Daniel Mella – Older Brother (El Hermano Mayor)

01/27/22 • 27 min

Daniel Mella is one of the leading writers in contemporary Latin American literature. Born and based in Montevideo, Uruguay, he is a two-time winner of the Bartolomé Hildago Prize. His autofiction novel El Hermano mayor (2017) is his first translated into English, by Megan McDowell, as Older Brother (Charco Press, 2018). In this episode, he discusses the difficult process of converting the real-life tragedy that inspired the novel into a fictionalised account, the dangers of viewing the world through aesthetic eyes, and the revelatory power of dreaming.

‘It wouldn't have been a true book if it was only sad.’

Craft is brought to you by Wasafiri, the magazine of international contemporary writing and Queen Mary University of London with funding from Arts Council England. Check out www.wasafiri.org for transcripts and extras from this interview, and much more from writers from all over the world.

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‘It wouldn't have been a true book if it was only sad.’

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Previous Episode

Chen Chen – Nature Poem

Chen Chen is an award-winning poet based in the United States. In this episode, he talks about the composition, editing, re-editing (and re-editing), process of his poem 'Nature Poem' published in his debut National Book award longlisted collection When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities (BOA Editions, 2017 and Bloodaxe Books, 2019). On apocalyptic pineapples, giving yourself permission, and what writers can learn from Marie Kondo.

'Sometimes you have to make mistakes, you have to allow yourself to go on tangents, on little side adventures ... and then return home.'

Craft is brought to you by Wasafiri, the magazine of international contemporary writing and Queen Mary University of London with funding from Arts Council England. Check out www.wasafiri.org for outtakes from this interview that didn't (quite) make the final cut, and much more from writers from all over the world.

Chen's forthcoming book is Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency (2022).

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Next Episode

Johny Pitts – Afropean

Johny Pitts is a multiple-award-winning writer, photographer, and broadcast journalist, originally from Sheffield, England. His first book, Afropean (2020), combines travel writing, photography, history, and slices of memoir into a nonfiction work that seeks to sketch the many lives lived by Black people in contemporary Europe. In this fascinating interview, he tells the story of how he moved from wandering the streets and record stores of his hometown, lost, to becoming the head of continent-wide network of Black writers committed to capturing their experiences in Europe – in all their beauty and challenge.

'Who are the members of the Black community living in a place like Frankfurt?'

Craft is brought to you by Wasafiri, the magazine of international contemporary writing. Check out our website, www.wasafiri.org, for outtakes and a full transcript of this interview, and much more from writers all over the world.

Craft is sponsored by Arts Council England, and Queen Mary University of London.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.