Speaking of my readers, once I was walking through the Flores neighborhood on a very solitary street and I crossed paths with a man who said, “Hi, Aira!” I looked at him thinking, “Where do I know him from?” And he said, “Don’t worry, you don’t know me, I’m a reader, a humble reader.” Humble reader? He might be a humble reader of Isabel Allende. A reader of mine is a deluxe reader, not because I’m so great but because in order to get to me you have to take a path through literature, not through some books bought out of curiosity at the bookstore. A reader of mine has to have read other things.

Cesar Aira, interviewed