The Argentinian writer on how the small mechanical toys she dreamed up for her most recent novel might become a reality; and the forthcoming Netflix film of her debut, Fever Dream
Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1978, Samanta Schweblin is the author of three short story collections, and in 2010 was chosen by Granta as one of the best writers in Spanish under 35. Her debut novel, Fever Dream (2014, translated by Megan McDowell in 2017), won the Shirley Jackson award for best novella and was shortlisted for the Booker International prize. Schweblin’s second novel, Little Eyes, out now in paperback, imagines a reality in which people keep “kentuki” – small, animal-shaped devices with cameras for eyes, controlled by an unknown user somewhere across the globe. She lives in Berlin.
How has the past year been for you?
Very strange. The first months of the pandemic caught me in Argentina: I was annoyed, but those three months were good for me, to sit down, pace myself, reconnect with my work. But at the beginning it was hard, because from one day to the next, the idea of what is fiction and what isn’t changed across the whole world. On day 10 or 15, I remember watching characters on TV hugging their friends and thinking, “This is not possible”. It was the first time in our lifetimes that fiction had such a strong red line that said: this was before and this is after. Writing from that red line is very hard.
