I think everything you are, everything that engages you, eventually comes to bear on the novel you write. I think the creative energy in novel writing, obviously, comes from tension. From trying to fuse. From trying to make coherent disparate… — Francisco Goldman Copy Share Image
I don't impose political responsibilities on my fiction. The last thing I would ever want to do, for example, is write a novel that would appear to want to tell people what to think about the immigration debate, and I would never write a novel whose sole ambition was to give a "positive" view of immigrants. I'm for open borders,… — Francisco Goldman Copy Share
What I see of the US Presidential elections from down here makes me want to disengage from that particular reality and just hole up… — Francisco Goldman Copy Share Image
“Hold her tight, if you have her; hold her tight, I thought, that's my advice to all the living. Breathe her in, put your… — Francisco Goldman Copy Share Image
Great fiction has been written out of the very darkest circumstances of our narco violence, and nothing written in either fiction or nonfiction has penetrated that darkness so memorably - you can even say beautifully, a relentless riveting forensic dark beauty that some readers in fact find themselves unable to endure - as Roberto Bolaño's 2666. Especially in "The Part… — Francisco Goldman Copy Share
Maybe Pope Francis will say something on his visit to the US, maybe he'll rebuke Donald Trump and anti-immigrant racism and demagoguery beautifully, in… — Francisco Goldman Copy Share Image
The Democrats are hardly agents of change, or even remotely interesting talkers or reality observers. The workings of actual power in the US is… — Francisco Goldman Copy Share Image
“I can go years thinking that it seems impossible that I will ever satisfy that appetite again and then it is easy to satisfy… — Francisco Goldman Copy Share Image
Narco fiction novels have a reputation, at least here in Mexico among some of the writers I know, of being somewhat rushed productions, usually written in one way or another like crime thrillers, with something cheesily exploitative about them. It feels exploitive - taking this horrible and ongoing tragedy and trying to turn it into something entertaining. Or trying to… — Francisco Goldman Copy Share
There's a certain advantage to living in a small country like Guatemala, I think. You don't feel so distant from political reality there. When… — Francisco Goldman Copy Share Image
I'm a little skeptical of so-called narco fiction, I have to say, though some writers I admire may have written some narco fiction. You feel the dread and the atmosphere in Yuri Herrera's extraordinary novels, but you'd never say that what he writes is narco fiction. The same goes for Martin Solares's novels, inspired by the nightmare city of Tampico,… — Francisco Goldman Copy Share
I've written one book-length piece of journalism. The Art of Political Murder: Who Killed Bishop Gerardi? That book had an impact. Eight years after… — Francisco Goldman Copy Share Image
