{"id":12864,"date":"2025-03-19T20:50:59","date_gmt":"2025-03-19T19:50:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=12864"},"modified":"2025-03-19T20:50:59","modified_gmt":"2025-03-19T19:50:59","slug":"claudia-pineiro-lbf25-reviewed-by-joseph-hunter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=12864","title":{"rendered":"Claudia Pi\u00f1eiro @ LBF25, reviewed by Joseph Hunter"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Claudia Pi\u00f1eiro @ LBF25 | 12th<\/sup> March 2025
Reviewed by Joseph Hunter<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the subterranean Main Stage of the London Book Fair, Claudia Pi\u00f1eiro was unsure about her own ability to conduct the conversation in English rather than her native Spanish. The Argentinian author, best known for her crime novels, has had many of her books translated into English\u00a0\u2013 as well as many other languages\u00a0\u2013\u00a0but, as she remarks later in the conversation, likes to leave the translator well alone. Still, her confidence in her own ideas and in talking about her own work overrides any uncertainty she may have felt about the language in which the conversation was conducted.<\/p>\n

Interlocuter Andrea Kidd of the BBC began by enquiring about the crime-mystery element in Pi\u00f1eiro’s novels. There is a ‘who-dunnit’ aspect that draws readers in, she observed, and yet it also seems true to say that beyond that the work speaks to many other things that are important to Argentinian society. Pi\u00f1eiro admits that one of the things she enjoys most about writing her books is the idea of keeping a reader in suspense. She imagines, as she writes, that there is a reader behind her, looking over her shoulder, can almost feel her there. Still, Kidd is keen to press the question about the presence of social issues in the novels. Why, she wonders, do your books so often centre crimes both by and against women?<\/p>\n

This gives rise to a lengthy translator interlude to clarify the question.\u00a0Pi\u00f1eiro then insists that in writing about female crime it is not her intent to make a direct complaint or protest of some kind. Instead, her work reflects social debates that concern women and their roles in Argentinian society. These debates are something she has dramatized in the work in the form of a Chorus of female voices.<\/p>\n

Continuing with this theme, Pi\u00f1eiro talks in some more detail about her novel House of Flies <\/em>(2024). During the pandemic, she says, she found that it was easier for her to re-read books than read new ones\u00a0\u2013 including her own. She decided to revisit a character, In\u00e9s, whom she had previously left in prison some fifteen years previously (in the 2005 novel All Yours<\/em>). An opportunity presented itself: In\u00e9s is released into a contemporary world in which the role of women has changed, as well as the position of feminism. And many things people had thought settled have now again come to be of great importance.<\/p>\n

You seem to bring issues in ‘sideways’, observes Kidd. Pi\u00f1eiro counters that when she is writing she never begins by thinking about ‘issues’ first, but always focusses on the characters above all else. Then, during the writing, the issues appear naturally because her characters are obliged to deal with the world in which they live. Sometimes, in fact, she is surprised by the blurb that appears on the book’s jacket at publication mentioning the themes. For Pi\u00f1eiro, the issues lie underneath <\/em>the characters.<\/p>\n

The conversation shifts to the role of the city of Buenos Aires in Pi\u00f1eiro’s work, which is present as a kind of non-human but potent character. Readers have often told her that when they read her work, they feel as if they are walking through the city. Again, this comes from the characters\u00a0\u2013 the city is imbued into them. In fact, there is a more practical reason too, which is that Pi\u00f1eiro herself spends a great deal of time walking through the city. Not only that, but her grandad taught her how to read and walk at the same time, something she has continued to do until the present day. Writing<\/em> while you walk presents another challenge entirely, she admits with a smile, but nevertheless the ‘imaginings’ can appear as you walk, which helps you when you sit down to write (REVIEWER’S NOTE: at first, I misheard ‘imaginings’ as ‘machinations’, and although I have used the former here I still believe that the latter word captures the kinetic quality of the kind of plotting-while-walking to which Pi\u00f1eiro was alluding).<\/p>\n

An audience question about why she chose a character with Parkinson’s in her latest book prompts Pi\u00f1eiro to mention her mother, who had Parkinson’s. Because of this Pi\u00f1eiro is very familiar with the kind of body a person with that disease inhabits, and so felt she could write from that perspective. She refers to Susan Sontag’s writing on the diseased body\u00a0\u2013 how people do not look at the ill person’s body, and so in certain respects deny that person subjecthood. In writing this character with Parkinson’s she realises that her readers are obliged to look at things from that perspective. As with the presence of the city, and the role of women, it’s clear to we who are listening that even if the issues and concepts don’t come first, they certainly come through in force during the writing. It’s perhaps fitting, then, that we end the conversation with a final question from the audience about the most important piece of advice about writing that Pi\u00f1eiro holds dear. She thinks carefully, and then replies that it is important not to give in to the urge to over-explain\u00a0\u2013 to tell the reader too much. They have the right to find their own way through.<\/p>\n

Reviewed by Joseph Hunter<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Claudia Pi\u00f1eiro @ LBF25 | 12th March 2025Reviewed by Joseph Hunter\u00a0 In the subterranean Main Stage of the London Book Fair, Claudia Pi\u00f1eiro was unsure about her own ability to conduct the conversation in English rather than her native Spanish. The Argentinian author, best known for her crime novels, has had many of her books […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[283,431],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\nClaudia Pi\u00f1eiro @ LBF25, reviewed by Joseph Hunter - The Manchester Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=12864\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Claudia Pi\u00f1eiro @ LBF25, reviewed by Joseph Hunter - The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Claudia Pi\u00f1eiro @ LBF25 | 12th March 2025Reviewed by Joseph Hunter\u00a0 In the subterranean Main Stage of the London Book Fair, Claudia Pi\u00f1eiro was unsure about her own ability to conduct the conversation in English rather than her native Spanish. 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