Forget something? If only!”. We have great microfictionists. Our leader, although he does not want to be anyone’s leader, is Raúl Brasca who, in addition to being a great microfictionist, has thought a lot about the subject and developed a whole theory about microfiction in one of his books.
Q.: Have publishers interested in these stories emerged?
PR: Very little is edited. Here is Macedonia, a publisher of two boys from Morón, which has specialized and has edited the microfiction of many Argentine authors. There are cases, such as that of Ana María Shúa, who after having published novels such as “Los amores de Laurita” in large publishing houses, went on to publish her microfictions, some themes such as “El circo” with which a theatrical show. Shúa gives excellent advice on how to read microfiction: they should be read in tens because microfiction is like dulce de leche if you eat more of it, it loses its taste. The recipe works. Microfiction requires, as in any story, but in this case in an essential way, the complicity of the reader, for its economy, but especially because microfiction expresses itself a lot in what it does not say, in the ellipsis, in what the reader has to complete. You need an intelligent reader. Then there are those who like the poetic, others the stories in a traditional way, beginning, middle and end, others that are like a game that seeks the participation of the reader.
Source: Ambito
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