Marie Arana on Writing Between Reality and Imagination

Peruvian American writer Marie Arana, author of works including 'American Chica,' 'Lima Nights,' 'Bolívar,' and 'LatinoLand,' discusses her return to fiction with a new novel. In an interview, she shares three books that inspire her blending of reality and imagination. She revisits Mario Vargas Llosa's first novel 'The Time of the Hero' (Spanish title 'La Ciudad y Los Perros'), which follows a boy sent to a brutal military academy in Lima after discovering his father is alive. Arana, a close friend of Vargas Llosa until his death in 2024, draws inspiration from his Nobel Prize speech on daydreams germinating into books. She also cites Samanta Schweblin's 'Seven Empty Houses,' a collection of unsettling short stories that blur reality and imagination, praising Schweblin's ability to manipulate readers' minds. Finally, she turns to Álvaro Enrigue's 'Now I Surrender,' a novel interweaving a historical narrative about Geronimo and the Apache with a contemporary road trip with his family. Arana describes Enrigue's work as liminal, moving between past and present, real and imagined.