The articles, speeches and presentations that Claudia Pineiro wrote throughout his long career were scattered and many of them were inaccessible to the public who wanted to read them. Therefore, together with his publishing label, AlfaguaraPiñeiro brought them together and made a new edition, which would simplify the understanding of today’s reader.
In dialogue with NOTICIAS, he explained how that volume is composed and What are the writings that feel closest to you?. Also, what do you say to writers who ask you for advice.
NEWS: Why had this book, which brings together his non-fiction work, surely unknown to many, not been published before?
Claudia Pineiro: There are times for everything. Here there is texts from many years and one has to put together a quantity of material to make it worthwhile to put them together in one volume. Some needed distance, time to pass, and others, a lot of rewriting. For example, the speeches, many from the time when We campaign for the Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy law. They had proposed to me to make a book with this material and I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to have to pay to read it, because I believed it had to circulate freely on the networks. With the passage of time, many of these texts cannot be found, they are scattered, lost. Now it seems good to me that someone who never encountered them found them.
NEWS: What do you like about writing essays or articles?
Pineiro: I always like to reflect on society, even in literature. But it seems to me that the articles (I would not call them “essays”, because the essay requires a rigor of work that is perhaps greater than that of the texts included in this book) journalistic notes, speeches or presentations at universitiesthey allow me to think about society from a non-fictional way and take certain positions or give certain opinions or show a part of the world that I don’t like to show in fiction.
NEWS: Which of these texts, written over the years, do you feel closest to?
Pineiro: The first, those that talk about me, about why I write, about the physical and personal limits for writing, about my writer friends and those that have to do with my family, with my childhood. Those are very personal and that’s why I feel very close to them. Time passes, I read them and I still think that they reflect who I am. They are still valid. If I had to talk about those issues today, I would write the same article.
NEWS: In the book he speaks, many times, to those who want to write. What is the main message for future writers?
Pineiro: I always say that whoever wants to write, the first thing they have to do is read. Nobody who doesn’t read a lot will be able to write well. Then, in terms of what you have to have, what raw material you have to come with to be able to write, I believe that there are two things that are fundamental: desire and work. You could be writing for two years, three years, four years and you don’t know if anyone is going to publish you. Not even if anyone will ever read it. So, for you to dedicate that time and work to writing is because you really want to. On the other hand, you need a capacity for work, because there is no muse that inspires you. There is a small moment of inspiration that gives you a seed for a story, but you have to work on that story every day and if you don’t have the capacity to work, you won’t be able to be a writer, no matter how good ideas you have. Because ideas must be made concrete. A little talent to make things go better. Talent for the use of words, for the use of language, a lot of desire and a lot of work.
NEWS: Her tireless work for women also appears in the book. Do you feel that the achievements that have been achieved may be in danger?
Pineiro: I think they are threatened. I don’t know if they are in real danger, because I trust that all of us and also the men who accompany us in the fight for our desires and for equality will accompany us. But they are threatened. In the political discourse, in the gestures, in the violence and in the statements of some of the candidates running for this next election. They are threatened in Argentina and many other countries. There is a return to conservatism and far-right agendas regarding the rights of women and LGBT+ communities, which is evident in Argentina and the rest of the world. We would be at risk if there were not a feminist movement and support from men to maintain what we achieved and achieve what we still do not have. We are not yet at risk because that social fabric is intact. Now, we are threatened, without a doubt. They are going to continue threatening us and that is going to put us at risk if we cannot sustain this fabric. So I am very worried about the future of women and LGBT+ groups.
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