Cloudburst: An Anthology of Hispanic Canadian Short Stories

Jorge Etcheverry

79 Jorge Etcheverry is a poet, narrator, visual artist and critic from Chile. He holds a Ph.D. in comparative literature from the Université de Montréal and lives in Ottawa. Etcheverry is co-editor of La Cita Trunca/Split Quotation Press. He is also ambassador to Canada for Poetas del Mundo and a member of the group Poetas Antiimperialistas de América and of the El Dorado Cultural Workshop. His latest publications have appeared in the anthologies El lugar de la memoria: Poetas y narradores de Chile (The Place of Memory: Poets and Fiction Writers from Chile) (Ayún, 2007); Poéticas de Chile/Chilean Poets on the Art of Poetry, selected by Gonzalo Contreras (ETNIKA, 2007); Grajeas, 100 cuentos breves de todo el mundo (Birdshot: 100 Short Stories from Everyone), an anthology edited by Sergio Gaut vel Hartman (Desde la Gente, 2007); and Paradoja, Revista de Poesía #12 (December, 2007). He is also the editor of Chilean Poets: A New Anthology, a collection of work by Chilean writers in the United States and Canada, which was published by Marick Press in 2011. His many critical articles on Chilean poetry and Hispanic Canadian literature have appeared in journals such as Contexto (Venezuela), as well as in collections of essays, including The Changing Faces of Chilean Poetry: A Translation of Avant­Garde, Women’s Jorge Etcheverry Cloudburst 80 and Protest Poetry (Edwin Meller, 2008), Un mar en una gota de agua: nuevas visiones sobre la poesía chilena (A Sea in a Drop of Water: New Visions of Chilean Poetry) (Universidad de Chile, 2010) and Antología de poesía chilena I: La generación de los 60 o de la dolorosa diáspora (Anthology of Chilean Poetry I: The 60s Generation, or the Painful Diaspora) (Catalonia, 2012). What has it been like to be a writer in Canada? It’s been a mixed experience, fruitful because of the possibility of living immersed in other cultures and languages and of opening up new cultural spaces within an intercultural reality. However, it’s also been negative due to the difficulty in entering into the world of Canadian publishing and criticism. Do you think your themes, or the way you deal with them, have changed as a result of your experience as an immigrant? Of course. You can’t live in a new environment without incorporating new topics and perspectives. Which Latin American or Spanish writers have had the greatest influence on your work? Nicanor Parra, Pablo Neruda, Vicente Huidobro, Pablo de Rockha, Julio Cortázar, Jorge Luis Borges, Ernesto Cardenal, José Donoso, Ernesto Sábato, Jorge Asís, Nicolás Guillén, Juan Rulfo and others. It’s difficult to separate influence from admiration. How has your work been received in your home country? It’s been well received, considering how far away I am and the eccentricities of my work right from the beginning—an avant-garde poetry with European influence at a time when there was a return to simplicity and increased influence of English-language poetry in Chile—plus the lack of commercial circulation of my books. What kind of relationship have you kept up with the literary tradition of your home country and its writers? Jorge Etcheverry 81 Well, I’ve been invited to various literary and academic events over the last few years, and I’ve been published in various anthologies. I know and am in contact with various writers. What challenges have you faced as a writer in Canada? Mainly the difficulty getting access to the publishing market, along with the scarcity of versions of my work in the two official languages and the lack of institutional or professional connection , which open doors like a magic wand here in Canada. What themes do you like to develop in your fiction and why? Marginalization, uprooting, social reality, different aspects of the fantastic, and the erotic. It’s difficult to specify certain topics in writing prose. Everything gets included. Do you keep in contact with other Hispanic Canadian writers? Which ones? In general I maintain relationships of various types with many of them, from friendship to collaboration and specific contacts. It would be a long list and could be almost a Who’s Who. ...