Chilean Nights

For some writing is a reawakening. When I think of Roberto Bolano I think of a cold Chilean night. When a writer writes he or she lives within the moment, away from a voice that faults and encourages penitence. Perhaps all writing is a form of penitence, contrition, an apology for sins never committed. If this is so, and I believe it to be so, then the writer is a penitent, a waking child who survives, flourishes, when the inside becomes the outside, the hidden the revealed. But this self-disclosure has a cost, and many are unable to shoulder the weight of contrition, the apology for sins never committed. A child believes, takes to heart a parent's voice, even when the absurdity of that voice is deafening. It is from this very deafness that the inside becomes the outside, the hidden the revealed, the voice bellows and cries. For some writing is a reawakening, a revelation, a wailing into the night.