Paulina Flores and Camila Fabbri: A unique conversation about literature, feminism, and chaos

The Rodolfo Walsh Room, next to the yellow pavilion, was prepared to receive, at the end of an afternoon with a record audience for the Buenos Aires International Book Fair, two of the most outstanding young writers from the Anagrama label. On one side, Chilean Paulina Flores , Category 88, dressed in a black T-shirt by the Italian film director Pasolini, with a degree in Hispanic Literature from the University of Chile and a master's degree in Creative Writing from Pompeu Fabra University. On her right, Argentine writer, playwright, and actress Camila Fabbri , Category 89, finalist for the Herralde Novel Prize for La reina del baile (2023), who commented that it was an honor for her to be there presenting her colleague's novel, La próxima vez que te vea, te matí.

She began by reading what she described as "small sketches," but which were, rather, a precise and very personal portrait of the spirit of this work. She read the beginning ("Laura commits suicide in a few hours and I'm late for our last date") and added that it was difficult to put the book down after such a start. She described Javiera, the protagonist, as "a slave to her own fiction." "Her love is a promise, a shot into the future," she described. She named some images interspersed throughout the story: "depression, kamikaze thoughts, Bad Bunny, destruction, but, above all, self-destruction."

After reading, Fabbri began the dialogue with Flores with a disturbing question: “Should we be afraid of you?” The Argentine writer, author of two previous books ( Qué vergüenza , 2015 and Isla Decepción , 2021), laughingly replied that she wasn’t . “I told my friends: with this book I’m never going to have a boyfriend again in my life.” She revealed the reason for this reckless hypothesis: in this novel, the protagonist wants to kill her boyfriend.

"Mark Zuckerberg is afraid of me," the writer added, since due to the terms of use of the social network Instagram , every time her book cover is posted, it is censored . "They block my account for three days," she explained.

Fabbri described her as a “great reader. A quote machine” and asked how she remembers all those voices. “I don't have that much memory. They're things that permeate,” the Chilean confessed, also including pop music quotes. “When I finished school, I lost my job. I loved academia, but I knew I wouldn't find my place there,” she revealed after explaining that she became depressed while doing her teaching internship.

“It was very strong. A teacher would cut off the children's hearing aids and collect them.” Fabbri's eyes widened and he asked, “Stop. I'm interested in that. What do you mean, she cut off the children's hearing aids?” There, beyond the confluence of Spanish, a subtle difference in translation emerged: Flores was referring to what is known here as headphones.

“Seeing Trump or Milei wielding such anti-intellectual power, my way out is the intellectual world,” the author continued, expressing disappointment with the political future of her country: “I'm 36 years old, nothing has changed. All we have left is the ability to imagine ,” she concluded.

“Your writing is a patchwork of quotes. A Louise Gluck quote coexists with a Trump speech, and it all makes sense,” Fabbri explained. Flores responded: “ It’s a contaminated, Dadaist, but very airy writing . Because of what I’ve experienced. I’m representative of this generation,” she exemplified.

Fabbri continued analyzing her novel, and her words intertwined with Flores's, bringing the dialogue to life. " I feel that your novel embodies the Latin American political gesture of taking up arms. The protagonist, Javiera, is a Latin American woman making her living in Europe. At the same time, it's you too, the one who went to Barcelona on a scholarship."

Flores added that one of the questions that emerged in this novel was "ending up thinking about the extent to which we make the decisions we make, and whether they're predetermined. Obviously, she ends up falling in love with a Peruvian. Isn't that what she knows best in life? She hangs out with pure Latinos. She sees the world in a unique way, but she twists everything through this filter ," she explained.

Between Fabbri's observations and Flores' revelations, they continued describing Javiera, the protagonist of this story who fantasizes and yearns about murdering her boyfriend, a Peruvian freelancer with an unstable financial situation whom she hooks up with in Barcelona while trying to make a living: "Javiera arrives fleeing Chile. She wants to be a vigilante for a crime she never committed . She hooks up with a Peruvian guy in an open relationship, and she fantasizes about killing the other girl," she explained.

“I like this whole making-a-go thing, like the literary tradition inaugurated by Lazarillo de Tormes ,” the Chilean author explained, comparing this novel to other coming-of-age stories like Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar . Fabbri also pointed out the catastrophe of feeling jealous, a theme that runs throughout her book. “It's like being a loser in a world where no one wants to be one,” she concluded.

When asked if this inspired her, the author replied: “In Goya's sense: 'the sleep of reason produces monsters.' There's something unintelligible within us that governs us . I've seen the change, at least superficial, in men regarding the personal and political. But I also believe that in the erotic, the sexual, there's a force that drives you, and it's beautiful. It can't be rationalized,” she reflected.

“I’m interested in your obsessions,” Fabbri said, “are they always the same themes?” “Everything converses with everything else,” she acknowledged, and then elaborated: “ I tend to go back to what I liked , to analyze my friends’ friends, but I don’t stray too far, you know. In this novel, I tried to free myself, to write with less self-consciousness.”

In this regard, he elaborated, linking it to his country, in a metaphor that surprised Fabbri: "There's a Chilean way of eating its own tail like a snake. I recognize myself in that."

When asked, "Why is it a spiral?" he elaborated: "When we started the protests, people took to the streets demanding a new Constitution. The first one was rejected, the second one, and now we're still stuck with Pinochet's same Constitution as if nothing had happened. An artist took Chile off the map and drew a snake eating its tail."

Towards the end, the author read a chapter from her latest novel, Will Smith or the Apocalypse , which serves as a synthesis of the spirit of this work. A student trying to write and at the same time make a living from it, between passion and condemnation: “Literature is a flame, I affirm, and whatever drives you to write must shudder (...). Writing has become a plastic butane lighter. Whenever I need it, I say: 'Where did I leave the fire?'”