SERGIO BIZZIO

LOCKDOWN Q&A April 2020

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

I am living in my house in Buenos Aires, with my wife and one of my children, all in quarantine. My other son is at his mother's house and I haven't seen him for several weeks. I miss him. It's horrible not being able to see your own child. I am also concerned about my mother, who is 85 years old and alone in a house two hundred kilometres from here, in a small provincial town. I have no chance to go and get them: all travel is prohibited. The only avenues open to me are anxiety-ridden, the rest are all closed. 

How are these surreal days influencing your normal writing process?

Well, I don't write anything. What can be done other than not writing? I have been locked up for thirty days and the only thing I have been able to do in that time is dedicate myself a little to my garden, discard books from my library, and read. Not much more than that.

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

 The confinement in itself does not affect me too much because I have spent my life locked up. What affects me is that all options have disappeared, that is, the world. There is nothing outside anymore, only danger and threat, which means that there is also nothing extraordinary left about being in our house as the confinement is no longer a choice. I have a 3-year-old daughter, I play a lot with her, and she is my only true joy.

What are you currently reading for pleasure?

I read Kafka and Borges, who are my favourite authors of all time.