Sylvia Molloy: "I do not seem very realistic to think that language will change for the use of inclusive language"

It is a holiday and nap in the surroundings of the Botanical Garden.Sylvia Molloy (1938) arrives at the confectionery of the corner of Santa Fe and Syrian Arab Republic Slow: a fall, a blow, a knee hurt weeks ago;She speaks of that while she supports the cane in one chair and accommodates in another, willing to start the conversation.She looks animated, talk with pleasure and laughs, laughs before any of her own comments or as a gentle response to the sayings of her interlocutor.His work is so important, his way of reading and producing readings and writing is so influential, that sitting down with her is for any cultural journalist an excessive ambition that includes the claim to obtain all possible responses about literature, criticism, theacademic life and issues related to gender issues.

(Naturally, my case was no exception).

Molloy is an exquisite reader and a writer as subtle as unclassifiable.His name transcended critics and academia with novels as soon as a prison and the common forgetfulness to those who followed the book of stories varies imagination and nouvelles as disarticulations and living between languages, without stopping producing critical texts such as the lyrics of Borges, End of the century poses: overflows of the genre in modernity or an appearance: autobiographical writing in Latin America.As can be seen, it is a work marked by the alternation between fiction and the essay in what is a characteristic of its style, such as the construction of short and luminous texts, among which reading appointments, a reading appointments, adelicate memory of her life as a reader.

Sylvia Molloy lived from very early outside Argentina, first in France - where he was a doctorate in literature compared to Sorbonne - and then in the United States, where he developed an impressive career as a university professor.He taught Yale, at the University of New York and Princeton: in this last university it was in 1974 the first woman who managed to access a position as head.Criticism and prestigious writer, pioneer in LGTB studies, Molloy lives in New York although, already withdrawn, he travels followed home on the Atlantic coast and also comes with relative frequency to Buenos Aires.

Infobae Culture interviewed her a few weeks ago.In that talk, which is reproduced below, spoke about his books, about inclusive language, he criticized the quota system at the university and also questioned those who intend to bury a work when there are accusations to their author in between.Beyond some specific observations, Molloy praised the youth impetus of the current Women.

- Your sister and you went very young to live in another country ... - Yes, we were both to live outside but it was a little by chance, it is not that we left the house.I went to study France, then I returned to finish the sorbonne thesis here, with the idea of returning to France.While I was back here I tried to get a job at the University.It was a tremendous era because you had to revalid.

- What year are we talking about? - We are talking about the year 63, 64.And then you had to revalidate a lot of subjects and the employees of the Faculty told me: "You have to give the revalidation because, for example, you have not completed French language".And I said: "Well, but in France you speak French, classes are in French so it is assumed that everyone speaks French."" Well, but it is not in the program."I started like that, I had to pay as seventeen additional subjects.And then I thought, here, this is not, I will have to get a job of something else.And in fact I taught for a couple of years in the French Alliance.But well, I finished the thesis, I went to defend it to Paris and at that time the United States sought labor.What irony ... With what is happening now, right?They were looking for people because there were many new universities and had put one in a place called Buffalo, New York, that I, with my geographical ignorance, assumed that it was like saying Villa Crespo, Buenos Aires.And it was not so, it was a city near Niagara's cataracts, where it was a frightful cold, you had snow eight months per year, but hey.

- Did you settle alone? - I settled alone.There was another Argentina by chance so we became friends.And it was a place, at that time, very dynamic because they had money and paid well.And they also brought many people outside.The exchange was splendid there.There for the first time I heard Foucault speaking, Derrida.Borges invited him once.

- Did you know him or already knew him? - I already knew him of having seen him in the National Library, many years before, but there I met him better.I had also read it.And they also put me in charge of the amusements.

- You were something like her chaperone.- More or less, because the woman was too, so she was the chaperone.But I was the one who took him from here to there, he took him for a walk.There happened a very curious thing that I have told but that is faithful.I took Borges to the Niagara and Borges cataracts said on the trip while we were going, he was at an hour away, and Borges said: "What absurd that there is a poem that begins 'oh, powerful Niagara' (n.of r.It refers to the ode to Niagara, by Cuban José María Heredia) when the word Niagara already contains the notion of power ".And the silent woman, there to the side.Well, then we stop in a place because I wanted Borges to hear the cataracts, at least.So from above, the woman could also hear and see and when he saw the cataracts, what does he say?: "What powerful, right?"(Laughs).

- There is an anecdote with Eleanor Roosevelt, they say that when he came to Argentina, seeing the Iguazu Falls said: "Poor Niagara" ...

- Can be.Surely had a sense of humor.While Elsa Astete had no sense of humor (laughs).Instead, what I had were a desire to buy things ... Then I said all the time: "Isn't there a store?""Isn't there a store?"And I say: "Yes, there is a woolworth"

- Were you in your car? - Yes.Then we enter the woolworth that of Morondanga, of Niagara Falls, and she says: "Well, I go back to see what there is, you stay here."And it literally parks us next to a counter and she leaves to see what there is.Of course, I realize but Borges does not realize where he is.I realize that we are in the Women's underwear section and that we are standing next to some baskets full of bombchas.And then I thought: I am the only person in the world at this time that knows this.No one is going to believe that we are ...

- In the midst of the kingdom of bombing.- Siiii… speaking of literature in the kingdom of the bomber.It was very funny.But all that to tell you that many people came to college, so it was a good place.And there began my life in the United States.One of the things I insisted on finding out, because they made a 3 -year contract and I said "well, what if I want to go to the second year? Do they force me to stay three years? Because I thought I wasThe best at two years turned to me, and it turns out that I stayed a lifetime.But not in Buffalo.

- From that moment with Borges you will start a more personal and professional link.That brings you closer to a writer and a person, something that sometimes one tries to separate, but it becomes difficult, right?

- Yes Yes Yes.

- How is it done to take distance from the person when one admires the work of an author? - I suppose that, for starting, not seeing them too often, right?Do not transform into ... I say, that there is always in one that notion that a writer is perceiving but is also perceiving a literature, which arises from that person.I don't know, there is that idea of when they tell you: "Borges the man", or "we know what the writer was like but what man was" ".Let's not divide, the man is the writer and the writer is the man.

- This distinction is important at the moment, when some works by authors, filmmakers, artists in general because they are denounced or accused of sexual abuse and violence, so many try to bury a work based on that based on that.What do you think?Is it an excess of political correction? - For me the human being is a compound and you have to take into account everything that composes that person, not see the person through an act ... I do not know, it seems impoverishing.I do not know, I told you earlier that man is his work or the writer is his work and the work is the writer, which does not prevent a human subject, man or woman, and there to be a series of books from the books of theAnother side, right?That is, they communicate and identify to some extent but it seems to me a mistake to sacrifice a work seeking to impose a punishment on the individual.

- Why would we really be punishing ours.

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— Sari Beth Rosenberg Wed Jul 21 00:49:26 +0000 2021

- It is what happens when they try to pick up paintings in some museums or take certain books from libraries.- Yes, yes, I think that is having a very narrow and finally very poor look, very impoverishing.

- What do you think of what happens in some universities in which the programs of certain subjects are changing based on, for example, the absence of minority representation?How is it evaluated, how is it done to be fair and equitable in relation to human rights, civil rights and at the same time support aesthetic or artistic criteria? - I think you cannot;one always sins or on the one hand or on the other.So somehow that is telling you that this approach is not working well.I think it is important to open culture to multiple readers and also promote texts that open the doors to us as readers about realities that we did not know or that we knew badly.But what bothers me is the quota system.Well, if there is a blackness, or if there is a brown, then we are fine, but if there is no ... and that spoke with a friend earlier, that criterion of "me as a minority ..." that minorities always need representation, no matter, no matterhow dim is the minority or difference.And it seems to me that the matter is complicated there because there is, on the one hand, a criterion of representativeness and on the other a criterion that a power is being awarded to the group, right?You are telling you "Well, you don't want to represent me, or don't you want to include me".There is something positive that drives this but very soon it becomes something non -productive.Non -productive for anyone because being the only black student in a thirty -target class ... that is, theoretically, is to include the black student in a different reality and where it represents.But what does it represent?Do you represent yourself, represents another race, represents solving an injustice?Is to attribute a very strong symbolic burden to this person.So there is a ...

- The question is how to be just when usually the casts of those who make the decisions are not equitable.Because the quota system, as in politics, is to avoid the discretion of those who make up these lists or make the selections, which in general are part of those hegemonic majorities, right? - Of course, of course.With which they clean their consciences.

- But, then, how to generate to build something more fair without being ending up either a clown and how you say that it ends up symbolically carrying the poor creature that occupies that place, right?It is very complicated.- It's not easy, it's not easy.Look, when I wrote the book on Latin American autobiographies (N.of r.Molloy refers to an appearance: autobiographical writing in Latin America) I included several women but not a chapter on women but in the same current of the book, say, that it is more or less the line for times, there were men and women.That is, I chose to talk about Teresa de la Parra, I chose to talk about Norah Lange, I chose to talk about Victoria Ocampo ...

- It was naturally, that is, you did not have to force him.- Yes Yes.But of course, working certain themes realized how women writers used certain topics of autobiographical writing in another way.That is, life, childhood, or provincial life worked by Sarmiento, on the one hand, or worked by Teresa de la Parra is very different.Because Teresa de la Parra rescues a series of women, from other women.But Sarmiento also goes the instruction, to the reading of the children, but you realize that what Sarmiento is doing is to count memories but put together an icon.

- His own biography occurred.- Exact, yes, yes.And in the case of Teresa de la Parra, that patriotic obligation is not.

- We are living a kind of unstoppable wave in relation to the question of the claims of women who from society necessarily move to all disciplines.With the years you have and with the years that you come seeing the subject, how do you see it in general in the world and here in Argentina? - Here what impressed me in Argentina is, and well, they are observations that are perhaps superficialBecause I have not been, I have missed many of the manifestations, etc..There is as a wave of young people who are very involved in this and that impresses me, it impresses me positively, right?Because there is a very strong bet that is not superficial.

- I don't know what treatment you suddenly had with men of different ages, but what is having is a phenomenal change in the behavior of the male depending on all this.Many patterns are being modified.- Yes.I have spoken especially with women but from the men I have spoken with I have the impression that here something different is happening.That is not as before, that it is not the claim for the female vote, let's say, it is not for one thing: it is to look otherwise but look at another way in another way.Do not look at a right that does not have the woman or an aspect of the thing.And I don't know if men are willing to do it completely but they know it is different.That seems to me a great advance, because that allows dialogue.

- Between peers.- Yes, exacto.

- And what do you think, for example, Judith Butler is a phenomenon when she occurs or that someone as Rita Segato has opened the Book Fair? - Well, Rita Segato confesses that I don't know her well.But in the case of Judith Butler I say, there is a very serious bet.That is, she has opened her intellectual work to a broad and inclusive feminism but above all thinking.And I see that as a very positive thing, in addition, because it is not that it comes and brings a fashion from outside ... that is, it gives you the instruments to delve into what is happening here.

- Something that is also generating a lot of stir has to do with inclusive language.You are a person who lived all his life speaking at least in three languages.How do you imagine adding now the "Todes"? - That costs me a lot ... I don't think I get to use inclusive language.I will resort to half heavy phrases, how to say "they and them" or "women and men", but I don't know if I'm going to say "all" or use the "x", it costs me a lot.

- Do you think about a fashion?Do you think about a trend?Do you think it can happen that younger ones drag and carry their tongue towards something like that? - I think that when the language changes, it changes from very different places, it is not a group or a move that will change the language, it seems.That is, we all speak language and it does not seem very realistic to think that language will change because we are using this inclusive language.I don't know, I don't see it ... I understand that they want to use it, but I think you have to use it with the awareness that it is an artifact but it is not a language that has developed for centuries, right?

- Is there anything that is disturbing in the male Spanish language as long as we use?Or have you completely assimilated? - I have it assimilated but I always try to use forms that include, if I say "all", "we all think", for example, I usually turn to the heaviest "we all think".

- It is a way of doing inclusive language without forcing letters, say.- That, yes,.

- I understand.And you always do that, do you come doing a long time ago? - No, no, I do it more often now than before.That is, the use of inclusive language, without a doubt, has driven me to do that, has had influence not to use it but to modify my writing according to that idea of inclusion.

- Are there moments of your life or your present where you get more naturally to work in rehearsal than in fiction?Do you feel that fiction has to do with moments of your life? - You know that I alternately and usually I have two parallel projects.One more reflective, one more rehearsal, and the other more fiction.But lately they mix a lot because, I don't know, when I write those books as imagination, it is obviously a reflection on memory and age.But I didn't want to write an essay about that, I wanted to write a text or texts, stories, stories, about my friend who was losing her memory.So it's a mixture, right?And that mixture is at this very inspiring or productive moment.

- Stimulating.- Yes, muy estimulante.When I write about bilingualism, I'm not interested in reading too much theory about when the child begins to be bilingual.I have my own experience.And sometimes I read some other thing, but I am interested in the stories of other writers who talk about that.

- How do you define yourself in professional terms? - As a writer, point (laughs).Criticism and fiction writer I suppose.

- And teaching where you leave it? - Well, when you read those descriptions that make you look.Sometimes, they say: "She was a teacher", so I say "I was a teacher".

- But there is nothing like that one is still a teacher?- One does not leave.And, in fact, people don't leave you either.Because there are people who still approach me and tell me: "I know you are retired, but would you not agree to direct my thesis?"And I say: "No, unfortunately not."But I keep very good dialogue.That is, what I keep from teaching is a very profitable exchange for me with the people who have been my student or who know and unable to relationship with this person who is a student somewhere, so I continue.Because for me it is a dialogue that enriches me a lot.That is, what drives me to think is always dialogue with someone.

- Tell what you think of the latest generations of Argentine women writers.- Ah, they seem very stimulating, they seem very fascinating.I read and I reread them because I must say that I have the memory a bit lazy, but I like to reread them.

- Do you read in all languages all the time? - Not all the time, sometimes it privileges one over another.I read fiction more in Spanish than in another language at this time.Poetry Leo more in English.Essay, a little divided, is between Spanish and French, from time to time, more than occasionally.And then I am interested.

- I was going to ask what you thought about Lydia Davis, whose work is so special.- A marvel.

- Extraordinary author.- It's my goddess.

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