Alexander Zambra, born in Santiago de Chile in 1975, rose from being a notable voice to becoming a celebrated literary star. His work often centers on the intimate and sometimes messy terrain of fatherhood—whether biological or chosen—as a vehicle for lightness, the exploration of love, and a stubbornly human masculine education. The release of The Chilean Poet marked a bold moment in his career, a book written with a grace that resonates with readers in their thirties who are navigating parenthood. Now living in Mexico, the place where his wife Jazmina Barrera is from and where their son Silvestre was raised, Zambra presents a companion project to that novel: a collection that blends the joys of fatherhood with a series of stories about shared belongings. Entitled Children’s Literature, the book was assembled with the help of a close friend, the critic Andrés Braithwaite, and gathers vivid episodes from daily life as a father. It sits alongside Zambra’s ongoing participation in literary events, including a presence at the festival en altres paraules.
Did Zambra design Children’s Literature as an apostille to The Chilean Poet
He explains that the pieces came together during the pandemic, written with no explicit publishing aim. Writing serves as a means to understand the world, and sometimes what is written finds a life of its own when shared. He remains committed to exploring ideas that are still in formation, evolving as they are conveyed into language.
What links exist between the novel and the new book?
When Silvestre was born, Zambra paused work on The Chilean Poet to devote time to short essays about the experience of fatherhood. Some of these texts found publication in North American magazines, translated into English by Zambra and his close associate, Megan MacDowell. He has kept a diary for years, writing daily, but the arrival of his son shifted his routine. He began taking notes that spoke more directly to the stage of life he was entering. This shift led him to focus more intently on real-world fatherhood among friends, a line of inquiry that ultimately shaped the novel and the new book alike, initiating a transformation in his writing.
It’s notable that The Chilean Poet portrays a stepfather and his wife’s child, while in real life Zambra’s own fatherhood is biological.
He values literature that embraces contradiction. He wrote The Chilean Poet while becoming a biological father, a work about step-parenting, and a piece written at a moment when daily ties to his Chilean roots and to his Spanish-speaking world were evolving. There was both loss and gain in that transition.
Many memories of childhood are shaped by parental storytelling. If Silvestre’s childhood yields two books—one from his father and another from his mother—that would be fitting, yet the author reflects on the evolving nature of how children today consume memories through photos and videos. Literature, he argues, adds nuance and complexity to those recollections. At its core, the book traces how a grandfather, a father, and a son pass down a legacy, and it attempts to do so in a voice that has never quite been heard before.
You mentioned, “Our fathers taught us how to be men, but not how to be fathers.” Is this a missing model you’re thinking about?
As a child, the author experienced episodes of physical strength that he would not want to replicate for his own son. Parenting feels like a new field of learning, and he has spent a lot of time reflecting on it without getting trapped in dichotomies about men and women. He rejects simple dichotomies from older eras, yet acknowledges that men often talk less about their feelings and sometimes fail to share problems openly, something that affects dialogue and the joy of connection.
What about joy?
Absolutely, anyone who has raised a child knows how demanding it is physically, and how the representation of joy sometimes feels missing. In the older literary world, the focus often centered on male bonding and codes of shared humor, with little space for the intimate laughter that comes with raising a child. As the son grows, he becomes a mirror or sometimes a challenge, and in younger years that outline of manhood rarely accounts for the emotional landscape. Many celebrated writers have written about their own childhoods without addressing their children directly.
On the Caixaforum stairs in Barcelona, a memory of a Chilean writer lingers, with the photographer cited as Ricard Cugat.
Rodrigo Fresán recounts John Irving’s remark that having children is a mechanism for reclaiming childhood memories. Has a similar moment occurred for him?
Music becomes a conduit here—an almost mystical force. A lullaby sung by his child can trigger an avalanche of songs he had forgotten, reshaping the emotional soundtrack of his life.
Could Children’s Literature be the bright side of Rachel Cusk’s A Lifetime Job, a work noted for its sharp, bittersweet take on motherhood?
The author suggests that motherhood or fatherhood can be experienced as a duty, but that is not his personal trajectory. He arrived at fatherhood later in life and found in it a sense of purpose and belonging that resists a fixed, rule-bound narrative. He can only speak from his own timing and experience.
Does the book probe whether the act of having a child needs justification within its pages?
No. The author’s own family history—his grandfather’s many children and the sparse moments of contact he recalls—illustrates a broader cultural pattern in parts of Latin America, where parenthood can be celebrated without fully reckoning with its consequences. The contrast between legacy and absence is a recurring thread in his work.
The image of a missing father emerges as a literary motif across Latin America and the United States.
A close friend has observed that a generation can be split into those who lament the absence of a father and those who lament the present presence of one. That tension fascinates the writer, who treats it as a living contradiction rather than a fixed stance.
The final question asks whether the little mushroom ingestion was a genuine event. It happened as a therapeutic measure for severe headaches and, for the author, served its intended purpose. Friends joined in on the journey, but the core aim was relief, a difficult period eased by the experience. Silvestre even played with an oxygen tank, adding a tense yet tender moment to a memory that was both scary and intimate.