Claudia Pineiro Q&A LOCKDOWN IN BUENOS AIRES

June 2020         

 1. Where you are currently living and are you needing to self-isolate in your country?

I´m living in Buenos Aires. In my country the isolation is obligatory. Not in the whole country but yes where I live because in the area where live more people and where there are more positive cases of COVID 19.

2. How are these surreal days influencing your normal writing process?

 It was very difficult for me writing fiction in the first weeks of quarantine. I only could write non-fiction. But now I days I’m begging to write fiction again. The more complicated item is to image the new world if you write stories that happen in real-time, not dystopic ones.

3. What are the little things that are getting you through this extraordinary time?

 I did and do things that I don’t use to do. For example, repair a refrigerator that is not cooling. Cooking is a new activity too. Yoga.

4. If you had to isolate yourself with one other writer, who would it be and why?

With Rosa Montero, because is my friend, makes me laugh, and knows a lot about science.

5. Do you have any local stories of kindness or good deeds that you can share?

Of course. Many people help another in little things nowadays. I hope this stays when the pandemic is over.  Here there are a lot of young people that offered themselves to buy food or medicine for old people at risk.

6.  Is there a local dish or comfort food that you are eating more regularly at the moment, to get you through these turbulent times?

There are some traditions. On May 25th, the day of our country, we used to eat “Locro”, a kind of watery stew with pumpkin, beans, others vegetables and meat, very typical. On that day we used to meet in a house and the one who knows how to make locro cooks for all the friends. This May 25 a friend sent us the locro that he had cooked, by a taxi, and did the same with other friends. It was wonderful.