Novelist Gisela Heffes chats with me today about her new novel, Ischia.
Bio:
Gisela Heffes is an award-winning author and a professor of Latin American Literature and Culture at Johns Hopkins University. In addition to her pioneering work in the field of ecocriticism and environmental humanities, she has published numerous books, essays, and articles on a variety of topics, such as urban utopias, displacement and migration, motherhood, and Jewish Argentine literature. Her bilingual works include the illustrated novella Sophie La Belle y las ciudades en miniatura / Sophie La Belle and The Miniature Cities (2016) and the poetry collection El cero móvil de su boca / The Mobile Zero of Its Mouth (2020), translated into French, Portuguese, Swedish, and German. The latter was praised for addressing the environmental crisis from an intimate and personal perspective, particularly regarding the experience of extinction, the loss of biodiversity, and what the future may hold for our children. Other works include the trilogy Ischia (2000), Praga (2001), and Ischia, Praga & Bruselas (2005); the short story collection Glossa urbana (2012); a collection of poetic chronicles, Aldea Lounge (2014); and the novel Cocodrilos en la noche (2020; 2023). The translation of her first novel, Ischia, was published in 2023 by Deep Vellum Press, and Crocodiles at Night is forthcoming also with Deep Vellum in May 2025. Her latest creative work is the hybrid collection Aquí no hubo ni una estrella (2023). Heffes served as the co-president of ASLE (The Association for the Study of Literature and Environment) from 2022 to 2024, and she is the Director of LAO (the Latin American Observatory), one of eight observatories spearheaded by the Humanities for the Environment Initiative at the University of Arizona.
Please tell us about your current release.
Ischia is an obscene novel that begins with the narration of the long piss of its main character (“Ischia”), a work that mocks everything and holds nothing back when confronting established norms, whether literary or cultural. The language of the novel is distinctly porteño (a slang from the city of Buenos Aires) and at times borders on a sort of impenetrability, becoming nearly hermetic. Yet, it is also an intimate novel, both humorous and sad at the same time, crisscrossed by disenchantment, apathy, indifference, and above all, misfortune. Written in the conditional tense, the novel revolves around three characters—Ischia, Praga (“Prague”), and Bruselas (“Brussels”)—who navigate a world where they seem suspended or lost. However, to view them as lost is to adopt a perspective rooted in success, based on societal expectations. Being lost implies failure; these characters, on the other hand, move beyond that as they embody a certain apathy toward belonging, whether to society or to their surrounding environment. It’s not that they reject these constructs, but rather that they display a simple lack of interest. There is a disinterest in social integration, in becoming a vital part of a system where individuals contribute either economically, socially, or culturally. These characters are outcasts. One must perceive them in stark black and white.
What inspired you to write this book?
When I wrote Ischia, my intention was to play with the idea that the story wasn’t actually happening. I envisioned a “virtual” narrative, one that is occurring and being told while at the same time is not fully happening or being entirely told. Since it’s virtual, like something projected without ever fully materializing, I was intrigued by the notion that the story navigates through an imprecise space between what is probable and improbable, almost echoing the way dreams unfold but with quite a bit of ambiguity. That’s why I chose to narrate it in the conditional, urging readers to question whether the story truly happened or not. Additionally, I wanted to explore this concept by constructing a narrative that would confront the complexities of time and space. The idea of time and space has always been a mystery. Why do we perceive time as so intimate yet distinct? How do we come to grips with new and old spaces, sites of memories and places of desire? I wanted to reflect on time’s ephemerality, which strangely dissipates. I sought to challenge the notion of linearity and to shape the peculiar immateriality we encounter daily through our perceptions of decay, what persists, and what is lost. The power of writing lies in its ability to alter any structure, including time—to deconstruct and disrupt it—and this idea of intervening in that elusive condition was what initially motivated me to tell the story.
Excerpt from Ischia:
I’d die, and it certainly wouldn’t be bad at all. Especially the first time. Dying would be like falling on a giant mirror where your voice and image keep multiplying until you’re exhausted. Spinning around in the air and seeing, in the end, all the people I’d want to see, all the objects, all the landscapes, all the mornings and all the afternoons that flowed through all the countries of the world, from each of all possible angles, at whatever time and in whatever language I felt like. It would be absolute ubiquity, the dream of the aleph, yes, all of that and even much more. I’d count on my fingers the things I saw, I felt, I longed for, I lost, I gave, I sacrificed at my own cost and at the cost of others. I’d remember the streets of my city, the cigarettes I’d smoked in different Buenos Aires neighborhoods, the bars where I would stop to have a beer or a coffee, to look at the confused noise of the people and the city buses through the window. The times I’d let myself be dragged through a multitude of images that resonated in my head, until I hit the train tracks, until I sat on one of those dilapidated benches and stayed there absorbed in myself for more than two, three hours. The guard at the station who, when he recognized me, would call me “the autistic kid.” Hi autistic kid, bye autistic kid. But I wouldn’t look at him; I wouldn’t pay him any mind. I would not be able to answer him no matter how many times I heard him come by or heard him drag his heavy legs; perceiving the heat from his body stopping next to mine, waiting. Although soon an infinite anguish would assault me, and I’d keep my eyes nailed to some street tile, the dry grass between the dormant railroad tracks, the ripped-up walls, and the abrupt anxiety of finding out why I exist.
What exciting project are you working on next?
I just finished reviewing the proofs for my upcoming novel, Crocodiles at Night, which is scheduled to be released in May 2025, also with Deep Vellum. I am currently working on a poetry book featuring fifty-one minimalist poems. In this collection, I aim to convey more through tone while emphasizing the importance of saying less.
When did you first consider yourself a writer?
I began formally writing at fifteen (although I started exploring writing in a more improvisational and random way when I was twelve), and I haven’t stopped since. Because my creative and academic work entails writing, I see myself as a writer in the sense that I am always writing. However, regarding my fiction, I’ve been seriously writing since I was eighteen—both poetry and prose. Before I completed Ischia, I wrote three previous novels that I believe were preliminary drafts to Ischia and what came next. The funny thing is that, while during the time I was writing I considered myself a writer, I had no credibility before others. My family didn’t have too much faith in me being a writer. It was only when I published my novel and held a book launch with two very prominent writers in Buenos Aires, Argentina, that writing was legitimized in the eyes of others, although definitely not in my own eyes. But that’s another story…
Do you write full time? If so, what’s your workday like? If not, what do you do other than write and how do you find time to write?
These are all very important questions! No, I don’t write full-time. As a professor of literature and culture, I have the privilege of spending lots of time reading and preparing classes, which is always very encouraging and rewarding. However, I also have administrative responsibilities that involve writing, though not creatively, unfortunately. Writing emails, memos, and reports is certainly less fun. I try, nonetheless, to make time to write during the summers or breaks. I also feel, since I am very young, that sometimes writing imposes itself on me. In other words, there are times when writing feels like a huge need to express something within me—something like the beginning of a story, a line, a feeling, or a description that spins around in my head, and I need to get it out; I cannot do anything except let it go. In those cases, I need to stop whatever I am doing and write it down, no matter where I am or what time it is. The notes app on my phone comes in very handy. So, sometimes I need to carve out time to write, and other times writing imposes itself on me without giving me too many options. So no, I don’t have a schedule.
What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?
The beginning of the story always feels like a slide. What follows is more “rational” and demands a lot of attention to detail. I hate repeating words, and I enjoy discovering different ways to name something, exposing the richness of language. I also need to write in a place with light.
As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
An architect.
Anything additional you want to share with the readers?
I recently discovered something about myself. I find myself contemplating places with books: bookstores, homes with books on bookshelves, and libraries. I am not sure why or how, but looking at places with books gives me a sense of peace. Being surrounded by books also soothes me. It’s strange, and it’s real. There is something very powerful in and about books.