Mario Bellatin

(photo: Janet Jarman for NYT)

It is not unusual for Latino-Americans novelists to have the appetite for the unusual; it seems that Mario Bellatin overtakes them all. Once, at a meeting with his readers, he invented a Japanese author, declared this fictive guy as his favorite and spoke copiously about him, noting a nose so immense that it caused always problems to Shiki Nagaoka at dinner time (Ses ailes de géant l'empêchent de marcher, Baudelaire would have said).

You should read this mini-essay about Mario Bellatin (it was published in yesterday's NY Times; the author is Larry Richter) and you will agree: the guy is really cool.

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