When the narrator of this story, a young writer working odd jobs and living alone in Barcelona, makes fourth place in a short story competition, he discovers among the shortlisted authors the name of Luis Antonio Sensini, an older, under-recognised Argentinian writer whom he admires. “The fact that I had been his fellow runner-up in a provincial literary competition—an association that I found at once flattering and profoundly depressing—encouraged me to make contact with him, to pay my respects and tell him how much his work meant to me.” The two begin an epistolary friendship, Sensini ending his replies with encouragement for the younger writer: “Pen to paper now, no shirking!” The story is a great homage to short story competitions, “those precious supplements to the writer’s modest income,” and, as it reaches its conclusion, transforms into a moving reflection on the lessons we learn from our writer mentors, dead and alive.
First collected in Llamadas Telefonicas, Anagrama, 1997, and in English in Last Evenings on Earth, New Directions, 2006. Available to read online at the Barcelona Review, here
A Personal Anthology 