Ariana Harwicz is an Argentine author, one of the most appreciated voices of the contemporary Latin-American literature, who was also a guest of the International Literature and Translation Festival (FILIT) taking place every year in Iasi, Romania. She granted an interview to AGERPRES, in which she talks about the themes that interest her most, such as immigration or family, about the importance of language in her novels and what helps her to shape his unique style, about music and the many faces of an artist.

She also talked about the political dimension of her novels, which is more or less explicit, and about the manner in which the political perspective helps her to better connect to her characters, and to better understand their suffering, anxiety, rebellion and their hatred of the world.

The author also mentioned the manner in which she got involved in the stage adaptation of her novels and about the film adaptation of her novel 'Die, My Love', which has been translated into Romanian, and recently republished. The film, which bears the same title and was directed by Lynne Ramsay, with Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson playing the main characters, was part of the official selection at the Cannes Film Festival this year, and is currently running in the Romanian cinema halls as well.

Ariana Harwicz has three novels published into Romanian, 'Die, My Love', 'Degenerate' and 'Losing the Trial', all of them published by the Vellant Publishing House (2019, 2022 and 2024).


AGERPRES: Dear Ariana, you have three novels published into Romanian, so far, and in all of them immigration is a central theme, would you say that this topic, 'immigration', is like the backbone of your writing?

Ariana Harwicz: I would say that the backbone or the spiritual core of all my texts is immigration as a state of consciousness of being a foreigner. Many authors have conceived writing in this way, actually. Which is not the same, through, with saying that one cannot write without experiencing depersonalisation and perceiving oneself as a foreigner.

But, at least for me, I don't think I would have been able to achieve the necessary detachment to write otherwise, although I do think that it's not necessary to be an immigrant to feel it. Many have experienced it during wars, for example, during deportations, and so on.

AGERPRES: In all the three books the backdrop for the action is a village. Why is the village so important an element in your novels, what makes it so special?

Ariana Harwicz: Well, what you are saying here is very good. The backdrop is a great image because all my novels are a bit like a play, a kind of model, a sort of fake house, a cardboard house, a house designed for the stage, and the village is imaginary. It's not that it's a real village. The real village doesn't matter. The village exists in the fictional, literary imagination that is created in my head. The village works perfectly for all the conflicts that start to unfold between the characters, for the extreme loneliness they feel, for their marginality and illegal ways, but I am always aware that it is actually a construct. It's like... if we think of a painter choosing a color palette, well, let's say that the village in my books is made of language.

AGERPRES: All the three books published in Romania are very dense, in terms of language, as your characters are struggling to make themselves understood, in the very literal sense, as foreigners facing language and cultural barriers, but also in every other sense, psychological, philosophical, ontological etc., but at the same time your phrases are very melodic. Do you listen to music when you write?

Ariana Harwicz: Yes, music helps me to establish a relationship with language that is unique. Or, in other words, that uniqueness in language comes to me from silence and the piano. So, yes, I alternate silence with the piano when I write. And, actually, I can't imagine writing without that relationship with silence and music.

But this is not to say that music helps me to create a certain atmosphere - it's more like music directly helps me to create a new language.

AGERPRES: Your books also have a cinematic dimension, and your writing was even compared to iconic film director David Lynch's style, probably due to the dreamlike, even nightmarish, aesthetic, and dark tones. Does this comparison make any sense to you?

Ariana Harwicz: Well, being compared to David Lynch or others is, of course, flattering, because the comparison in itself is an attempt to find a stylistic equivalence to the lyrical, as you say, the nightmarish, the indeterminacy between life and dream in my novels. And, well, I can see where the comparison comes from, of course.

However, what I do know for sure is that nothing was premeditated in that respect. I planned nothing of the sort. One always seeks inspiration in something a bit uncertain, in many things at once, and then, of course, the readers link what's in there to other works, they draw comparisons between the different works and so on, but that is always a side effect, something that comes later, after the writing is done, and the work is finished.

AGERPRES: You studied performing arts back in Argentina and it feels like your novels have a type of dramatic construction that kind of resembles that of a script, can you tell us a little about how you build your novels?

Ariana Harwicz: Well, yes, I studied film scriptwriting, dramaturgy, theatre, painting, philosophy, and cinema. And I do think that, when it comes to writing a novel, literature alone is never enough. I never feel like I'm only writing literature. I even find that impossible, actually. What happens is that one uses all the elements at one's disposal to create something, to write. It could be music, painting, visual arts, photography, philosophy - literature alone is never enough. There's no way for my mind to produce just one thing.

In the past, artists were always many artists at once. They came from areas such as astrology, astronomy, painting, philosophy, medicine. In the same way, a writer is always many people at once, and many things at the same time, and a novel is always more than just a novel. For instance, I like authors who come from other fields of activity, like the famous writers who were also doctors.

AGERPRES: Your first novel published into Romanian, 'Mori, iubitule'/'Die, My Love', which is also your first novel published into English, has been adapted for film. The film, which bears the same title, was directed by Lynne Ramsay, while Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson are playing the couple in the book, I imagine you watch it, did it meet your expectations?

Ariana Harwciz: I watched the film at the Cannes Film Festival, yes, on the day of its world premiere, when it was competing in the official selection, together with the actors and the technical team. And honestly, it did meet my expectations, because it's a variation, a reinterpretation, a translation - a new reading of the novel - and at the same time, while being all of that, it's also something completely different. It's absolutely the same and yet entirely different - it's like being identically distinct, or absolutely different in sameness. And I also think that play of mirrors was maintained, and that's important.

AGERPRES: Before the film, the same book was also adapted for stage, in two occasions (as far as I know), in Israel and Argentina, did you have a chance to watch the shows, was it something that you would have done differently, as a performing arts graduate? Tell us a little about that particular experience.

Ariana Harwicz: I was involved throughout the entire adaptation process of all the plays based on my novels, but particularly 'Matate, amor' ('Die, My Love'), with director and actress Marilu Marini and actress Erica Rivas. The actress and I adapted the text together, and I always closely followed the development of the theatrical adaptation - everything that changed and evolved, both aesthetically and conceptually, as well as during the tours. I was part of the team, and I think that this is the most accomplished version of all. It strikes a perfect balance between tragedy and comedy - a perfect distance, at least for me.

AGERPRES: In 'Degenerat'/'Degenerate', your second novel published into Romanian, the narrator says this at some point, 'Writing proves nothing about the person who writes', do you share this opinion?

Ariana Harwicz: Yes, I still think the same as the narrator and the character in 'Degenerate', the novel translated into Romanian. The one who writes is not the one who reads. Also, the one who writes is not the character. The one who writes is not the person from the real life either, the one who writes is just the one who writes. Writing is already an act of depersonalisation, an act of becoming someone else, a transformation. If we do not understand that operation, then we understand nothing about how one should read a book, and, as a result, the reading goes wrong.

AGERPRES: After reading all your three books translated into Romanian, I felt that 'Degenerate', which has a Jewish historian accused of pedophilia as the main protagonist and narrator, is your most explicitly political book, dealing with colonialism, capitalism, antisemitism etc., and I want to ask you, how important is this political dimension to you?

Ariana Harwicz: Although all my novels have a political dimension, it's true that 'Degenerate' and 'Losing Trial' - the latest one translated into Romanian - are more explicitly political because of their characters, their logorrhea, their monologues, and what they say. The political dimension is important and interesting to me when I write, because it connects me to the characters' suffering, their pathos, the anguish they feel, their rebellion, their hatred of the world. It has nothing to do with the fact that I write novels that later become manifestos.

AGERPRES: With family being at the centre of your work, the violence surrounding it, would you say that there is a substantial difference in the manner in which the contemporary Argentinian society looks at the notion of 'family' today, in comparison with the contemporary society in France?

Ariana Harwicz: The truth is, I don't really know because I left Argentina 17 or 18 years ago. I wasn't a mother yet, and I didn't have my own family. So, although I lived almost 30 years in Argentina, I really can't say. But I do think that there is a time in many cultures where endogamy is privileged - a closed structure, intimacy, the family - while, at the same time, everything is dissolving and new models of affective agreements are constantly emerging. But there is always a folding back onto the family as a core, a closed unit.

In that sense, in Argentina... what I think accentuates the impression of the family as being like a mafia - not a mafia pact, not like a 'we-clan,' but as an enclosed space, like a bunker - is the fact of being a foreigner. Perhaps I notice it more sharply in France because of living in the countryside and because I am a foreigner. Since I don't have my own family, the pacts established between families - sometimes almost criminal pacts - stand out to me more.

AGERPRES: How does it feel to be labeled one of the most radical Argentine authors of today?

Ariana Harwicz: Well, no, I don't really care much about categories, labels, or headlines about being the most radical, the most transgressive, the most experimental - I don't know if that's true, and I'm not sure if it even means anything. I think these are just formulas used to pigeonhole or headline an author's way of writing. Writing should always be a radical act, and being Argentine, I don't think that defines me at all. There are many things that define an author, and the important thing is that an author always remains, at the same time, indefinable, right?

AGERPRES: You visited Romania not so long ago, as you were invited to the FILIT festival in Iasi, did you have time to step outside the festival, even for a little bit, to visit the city?

Ariana Harwicz: I was very interested. I also had the opportunity to visit the country for a second time. I was able to visit universities, museums, and the basement where the Jews were tortured, the Romanian National Police headquarters. I was able to see, listen, and reflect, and observe things like how books are organised in the bookstore, and the differences between young people in Eastern Europe and young people in Western Europe. Also, my family comes from Romania and Poland, from some small towns, so it was very moving. I would love to go back.

AGERPRES: What projects are you working on right now, if it's not a secret?

Ariana Harwicz: Well, lately I've been writing short stories for the first time. Winter is perfect for me to think about stories - gloomy stories, brilliant stories. I have an opera premiering soon and a theatrical adaptation of 'Perder el juicio'/'Losing Trial', and we are looking into who will work with for the 'Perder el juicio' film adaptation. I'm very happy, eagerly waiting for the snow to fall so I can write stories.


ARIANA HARWICZ was born in Buenos Aires, in 1977, but she has been living in the French countryside since 2007. She wrote 'Matate, amor'/'Die, My Love' (2012), 'La débil mental'/'Feebleminded' (2014), 'Precoz'/'Tender' (2015), 'Degenerado'/'Degenerate' (2019), 'Desertar' (2021), 'El ruido de una época'/'The Noise of an Era' (2023), 'Perder el juicio'/'Losing the Trial' (2024).

She was a finalist for the First Book Award (EIBF, 2017), the Republic of Consciousness Prize and the Man Booker International Prize (2018), and the BTBA (2020).

Her books were adapted for stage in theatres across Latin America and Europe, and 'Matate, amor'/'Die, My Love' was adapted into a film, premiering at the Cannes Film Festival, produced by Martin Scorsese and directed by Lynne Ramsay. 'Libretto for Dementia', an opera adapted from her novel 'Losing the Trial', will premiere at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires during the 2026 season.

Her short stories have appeared in Harper's, Granta, Letras Libres, Babelia, The White Review, Brick, The Paris Review, The New Yorker, La Quinzaine littéraire, Quimera, The Guardian, and in various anthologies.

Her books have been translated into more than twenty languages.

She is currently working on her first short story collection. AGERPRES (EN - writing by: Cristina Zaharia)