Chris Andrews is an Australian writer and translator.  He is the first and most prolific translator into English the work of Roberto Bolano an award winning writer whom the New York Times called the “most significant Latin American literary voice of his generation”. Chris was also awarded the Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize in 2011 for a collection of his original poetry.

First book you remember reading?

Angus Lost: a book about a Scottish terrier who gets lost and finally finds his way home. The illustrations scared me, especially one featuring owls: just thinking about it now gives me a slight tingle.

What are you currently reading?

The Tribe by Michael Mohammed Ahmad.

How do you decide on what book to read?

There are the books I need to read for the research I’m doing, but I think it’s important to read in a hedonistic way too, and there I’m guided by hunches, pleasure and chance.

One book you regret having read?

I don’t regret having read ‘The Cantos’ by Ezra Pound, but I regret the way I read that book: one Canto after another, day after day, all the way through to the end, as a kind of challenge to myself, because I felt that I should have read them.

Who is your favourite author?

I can’t give only one name, but some of my favourite authors born after 1900 are, in no particular order, Raymond Queneau, Elizabeth Bishop, Roberto Bolaño, Penelope Fitzgerald, César Aira, John Forbes, Michelle de Kretser, Manuel Puig, Emma Lew ...

If you could ask him/her one question what would it be?

If I could ask Roberto Bolaño one question, it would be: What were you going to add to 2666? (He died before he could finish the book).

Three newly published books you would recommend?

Only the Animals, by Ceridwen Dovey
Purgatory Press / After the End, by John Culbert
An Elegant Young Man, by Luke Carman

What is your absolute favourite non fiction book of all time ? And why?

That’s a hard question, but a book that I find extraordinarily stimulating and rich is Real Materialism and Other Essays by the English philosopher Galen Strawson. He manages to combine technical precision in argument with passion and style.

What is more important to you in a book, the writing the plot or the conclusion?

In a book of fiction, good writing is rarely enough for me; I want the plot to draw me in as well, but a very slow plot can do that (as in Proust). A weak conclusion may disappoint, but for me it doesn’t cancel out the pleasure that went before.

If you do re-read books what book have you re-read more than others?

Odile by Raymond Queneau and Anything the Landlord Touches by Emma Lew.

Is there a particular genre you opt to read? Is there an author who in your opinion defines this genre?

I read quite a lot of poetry, and, for me, a poet who shows what a poem can do without having to puff itself up is Elizabeth Bishop.

As a literary enthusiast what have you gained from the books you have read?

I feel that I’ve got to know wonderfully interesting people whom I could never have known in real life because they were already dead, or lived too far away, or would have been too busy, or never actually existed because they were fictional characters.

In your opinion the best movie adaptation of  a book is?

I loved the 1995 adaptation of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, directed by Roger Mitchell, with Amanda Root and Ciaran Hinds.

A character in a book you would like to bring back to life and why?

Don Quixote, because we need to be reminded how oppressive a resignedly realistic attitude to life can be. Cervantes killed him off to prevent other authors cashing in by writing sequels, but fortunately he keeps coming back under different names (Emma Bovary, Prince Myshkin, Michael Herne).

A book or a series that you would love to be adapted into a movie or TV show?

I would like to see Alice Munro’s story “Hateship, friendship, courtship, loveship, marriage” adapted into a movie.

A memorable book from your childhood?

Bran the Bronze-Smith. I can’t remember who the author was, but Bran paddled around in a coracle, and I have loved that word ever since, though I rarely get a chance to use it.

How would you encourage the younger generation to read?

I would say: Once you get the habit and strengthen it, you will never need to be bored again, because literature is so vast and various that it will always be possible to find something to your taste, and something nourishing. And I’d add: Don’t do what I did with the Cantos unless you have to (for an assignment). When you can, let pleasure guide you.   
    
By Tina Edward Gunawardhana