Book, Formative years: the diaries of Emilio Renzi 1[LS]

From hundreds of diaries filled throughout his life, the Argentine writer reconstructs his youthful years with fable and fervor. A bet on literature. In 1957, teenager Ricardo Emilio Renzi Piglia, resident of a city on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, began writing a diary. At first there didn't seem to be much to tell. Little family anecdotes, the discovery of love, the tedious daily life of Argentina at the time, the first great friendships, the enthusiasm for books. In the ten years covered by the volume, a decisive time between entering university and the publication of his first book, The Invasion, Piglia embraced anarchism, found himself involved with some girlfriends (who tore him apart emotionally) and, above all, made reading a creative act and writing a more powerful form of reading. There are also binge drinking, long walks through a Buenos Aires full of cafes and bookstores, cinema (Godard and James Bond), Jorge Luis Borges, politics. Everything reconstructed with the safe hand of a great fiction writer. These diaries (which can be read as a monumental formative novel) are written by Emilio Renzi, the alter ego that Ricardo Piglia chose in several books to give voice to his obsessions. It's the story of a young artist trying to find his place in the world, between mistakes and successes. A central book for our time, written in highly literary prose that does not give up the discussion of ideas, the pleasure of the text and the most powerful imagination.