Melinda Camber Porter In Conversation With Octavio Paz, 1990 Winner of Nobel Prize in Literature

Melinda Camber Porter’s conversation with Octavio Paz took place in August 1983 at his home in Cuernavaca, Mexico. They discussed art, literature, poetry, writers block, and politics in Mexico, the Americas, Europe, and his book, Marcel Duchamp. This volume also includes his 1990 Nobel Prize Lecture in English and Spanish.

  “If you think you’ve read this interview before [in the Partisan Review in 1986] you haven’t.” As the Partisan Review redacted much of the content. In this new volume, however, the interview is published in its entirety, and the results are wonderful. Empathy between Octavio Paz and Melinda Camber Porter is established quickly. A professional diplomat, Paz’s dual life as cultural ambassador and writer parallels Camber Porter’s. Conversation about Duchamp, Picasso, Camus and Matisse—previously cut—appears here, as well as discussion of the classical Spanish poets that made-up Paz’s early reading—Quevedo, Góngora, and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (the subject of Paz’s book, Las trampas de la Fe). In addition to a complete transcription of the interview, this volume includes Paz’s 1990 Nobel Prize Lecture in both English and (the original) Spanish, as well as further information on the work of Melinda Camber Porter.” Explains, Dr. Laura Vidler, Chair of Spanish at the University of South Dakota.

Melinda Camber Porter passed away of ovarian cancer in 2008 and left a significant body of work in art, journalism, and literature. With her background as a journalist for the Times of London, her questions explored the creative process used by many widely acclaimed cultural figures, filmmakers, and writers. The Melinda Camber Porter Archive wishes to share these conversations with the public to ensure the continuation and expansion of the ideas expressed in her creative works.