LITERATURE-ARGENTINA: Sabato Novel Hits Internet Before Print

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Jun 6 2000 (IPS) - Argentine writer Ernesto Sábato’s newest work, “La Resistencia,” appeared on the Internet, free of charge, as part of an unprecedented experiment that will allow the publishers to study the literary market before the print version of the book goes on sale.

“Sábato limited himself to writing a book, the rest of it doesn’t interest him,” his agent Guillermo Schavelzon told IPS.

He said the author, age 89 and suspicious of technology, thought it would be interesting to reach out to his young readers this way, especially if they would not have to pay to read his newest work.

Sábato, who won Spain’s prestigious Cervantes Prize in 1985, wrote the novels “The Tunnel,” “On Heroes and Tombs,” “Abadón the Exterminator,” and essays including “The Writer and the Catastrophe of Our Time,” “One and the Universe” and “Before the End.”

The decision to launch the project with Sábato was prompted by the major success of “Before the End,” which sold out almost immediately – an edition of some 250,000 copies – despite lukewarm reviews by literary critics.

The book, much anticipated by the Argentine public, was also published in Colombia, Mexico, Spain, and translated into seven languages for the markets in Germany, Bulgaria, France, Greece, Italy, Norway and Turkey.

The surprise of the book’s release was that young people were the majority of the buyers. Sábato’s biographer, Julia Constenla, tells the anecdote of a bookseller who said he knew he was about to sell a copy of “Before the End” as soon as he saw the client was an adolescent.

Sábato’s newest work, “The Resistance,” was digitally published on the Internet Sunday, June 4. “So far no other author of his stature in Hispano-America has accepted a challenge of this kind,” said Schavelzon.

He and the publisher see this as a good experiment to test the acceptance of this kind of literary product among readers who, for the most part, are accustomed to conventional books.

The Argentine website Internet Terra launched a similar project in April, with the novel “The Friends I Lost,” by Peruvian writer Jaime Bayly, before it was published in book format, but in that case, readers were limited to the five new pages of the novel made available each day.

“This is ostensibly a way to put literature at the service of the market,” commented Bayly at the time, who is also a television newscaster for a cable channel in Miami, Florida.

The Peruvian author acknowledged that the Internet version is a risky undertaking, because it is still not known how comfortable people are with reading literature on the computer.

In his case, the format was well suited for the venture because the novel is written as a series. The idea originated with an editor who suggested that he use the Internet to test the readers’ preferences for one character or another, for example, and then to continue writing the tale in function of the audience’s tastes.

Sábato’s new novel was released by Clarín Digital, of the Argentine Clarín publishing group, and the format is similar to that used by US writer Stephen King when he published the short story “Riding the Bullet” on the Internet in March, though in his case, readers had to pay two dollars for access to the work.

King, famous for his horror stories, was enthusiastic about the possibility of experimenting with this new technology, especially for the future – and curiosity about the reading public’s response to this ‘virtual’ product.

In contrast, Argentina’s Sábato has always been sceptical of technology because he says it has not been accompanied by a parallel growth in human values.

Sábato is all the rage among young Argentines – who see him as a coherent person, committed to the human rights battle, sensitive and, above all, distanced from the world of consumerism and materialism.

Schavelzon commented that the writer was excited that thousands of young Internet addicts could download his book and read it without having to pay for it. But, meanwhile, he continues to write using an old electric typewriter or, when he is tired, dictating his texts to a secretary.

“The Resistance” is an easy book to read, promises the author himself, with 164 pages that are accessed with a click of the computer’s mouse, following installation of a special programme.

The novel, to which cybernauts already have access, will hit the bookstands in three weeks. Meanwhile, the editors will have time to evaluate just how people reacted to the virtual version of the novel.