Dear List,

I don't know if this sighting has been already reported ( I couldn't find it in the archives but I may have researched it in the wrong place) .

In the Preface to the Spanish edition of Guillermo Cabrera Infante's book " Puro Humo" ( originally published in 1985 & 1997, in English, under the title Holy Smoke ) we find comments by Anthony Burgess and Susan Sontag. The latter wrote:
 
 "Modern performance in literature is partly shaped by the widespread discrediting of the idea of literary virtuosity; by a very real loss of virtuosity. It now seems utterly extraordinary that anyone can write brilliant prose in more than one language; we marvel at a Nabokov, a Beckett, a Cabrera Infante -- but until two centuries ago such virtuosity would have been taken for granted. So, until recently, was the ability to write poetry as well as prose." ( S.Sontag: Where the Stress Falls, Essays, 2001)

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