Childish Literature

Alejandro Zambra

Translated by Megan McDowell

Fitzcarraldo Editions (2024)

Review by Daniel Rey

The Chilean writer Alejandro Zambra has spotted a rarity in the canon. ‘Literary tradition abounds with letters to my father,’ he points out, ‘but letters to my son are pretty scarce.

’Zambra’s latest book, Childish Literature expands that sparse collection. It’s a genre-defying work, and Zambra’s most direct consideration of a theme he has explored in novels such as The Private Lives of Trees (2010), Ways of Going Home (2013) and Chilean Poet (2022).

Framed as a letter to his son Silvestre, Childish Literature is mostly a work of memoir, but also of essay and fiction. The book’s interstitial character is winked at in the text, in a literary disagreement between Zambra and his wife, the writer Jazmina Barrera: ‘She says she likes my story,’ Zambra recounts. ‘I tell her it’s an essay.’

Zambra confronts the literati’s denigration of ‘books for kids’, beginning with his ironic title (Literatura infantil in the Spanish). His translator, Megan McDowell, could have opted for ‘Children’s Literature’, but her version cleverly adds bite to Zambra’s original.

For Zambra, ‘children’s literature’ is an inadequate, catch-all term: ‘The idea the books you and I read together are a kind of substitute or alternative or preparation for real literature seems as unfair as it is false … I don’t see any less literature in a story by Maurice Sendak or María Elena Walsh than in any of my favorites from “grown-up literature”.’ 

Zambra similarly rejects the view – prevalent among writers and literary critics – that sentimentalism in ‘adult literature’ is an artistic sin: ‘I have the impression that even today, many writers would rather be ignored than run the risk of being considered corny or mawkish. And the truth is that when it comes to writing about our children, happiness and tenderness defy our old masculine idea of the communicable.’

The difficulty with Childish Literature is not its literary perspective, but Zambra’s parenting. He is the ‘father who makes him [Silvestre] breakfast every morning’, and has ensured he has never drunk Coke, and never watched TV. This is very laudable, but it’s much less interesting to read about a good parent than a bad one. 

One of the most intriguing parts of the book is when Zambra admits to questioning his methods. Even then, however, his reflections demonstrate commendable self-awareness: ‘I have a deep distrust of the satisfaction I feel at the thought that my wife and I are doing it right. I’m sure my parents also thought they were doing it right.’ 

McDowell, Zambra’s longtime translator into English, gives the book a natural flow except when the author discusses professional football. In particular, she introduces a series of over-literal translations, and odd expressions like ‘He wasn’t offsides.’ It’s also odd that Zambra writes at length about football given that he doesn’t allow Silvestre to attend matches or watch them on TV. 

It’s clear from Childish Literature that Silvestre is lucky to be raised by such a father. This book is perfectly pleasant, but readers wanting deeper explorations of parenthood should instead read Zambra’s fiction.

Daniel Rey

A British-Colombian writer currently based in New York City.