Author Description

Melinda Camber Porter's conversation with Octavio Paz took place in August 1983 at his home in Cuernavaca, Mexico. Camber Porter traveled to Mexico to write an article on the John Huston filming of Under the Volcano (novel by Malcolm Lowery) for The Times (London). She took this opportunity to also interview Octavio Paz. Their wide-ranging conversation included the subjects of comparative art, literature, poetry and politics in Mexico, Latin America, Europe and America, as well as Paz's reflections on writer's block. This conversation took place at the same time as the publication of the English language edition of Octavio Paz's book, Marcel Duchamp. Dr. Laura Vidler, Chair of Spanish at the University of South Dakota, writes in her foreword, "if you think you've read this interview before [in the Partisan Review in 1986] you haven't." As the Partisan Review redacted much of the content. "In this new volume, however, the interview is published in its entirety, and the results are wonderful. Empathy between Paz and Camber Porter is established quickly. A professional diplomat, Paz's dual life as cultural ambassador and writer parallels Camber Porter's. Conversation about Duchamp, Picasso, Camus and Matisse-previously cut-appears here, as well as discussion of the classical Spanish poets that made up Paz's early reading-Quevedo, Góngora, and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (the subject of Paz's book, Las trampas de la Fe). In addition to a complete transcription of the interview, this volume includes Paz's Nobel speech in both English and (the original) Spanish, as well as further information on the work of Melinda Camber Porter." explains Vidler. In the second foreword, Scott Chaskey, a poet and farmer-naturalist from Sag Harbor, New York, provides his personal inspirations received from Octavio Paz. "For forty years I have returned to this beautiful evocation by Octavio Paz from The Bow and the Lyre," explains Chaskey. He writes on, "The interview you are about to read