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Diego Paszkowski Argentina
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Diego Paszkowski, born in Buenos Aires in 1966, is the director of
various writing workshops for young people at several cultural institutes in
Buenos Aires, lectures at the University of Buenos Aires and writes for various
newspapers, including Clarín and La Prensa del Sur.
Tesis
sobre un homicidio (“Thesis about a Homicide”): The
lawyer Paul Besançon, having completed his studies in
Two
years later Paszkowski published his second novel, El otro Gómez (“The
other Gómez”). One day the bank official William Efraín Puente is abducted and
forced to live the life of a certain Gómez. There is little sense in him
insisting on his real identity, so he finally succumbs and takes the place of
Gómez. Who would not like the chance to lead someone else’s life? The reader
follows Gómez in awe into his new life where some indefinable threat seems to
lurk. And yet the structure of the story is such that the reader simply cannot
put down the book until the altogether compelling end, when real Gómez turns
up.
With Alrededor de Lorena (“All About Lorena”) Paszkowski departs from
the crime genre and seduces the reader into the realm of poetic prose. The
title character is the middle class woman Lorena, who had always dreamt of
getting married, while her husband, Ricardo, did not find the trip to the
registry office quite so easy. They then embark on normal married life and have
two daughters. The unexpected turning point comes when they take the trip to
Ricardo loses the power of
speech and spends two years in a psychiatric clinic, where he is cared for an
attractive nurse with a blond wig – Lorena? Later, he looks for work and a roof
over his head, and finds both as a proofreader in a publishing house, never
leaving the building. He has a humiliating relationship with the manager of the
publishing company, at the outer limits of human dignity and sexual lust. But,
once again, the woman appears to be none other than Lorena…
With elements reminiscent of director David Lynch or writer Herman
Melville, this multiple-voiced and experimental novel leads the reader into a
labyrinth of passions, driven along by the question of the hidden desires and
identities concealed within us – and how far we are prepared to go to fulfil
them.
Tesis sobre un homicidio,
the first novel by Diego Paszkowski, is a book which easily places him amongst
the best narrators of young Argentinean literature.
Vicente Battista, CLARÍN
I
have no doubt that he is a genuine writer.
Adolfo Bioy Casares
Paszkowski brings new life to Argentinian storytelling, and that’s
something we haven’t seen for some time now.
Tomás Eloy Martínez
Paszkowski’s novels are not just good – they are very
good.
Luis Sepúlveda
I shouldn’t so much congratulate him as thank him for
the pleasure of reading his work.
Justo Navarro
Visit the author’s website:
Original
editions and rights sold:
Novels:
Tesis sobre un
homicidio,
Buenos Aires: Sudamericana 1999, 206 p.
Buenos Aires: Ediciones
Debolsillo 2007
Film rights under option
Italy: Fanucci 2004 ● Portugal:
Ambar 2003
El otro Gómez, Buenos Aires: Sudamericana 2001, 175 p.
Portugal: Ambar 2004
Alrededor de
Lorena, Buenos Aires: Sudamericana 2006,
286 p.
Anthologies:
Mas y mejores
cuentos, Eudeba 2000, 345 p.
Nuevas Narrativas, Buenos Aires: Sudamericana 2002, 251. p.
For children:
El día en que los animales quisieron comer
otra cosa, Buenos Aires: Alfaguara
2009, 32 p.