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You are a human animal.

You are a very special breed.

For you are the only animal.

Who can think, who can reason, who can read.

Hello and welcome to Bookworm. This is Michael Silverblatt and today my guest is Stephen

Kessler. He is the translator of the selected poems of Julio Cortezar, published by City Lights in their pocket poet series.

The book is called Save Twilight.

And this show really is a celebration and evocation of the conditions of mind and imagination

that characterize the great Julio Cortazar.

You know, he died in 1984 at the age of 70s. that characterize the great Julio Cortazar.

You know, he died in 1984 at the age of 70.

Most people, if they know his work,

they know that there was a movie blow up by Antonioni that was inspired by one of his stories.

But, you know, every couple of years, like a tap on the shoulder,

a posthumous work appears in translation to remind us of the dazzling qualities of the playful

spirit of Julio Quartazar. I wanted to ask you to begin with to describe the book of poems that Kottazar collected,

I guess, virtually just before his death, what it looks like, what it feels like.

I discovered Salvo El Crapuskolo, which is the title, the original title of the poems.

In the bookstore and the Ministry of Culture in Managua, Nicaragua, when I was down there in

1985, so it had fairly recently been issued by editorial Nueva Imagen in Mexico City.

This book was a little paperback volume, more than 300 pages, and it had a lot of

...