Literature Class is a transcription of a lecture course given by the brilliant Argentine writer Julio Cortázar (Final Exam) at the University of California at Berkeley when he was 65 years old. Cortázar (1914-1984) was from Buenos Aires, devoted to books since childhood and possessed a strong lifelong bent toward fantasy and experimental fiction. "The fantastic for me... was one aspect of reality, which under certain circumstances could manifest itself... it wasn't some kind of outrage within an established reality." He describes how he gradually evolved from the unworldly aesthetic literary purism of his youth toward a strong sense of political and historical context, and how he approaches a balance between literary merit and sociopolitical content. He discusses his own books and his approach to writing, the writers he admires, story structure, time, fate, musicality and humor, playfulness, eroticism and the problems of translation.
This book is a fairly exact record of an intellectually serious course. Cortázar reads stories to his students, takes their questions and informs them of his office hours. He is frequently funny and charming, with an open casual demeanor, but his discourses also require careful attention and consideration. This is not a popular writing guidebook by any means. But for those who would jump at the opportunity to audit a course with one of the greatest Latin American writers of the 20th century: here is your chance. --Sara Catterall