El vértigo horizontal

To write, you have to look at things as if it were the first time. With this premise, in these stories I give an account of the impressions of my first trip to Argentina and Uruguay in 2003. The economic and political crisis was in full swing after the "corralito" in 2001. I arrived in Buenos Aires at the beginning of August 2003. The invitation came from the poet Diana Bellessi to read poetry at the Casa de Cultura at 3784 Honduras Street, now defunct. That same month, on August 27, I gave a conference on Spanish women's poetry at the University of the Republic, thanks to the efforts of the professor and professor Eleonora Basso. The doors were opened for me by the poets Ida Vitale and Enrique Fierro, who were living in Austin (Texas) at the time. The title of this book comes from a metaphor created by the French writer Pierre Drieu la Rochelle. This metaphor seemed to me to sum up, at a glance, everything I felt when I saw the immensity of the Pampa. I investigated and learned that the writer, a sympathizer of National Socialism, had gone for a walk one distant early morning with J.L. Borges. They reached the vicinity of Puente Alsina, in the suburbs of Buenos Aires, where the plain was already felt, and he exclaimed: "Horizontal vertige!"