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)