This is the New Yorker Fiction Podcast from the New Yorker magazine.

I'm Debra Treesman, fiction editor at The New Yorker.

Each month we invite a writer to choose a story from the magazine's archives to read and

discuss.

This month we're going to hear in the name of Bobby by Julio Cortaza, which was translated

from the Spanish by Gregory Robasa and published in the New Yorker in July of 1979.

Finally he said something like, at night it was all different.

He spoke about some sort of black cloth that he couldn't get his hands or feet out of.

Anyone can have nightmares like that, but it was a shame that Bobby should only have them

about my sister who made so many sacrifices for him.

The story was chosen by Ben Learner, who is the author of seven books of fiction and poetry,

including the novels 1004 and The Topeka School, which was a finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer

Prize for Fiction.

Hi Ben.

Hi, how are you?

All right.

So the last time we talked on the podcast it was about a story by John Berger and I'm wondering

what made you pick a story by Julio Cortaza today?

Yeah, I mean I've always liked Cortaza, I've always really liked how modular his stories

are, like the way he plays with how things can happen in different orders.

But I also think I probably chose this story because I have an eight year old and because

I talk to my eight year old a lot about what she dreams and so I felt a kind of eerie connection

...