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Luisa Valenzuela
© Nancy Crampton
LUISA VALENZUELA

The Art of Fiction No. 170
Interviewed by Sarah Lee, Ksenija Bilbija
Issue 160, Winter 2001
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From the Interview

INTERVIEWER
You started out as a journalist. Do you think journalism has contributed to your fiction?

VALENZUELA
Not necessarily. Both worlds run parallel for me, but never—as yet—
converge. Journalism taught me to be very precise and brief, very attentive to language. At La Nacion my boss, Ambrosio Vecino, was a very literary man, a real teacher. He had been Cortazar’s best friend during their college years together. But journalism requires a horizontal gaze; it is absolutely factual. On the other hand, fiction requires a vertical gaze—delving deeper into the non-facts, the unconscious, the realm of the imaginary.
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