Samanta Schweblin (born 1978) is an Argentine Spanish-language author currently living in Berlin. She has published three collections of short stories, a novella and a novel, besides stories that have appeared in anthologies and magazines such as The New Yorker, Granta, The Drawbridge, Harper’s Magazine, and McSweeney’s.
She has won numerous prestigious awards around the world and her books have been translated into more than thirty languages and adapted for film.
In 2002, Schweblin published her first book El núcleo del Disturbio (The Nucleus of Disturbances), which won an award from Argentina’s National Endowment for the Arts. In 2008, she won the Casa de las Americas award for her short story collection Mouthful of Birds. Her third collection of short-stories, Siete casas vacías (Seven Empty Houses) was published in 2015. Her first novel Distancia de Rescate, literally “Rescue distance”, but translated into English as Fever Dream, won the 2015 Tigre Juan Award, and was shortlisted for the 2017 Man Booker International Prize.
(Wikipedia)
Schweblin on the Force of the Hyperobject
As with a game we have started that gets out of hand, it can feel that all we can do is look on as events unfold when confronted with the seemingly irresistible force of a hyperobject in motion once a tipping point has been passed.
See also the conversation video with Jordana Blejmar.
- Schweblin, Samanta. Fever Dream. Trans. Megan McDowell. New York: Riverhead, 2017.
On Samanta Schweblin
A conversation about Fever Dream, with Jordana Blejmar (University of Liverpool)
Schweblin videos
“It is impossible to run away from your own fears.” | Writer Samanta Schweblin | Louisiana Channel:
“Literature lets us face our worst fears.” | Writer Samanta Schweblin | Louisiana Channel:
Samanta Schweblin:
Fever Dream | Official Trailer | Netflix:
- Avila-Vázquez, Medardo. “Devastating Impacts of Glyphosate Use with GMO Seeds in Argentina.” Science in Society. February 18, 2015.
- Cressey, Daniel. “Widely Used Herbicide Linked to Cancer.” Nature. March 24, 2015.
- Denham, Hannah. “Bayer, Maker of Roundup Weedkiller, Agrees to Pay $10 billion in Cancer Settlements.” Washington Post. June 24, 2020.
- Frayssinet, Fabiana. “The Dilemma of Soy in Argentina.” IPS: Inter Press Service News Agency. March 12, 2015.
- Hullender, Tatiana. “Claudia Llosa & Samanta Schweblin Interview: Fever Dream.” ScreenRant. October 12, 2021
- Meyer, Lily. “Brief but Creepy: ‘Fever Dream’ has a Poisonous Glow.” NPR. January 12, 2017.
- Morton, Timothy. Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013.
- “Soybeans in Argentina.” CropLife International.
- Tolentino, Jia. “The Sick Thrill of ‘Fever Dream.’” The New Yorker. January 4, 2017.
When Amanda is first brought into the clinic—a clinic that, in this small town, has no full-time doctor; “those doctors they call in to the clinic always take hours to arrive, and they don’t know anything and can’t do anything” (20)—she is fobbed off by the nurse on duty, who tells her “You’ve just had a little too much sun” (137) and gives her and Nina some pills and a couple of cups of water from the water fountain. But the people who live in the neighbourhood know that the water cannot be trusted: the first time Amanda meets David’s mother she is asked whether she had “noticed the way the water smelled too. [. . .] She said it was better not to use the tap water that day” (144, 145). After all, David got sick after he “put his hands in the water” of a small stream and then “suck[ed] on his fingers” (16). And Amanda and Nina fall ill after sitting on ground that is wet with what could be dew—"but it’s not [. . .] dew, is it?” (105)—near where some farm labourers are unloading barrels from a truck. Later they go looking for bottled water in town, with the hope that “poisoning is cured by drinking lots of water” (153). But there is no way to distinguish poison from cure. You cannot drink the water; you cannot not drink it, either.
Schweblin questions
The following questions are taken from your blog posts…
On “rescue distance”
What do you think about the phrase “Rescue distance” in Spanish that was initially the book’s title in “Distancia de Rescate”? Why do you think the title in English is different?
Do you think Amanda is being overly cautious by ensuring that Nina is within “rescue distance” at all times? Is this an appropriate response to maintain her child’s health in a potentially poisonous setting?
On the Ending
What do you think the purpose of this ending was?
What do you make of the final scene between the two fathers? what does their attitude mean?
Why do you think Schweblin left the book with such a vague ending not offering us any of the answers to the questions we wondered about throughout? How did that impact your experience of reading the book?
On Contamination, Pesticides, and Worms
When reading, did you automatically make the connection between the poisoning and the pesticides or was this something that you realized at the end of the novel (or after the lecture)? Why do you think the author chose to keep this information somewhat vague throughout the novel?
Why did the author chose to convey the importance of pesticide poisoning, in such a creepy and unnerving way? Did it add something more to story?
I mention that it seems a central theme to this novel is that of environmental harm or the impact that humans have on it–what are some concrete examples of how this plays out in the book? Do you think Schweblin is trying to convey a certain message about the environment through her writing?
What do you think the emphasis on worms had to do with the story? Why were they so important? Do you like worms?
Where did your imagination go when reading this story? Did you pick up on the clues that the cause of the “worms” were related to the environment, or did you think there was a more sinister power at play?
What would you as the reader imagine the poison to be, if it was not explained in the lecture video?
On Bodies and Souls
I didn’t really understand the concept of the switching and David’s weird presence all that much (… maybe to capture the weirdness of this new pesticide event?…) – so my question to the class is: What do you think that represented? Why do you think the novel began with an exposition of David’s body-switching?
Do you believe in the idea of souls and why or why not? To extend, what do you think about the woman’s ability to switch souls?
Other
Do you think the children in this book, and how they were all being led across the road with all their visible deformities, to be a greater far cry to something else? Or what do you think of that image?
Did others notice further ways in which this book feels more recent/contemporary than other books we’ve read?
What was some content of the story that you took away from this? Why do you think this book was written? Was there an objective (socially?) in mind?
In the context of this reading and others, do you think Latin American literature is solely about capturing a certain moment and its mood? Or is it possible that the process is a subconscious one?
As the unsettling story continues—is this a ghost story? A dream? A supernatural tale? Hallucinatory realism? How would you define the genre of this book?
How does Amanda being a mother also add to the uneasiness and fear that comes along with the story?
What did you think of the way the story is built? Did you also get lost? Do you think that a different way to tell the story would have helped you understand it better?
How much do you think a title of book can affect the reader’s experience and understanding of the story? Did you feel identified with Amanda in any ways while reading the novel?
How did you feel while reading the book?
What are your thoughts on Amanda’s increasingly heightened paranoia for Carla? There’s a moment when she believe Carla’s fallen bikini strap and overwhelming perfume were perhaps intentional, malevolent distractions. Do you think Carla had intentions to poison Amanda? What do you think became of Nina?
How did the structure/dialogue between Amanda and David impact your experience reading this book? Did you find that it added a unique perspective or more confusion?
