The Lights of Home

First published in 2003. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Jason Weiss was born and raised at the Jersey shore, schooled in Berkeley, spent a decade in Paris, and has been living in Brooklyn for 30+ years, working as a writer, editor, and translator. His first book was Writing at Risk: Interviews in Paris with Uncommon Writers (1991), followed by books on Brion Gysin, Steve Lacy, Latin American writers in Paris, and the ESP-Disk' record label. He also published Cloud Therapy (2015), short nonfiction texts on swimming, and translated books by Luisa Futoransky, Marcel Cohen, and Silvina Ocampo. With Iris Cushing, he co-edited a big book of selected poems by the late California poet Mary Norbert Korte (1934-2022), Jumping into the American River (2023). Spuyten Duyvil previously published another book of short nonfiction texts, Listenings (2023).

Table of Contents Introduction: the lure of Paris 1. The voyage out (1893-1939) The French reception 2. Writers' beginnings(Gabriel García Mrquez, Mario Vargas Llosa, Alfredo Bryce Echenique) 3. Clarifying sojourns (Octavio Paz, Alejandra Pizarnik) 4. Diplomatic pastures (Miguel Angel Asturias, Alejo Carpentier, Pablo Neruda) Tradition of Pilgrimage: the dream city 5. Interstitial spaces (Julio Cortzar) 6. Transgressive gestures (Severo Sarduy, Copi) Outside Looking In: Paris, city of exiles 7. The privileged eye, writing from distance (Julio Ramón Ribeyro, Juan José Saer) 8. Tsuris of the margins (Luisa Futoransky) Living in Another Language: the problem of audience, community 9. The translated self (Edgardo Cozarinsky) 10. New World transplants--foreigners in French (Eduardo Manet, Silvia Baron Supervielle) 11. Académicien (Hector Bianciotti) Conclusion: the lights of home Notes Bibliography