Literature As Delayed Dialogue

A Conversation with Kike.

- Paul Holzman

The Argentine author Enrique Ferrari, known in Buenos Aires as Kike (kee-Kay), has become more visible in the past two years. He writes by day, works cleaning the subway at night, and revises his work during breaks. A family man, father of three, martial arts aficionado, and longtime acolyte of Charles Bukowski, Karl Marx, and North American crime writers, he is mostly known for his crime fiction and his rise as an autodidact laborer. Though skeptical, he uses his newfound platform to discuss his work and his views on literature. I was able to sit down with him at his home to talk about his works in progress, literatures of interest and influence, his relentless use of the epigraph, his self-perception and the public’s perception of him as a writer, and the separation of his day—or night—job, which seems very distinct from his trade as a writer.

Paul Holzman: I believe it was in an interview with Crónica TV where they asked you if today you would rather be Coehlo or Bukowski. You refrained from selecting either one but did note you would not want to be another Coehlo. You also mentioned that you do not want to be simply read but rather be in dialogue with your readers.

Kike: Literature is a delayed dialogue. It is like correspondence before the Internet—an old letter. You write today and around ten days later it arrives on the other side of the world to a friend who reads it. It takes a week for them to answer you, and twenty days later the letter arrives, responding to something that is not happening to you anymore. Literature functions a bit like this. What I want to say, to find the clearest example for both of us, is this: I wrote Operación Bukowski (Operation Bukowski) living in the United States in 2002. It was published in 2004. And you, being an American, read that novel this year in Argentina.