Selva Almada: "We need to respond to the far right and those against rights with more books."

Selva Almada has long since ceased to be a promising figure in Argentine literature and has become a name of her own, creator of a personal universe that engages with the uncomfortable zones of existence in rural geographies that are both poetic and ominous in equal measure. Her trilogy "The Wind That Razes" (recently adapted for film by Paula Hernandez), "Ladrilleros" (Bricklayers ), and "Esto No Es Un Río" (This Is Not a River) has sculpted a world based on minimal stories that delve into the unspoken. A native of Villa Elisa, Entre Ríos, her origins intertwine with years of workshop experience with Alberto Laiseca , resulting in a fluctuating literature that can range from the song of a small bird to the outbreak of the worst storm.

2025 found her, at the beginning, with the release of Laiseca, the Master . An Intimate Portrait (Penguin Random House). A collective biography written by ten people alongside four other disciples of Master Lai who accompanied him until his final days: Natalia Rodríguez Simón, Rusi Millán Pastori, Sebastián Pandolfelli, and Guillermo Naveira. She also reissued Los inocentes (The Innocents) (Sudamericana), a book that brings together six stories aimed at a young audience where children are the protagonists, with illustrations by her sister Lilian Almada.

Shortly after her presentation at the Buenos Aires International Book Fair, she spoke with Clarín about these releases, future projects —a new novel that will be published, if all goes well, this year—and her experience of Argentina's cultural present.

–You wrote Laiseca, the Master with four of Lai's closest disciples. What was the process like?

–It was quite complex. There were five of us writing, and the idea was to achieve a common voice, which was Chanchín. The text went through several stages of correction, editing, rewriting, and polishing until we finally achieved that voice. It was one of the most difficult aspects of a group process where we are all writers and each has their own style.

–What things did you discover that surprised you during the writing and research?

Lai saw himself as the last remaining hopeful, someone who had gone unnoticed in the 1960s and 1970s scene. When we interviewed Fernando Noy, who knew him at that time, he gave us a different perspective. We saw a Lai who was deeply involved with the alternative scene of those years, who participated in performances, who had written a play, and who had been considered. Later, through the story of his daughter's mother, I learned more about that period when he lived in Escobar, which was the only house he ever owned. He spoke of that house with great nostalgia. He later ended up selling it. There weren't many details about that time. He told us what that house was like, and how, during those years, with the inheritance he had received from the sale of his father's house, he was able to dedicate a couple of years solely to writing. Susana's account of that time was very illuminating, a time when Lai could finally devote himself to writing without having to do the many jobs he'd been doing up until then that had nothing to do with writing. She remembered it as a time of great fulfillment for him.

–You recently republished a book of short stories aimed at children and young people, Los inocentes , through Sudamericana. It was originally published by Editorial de la Provincia de Entre Ríos. How did it come about?

–It came about at the request of Fernando Kosiak, who was in charge of the publishing house in 2019, together with my sister Lilian, a visual artist. It was intended for distribution in schools in the province. I had these short stories I'd written in different formats, for various media outlets, all of which featured children as protagonists. I reworked some of them, worked on them a bit more, and added two new ones ("The Lights" and "Benita and the Cats").

–Did you notice any difference compared to writing literature for adults?

–Not really. I mean, of course there are certain areas, certain words that anyone with a bit of common sense knows shouldn't be used in stories that will be read by eleven- or twelve-year-olds. But then the truth is, I worked on them like I do any of my books. I had Horacio Quiroga in my sights for a bit, with his Jungle Tales, which I loved as a child. Now for the reissue, we reviewed them again with the editor, but they didn't undergo any significant changes except for the layout. The design is different. My sister did new illustrations. We're happy and very excited to see what it will provoke in a readership I hadn't had yet, because when the book came out in the province, there were a ton of ideas to do with children's schools, but the pandemic hit right away, and those projects couldn't materialize.

–What does childhood generate in you in relation to literature?

Childhood is always very present in all my books; there are always scenes with children. One of my first books is called Children, and it's a kind of memoir of my own childhood. It's always a universe, a space that I have very much in mind. For me, childhood is the most fundamental moment of our lives. It's where we confront everything that will come later in life. It's like a time of discovery and learning that passes in such a few years of life, and yet it leaves its mark on us for the rest of our lives. Flannery O'Connor said that what you experience in childhood gives you enough to write about for the rest of your life. It's a universe I've always visited.

–The book features illustrations by Lilian Almada, your sister. What did it mean to you to work with her on this project?

Lilian and I had been wanting to work together on a book for quite some time. We'd had a job when I was part of a small publishing house called Carne Argentina, and we published Laiseca's Sadomasochistic Porno Manual. For that edition, Lilian had made a series of doll sculptures inspired by Lai's texts around 2007. Not as a writer, but as an editor. Afterward, we always fantasized about creating a book together. So when this proposal from the provincial publishing house came up, it was immediately a connection. We worked closely together on the stories I was writing, the things she told me, and her illustrations. It was a beautiful project to work with, working with my sister, with whom I have a very close, very strong relationship. I love what she does as an artist, and the fact that all of that ended up in a book was fantastic for us, and even more so for my mom.

–You'll be participating in two activities at the Fair: the official presentation of Los Inocentes at the Penguin exhibition with Horacio Convertini, and "The Indigenous Word. Dialogue with Indigenous Writers. Wichí in Poetry. Conversation with Lecko Zamora." What would you say about both?

–On May 7th, I'll be accompanying poet Lecko Zamora, a Wichí poet, in the first of the talks, the opening of the Indigenous dialogues, which I think is a great addition to the Fair's programming. It began last year. Fabián Martínez Siccardi was the driving force behind something that I think was an unforgivable oversight: that, just as there were Latin American dialogues from the provinces, there wasn't a program for Indigenous dialogues, especially with great exponents, and with an increasing number of very important authors from Indigenous peoples appearing. I think it's great so that the reading public can also access these books, get closer to these authors, and get to know them because sometimes their works go a bit unnoticed. We're going to be talking a bit with Zamora and, above all, listening, listening to what he has to say and listening to him read, which I think is going to be a wonderful experience. On May 8th, we'll be presenting The Innocents with Horacio Convertini, who's also a writer at the publishing house. We've known each other for many years. He used to come to the writing clinics we coordinated with Julián López, so we have a long-standing relationship of affection, reading each other, and sharing feedback. So it's going to be great, too.

–Do you have any other projects in the works? Are you writing anything?

–Yes, I'm working on a novel. The idea is to have it out this year, so I'm putting a lot of effort into that writing. I actually started it quite a while ago, during a residency I did in France in 2022. That's when the first spark appeared. I kept mulling it over, thinking about it quite a bit during this time, and now I'm fully committed to writing.

–Finally, how do you feel about this present in relation to culture and literature in our country?

–These are very terrible times for our country, not only in relation to culture, but in general. But at the same time, I believe that in dark and disastrous times like these, the worst thing we can do is stop producing culture, stop working, stop thinking about books that can be doors to other ways of living and thinking, which is what literature is all about. It shows us other possible universes, other possible ways of being. I believe that in that sense, reading, at least for me, having been a reader since I was very young, has always been a creative act and a liberating act. Reading makes us less petty because it shows us many panoramas, possible worlds. It forces you to leave the smallness of your life, your surroundings, what you know. That is the most wonderful thing about literature, and in times where there is a terrible advance in constantly restricting freedoms in the name of liberty, reading can be a good place to go to continue believing that another world is possible. I claim that right, because reading is a right. The right to read, and also the right to the desire to write. We must respond to the far right and those against rights with more books, more poetry readings, more gatherings where we can discuss other things and also come together to think about a country that's a little more just, honest, generous, participatory, and inclusive. All of these things we are unfortunately losing in a very worrying and horrifying way.

Selva Almada will participate tomorrow, Friday, at 7:00 p.m. in the presentation of her book, "The Innocents," in a dialogue with Horacio Convertini in the Ernesto Sabato Room.