How I Became a Nun by César Aira

César Aira

César Aira is an Argentine writer and translator, and an exponent of Argentine contemporary literature. He has published over fifty books of stories, novels and essays...

 was first published in 1993. Chris Andrews’ English translation was published by New Directions in 2007.

Summary

How I Became A Nun chronicles a year in the fantastic internal and external life of an introverted six-year-old called César, who sees herself as a girl but is referred to by the rest of the world as a boy. The novel opens and closes with scenes of César eating a strawberry ice cream cone, each of which has absurdly dire consequences for César. In the first of the two incidents, the child's complaints that the ice cream tastes bitter leads to an outlandish confrontation between her father and the ice cream vendor, a stint in jail for the father, and a hospital stay for the child. When César is at last able leave the hospital and go to school, she finds herself disconnected from a class who has learned to read without her and drawn instead to misadventure and ultimately a second fateful ice cream cone. The story as told by young César captures a child's sense of wonder and naivete, and blurs the categories of what is imagined and what is real.

Reception

When How I Became a Nun first debuted outside Argentina, it was "celebrated...as one of the ten most important books published in Spain that year" and called "a true masterpiece for our times". The Complete Review described the book as "an appealing novella, both a realistic evocation of childhood and childishness, as well as a a more mature work of charming strangeness."

External links

• "The Chris Andrews Interview," interview by Scott Bryan Wilson in The Quarterly Conversation, Summer 2007
• "The Literary Alchemy of César Aira" by Marcelo Ballvé in Quarterly Conversation, Winter 2008.
• "How I Became a Nun by César Aira", review by Tayt J. Harlin at Bookslut, May 2007.
• "How I Became a Nun," review by Christopher Merrill
  Christopher Merrill
  Christopher Merrill is an American poet, essayist, journalist and translator. Currently, he serves as director of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. He led the initiative that resulted in the selection of Iowa City as a UNESCO City of Literature, a part of the Creative...
  
   of Public Radio International
  Public Radio International
  Public Radio International is a Minneapolis-based American public radio organization, with locations in Boston, New York, London and Beijing. PRI's tagline is "Hear a different voice." PRI is a major public media content creator and also distributes programs from many sources...
  
  , February 22, 2007.