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"In Pitol's books everything is carnival: figures that come and go, memories that are made up, scenes that seem improvised; but in that parade is, intact, the deepest pulse of life."
Juan Soriano
Painter, sculptor
"Reading him... one gets the impression —which has always haunted me because after all he is my teacher— of being in the presence of the best writer in the Spanish language of our time."
Enrique Vila-Matas
Writer
"A narrator of 'precise, elegant and ironic prose' within contemporary Mexican narrative."
José Emilio Pacheco Berny
Writer
"In Sergio Pitol's writing, exile is not only destiny but a form of consciousness: a poetic reason that, by moving between languages and memories, turns life into revelation and memory into a territory where thinking is also lingering in the mystery.
"
María Zambrano Alarcón
Philosopher, essayist and poet
"Pitol is one of the most unique authors in the Anagrama catalog, due to his mix of genres and his unclassifiable character."
Jorge Herralde Grau
Writer and editor
"Sergio Pitol made cosmopolitanism a form of irony: while others traveled to confirm certainties, he did so to disrupt them, turning erudition into adventure and memory into an unpredictable literary genre.
Carlos Monsiváis Aceves
Writer and journalist
"Un escritor que convierte el viaje, la ironía y el desorden de la memoria en forma narrativa."
Juan Villoro
Writer and journalist
"I saw in Sergio Pitol a strong inclination for writing and I assumed an almost mentor-like role towards him, guiding him with readings, introducing him to other writers; more than a relationship between equals, it was a formative bond in which I sought to promote his intellectual and literary development."
Alfonso Reyes Ochoa
Writer, translator, diplomat, jurist, philosopher, philologist, and academic
"Mr. Pitol: don't translate my words, translate my immaturity, my disorganization, my mania for not fitting in. If the Spanish comes out a little distorted, then—at last—we will have been faithful."
Jerzy Andrzejewski
Novelist, playwright, and essayist
One, I venture, is the books one has read, the paintings one has seen, the music heard and forgotten, the streets walked. One is one's childhood, one's family, a few friends, some loves, quite a few annoyances. One is a sum diminished by infinite subtractions.
Sergio Pitol
The Art of Escape (excerpt)
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