The Book Fair dedicates its Reading Marathon this year to Juan José Saer

This Tuesday , the Reading Marathon , one of the most anticipated events of the Book Fair, will take place. The event will run from 7:00 PM to 9:30 PM in Zona Futuro (Yellow Pavilion) and will honor Juan José Saer , marking the 20th anniversary of the death of the notable poet and writer from Santa Fe (1937-2005).

As its name suggests, the Reading Marathon is a series of readings in honor of a renowned writer, with the participation of actors, journalists, writers, playwrights, and various figures from the world of culture and literature. The tribute series includes public readings of short stories and essays.

On this occasion, Mauricio Kartún, Cristina Banegas, Ingrid Pelicori, Martín Kohan, Paulo Ricci, Agustina Bazterrica, Carlos Gamerro, Nurit Kazstelan, Rubén Szuchmacher, Franco Torchia, Mariela Asensio, Florencia Abbate, Patricia Kolesnicov, Roberto Chuit Roganovich, Gloria Peirano, and Gustavo Fontán, among others, will read texts, poems, and fragments linked to Saer, as well as stories or anecdotes related to the great Argentine writer.

These readings will be accompanied by Marcelo Katz on the piano, with music composed especially for this collective reading.

Paulo Ricci , Secretary of Cultural Development of the Ministry of Culture of the province of Santa Fe, also a university professor and researcher, chose to read the text "Friends", which is among the so-called "Arguments", which make up the second part of the book La Mayor .

“The reason I chose this text is because I believe it condenses into a small literary scene several of the iconic characters that make up the stable cast of Saerian narrative (Tomatis, Barco, Angel Leto, among others). Secondly, it's a scene that reappears in other very important books such as Glosa, Lo Inborrable , and La Grande, but told from different perspectives or perspectives,” Ricci stated.

"Another very important reason is that I believe friendship itself as a theme , as a form of sociability, as the core of the work with its group of friends, something that is problematized by the narrator of the short text. It also constitutes a conceptual thrust of Saer's work, in which, from beginning to end—that is, from the first to the last book—a whole idea and policy of friendship is developed, a very strong one, to which the author remains faithful from the beginning," he concluded.

Against the currents of his time, when realism and Cortazarian avant-garde prevailed, S aer embarked on an experimental path , linked to French objectivism and the European avant-garde, with other influences, such as that of his teacher, the littoral poet Juan L. Ortiz.

But his work has the distinctive characteristic of always revolving around the region where he spent his childhood and youth, his native Serodino . It is in this intersection of experimentation, avant-garde, and a renewal of form, with characters and materials from a rural and rustic setting, that his originality lies.

Juan José Saer was one of the most persistent Argentine writers in his desire for experimentation and his pursuit of maximum poetic intensity. Going against the currents of his time, when realism and Cortazarian avant-garde prevailed, he embarked on an experimental path, linked to French Objectivism, with other influences, such as his mentor, the littoral poet Juan L. Ortiz, and Jorge Luis Borges.

"In works such as Glosa, Cicatrices, El limonero real, El entenado , this avant-garde approach unfolds in narratives that persistently take place in a semi-rural area, the region of his native Serodino, Colastiné, the city of Santa Fe and its riverside surroundings," explained Alejandra Rodríguez Ballester , coordinator and curator of the Reading Marathon.

“A city in the middle of the desert is much more real than a solid tradition,” says one of her characters in the story Something is Approaching, and Saer returns to that city in her literature, again and again, even though she writes from Paris. Her originality lies in this intersection of experimentation, avant-garde, and renewal of form , with characters and materials from a rural and rustic setting. “This dazzling literature stands the test of time, in the style of universal 20th-century classics like Joyce and Borges,” added Ballester, also coordinator of the Clarin/Ñ cultural space at the Book Fair (stand 4000 – Central Hall 9).

“With the rain came autumn, and with autumn, the season of wine,” was the last line he wrote in his final, unfinished novel, La grande . “So, this autumn, we will dedicate ourselves to reading it and toasting this writer and poet , whose voice continues to resonate beyond time, as in all good literature,” Rodríguez Ballester concluded.

Meanwhile, poet and storyteller Nurit Kasztelan will be in charge of reading an excerpt from the story "Shadows on a Frosted Glass," her favorite by Saer.

“I chose that one because a couple of years ago I rewrote that story from Leopoldo’s perspective, and in the narrative I show how he is spied on by Adelina. There’s a kind of love triangle between Susana, his wife, and Adelina as a silent concubine who spies on him. I called it “The Shyness of Trees” because it speaks to a natural phenomenon: trees grow together but without touching, as if they were giving each other space. And it served me as a metaphor and to compare the bond,” explained the author of the poetry collections Movimientos Incorpóreos (2007), Teoremas (2010), Lógica de los accidentes (2013), and Después (2018).

Meanwhile, theater director Rubén Szuchmacher will read the first pages of El entenado , one of the Argentine poet and writer's great novels . "It's a complex text, but tremendously beautiful. I discovered that Saer's literature is better understood through oral interpretation than through silent reading," he announced.

Finally, writer Agustina Bazterrica , winner of the 2021 Clarín Novel Prize with Exquisite Corpse, will participate in the marathon this Tuesday, reading an excerpt from Glosa : “I consider it one of the best novels ever written. It's part of my Saerian Bible, a manual of everything that works when telling a story.”

The writer also chose an unforgettable scene: “Every now and then I remember it as if I had experienced it in person. It's Tomatis, an emblematic character from the Saer universe, completely depressed, living in a small room on the terrace of his mother's house. First, I felt the surprise of seeing a guy as ironic, pedantic, and brilliant as Tomatis masturbating to the television image of a child presenter. Then, I felt fascinated by Saer, by how he's able to give so much substance to a fictional character, that you end up feeling a little pity, a little shame, but above all, the pain of seeing someone you love suffer. Only a brilliant writer can generate all this in just a few pages .”

Juan José Saer was born on June 28, 1937, in Serodino, Santa Fe Province. He is considered one of the greatest writers of 20th-century Argentine and Spanish-language literature. His work includes twelve novels, five collections of short stories, four collections of essays, and a collection of poems, in addition to four volumes of unpublished texts.

In 2007, the Colombian magazine Semana ranked his novels El entenado (1983), Glosa (1986), and La grande (2005) among the 100 best Spanish-language novels of the last 25 years . His works have been translated into English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Greek, Czech, Japanese, Hebrew, Norwegian, and Romanian. Saer died on June 11, 2005, in Paris, at the age of 67.

Shortly before his death, Saer was writing the final chapters of his last and longest novel , La grande, published in 2005 by Seix Barral together with Trabajos , a collection of literary articles that had appeared in different newspapers and magazines that he had already prepared for publication.

The Saer Reading Marathon will take place this Tuesday at 7 p.m. with Mauricio Kartun, Cristina Banegas, Irina Alonso, Ingrid Pelicori, Gloria Peirano, Gustavo Fontán, Martín Kohan, Alberto Díaz, Agustina Bazterrica, Jorge Fondebrider, Nurit Kazstelan, Rubén Szuchmacher, Franco Torchia, Mariela Asensio, and Florencia Abbate in the Future Zone. Coordinated by Alejandra Rodríguez Ballester.