Rodrigo Rey Rosa

Rodrigo Rey Rosa was born in Guatemala in 1958. He immigrated to New York in 1980, and in 1982 he moved to Morocco. American expatriate writer Paul Bowles, with whom Rey Rosa had been corresponding, translated his first three books into English. Rey Rosa has based many of his writings and stories on legends and myths indigenous to Latin America and North Africa. Of his many works, seven have been translated into English: The Beggar’s Knife, Dust on Her Tongue, The Pelcari Project, The Good Cripple, The African Shore, Severina, and now Chaos, A Fable.

From Rey Rosa's Q&A with Deborah Kalb:

Q: How did you come up with the idea for Chaos, A Fable?

A: A vague idea dawned on me—the idea of writing about a group of young people trying to alter the course of present-day events by any means possible—during a conversation I had with a Muslim acquaintance of mine when I was visiting Morocco in 2015. He kept telling me how crazy the world had become.

In any case, I think that an idea for a novel is only a point of departure, an impulse. I did not know, when I started writing, where this impulse would take me. For me one of the pleasures of writing a long piece, as opposed to a short story, where the "idea" becomes apparent almost immediately, is discovering where a particular impulse, or temptation, may lead --something you cannot know until...[read on]

Learn more about Chaos, A Fable.

Writers Read: Rodrigo Rey Rosa.

--Marshal Zeringue