SOURCE: An interview in The Review of Contemporary Fiction, Vol. III, No. 3, Fall, 1983, pp. 5-21.

An American educator and critic, Garfield has written extensively on Cortázar and Latin American literature. In the following excerpted interview, which was conducted in Saignon, France in July 1973 and first published in Garfield's Cortázar por Cortázar (1978), Cortázar discusses the writing of Hopscotch, addressing the novel's themes, its appeal to younger readers, its optimism, and its place in Latin American literature.

[Garfield]: With Historias de cronopios y de famas (Cronopios and Famas) and Rayuela, you begin to alter reality, to search for authenticity in life and literature, utilizing a good dose of humor and optimism.

[Cortázar]: In the case of my books, altering reality is a desire, a hope. But it seems important to point out that my books are not written nor were experienced or conceived under the...