The topic of the dead pigeon as a symbol still needs to be addressed. I should explain to the reader, or remind them if they already know, that a few years ago I wrote a text called Diary of a Swine. I wrote it in Buenos Aires. My initial impulse had been to continue the ‘luminous novel’ (take note of that detail, because the luminous novel – or rather, its completion – is the project covered by this grant), and as soon as I sat down to write it, I began having problems with birds. First, a baby pigeon fell into the narrow back garden of my ground-floor apartment, and when it managed to fly away another one fell in, not a pigeon this time but a baby sparrow, and the presence of those fallen birds became the main focus of what I was writing, which by then was almost a minute-by-minute account of the events unfolding in my back garden. I realised that this bird-based epiphany was symbolic; sometimes so-called objective reality takes on a strong symbolic charge. And I realised that somehow, by starting to write, I’d set those events in motion. I still haven’t changed my mind after all this time, though I’d like to add for the record that I don’t think you could call it a miracle. A little magical, perhaps, if we understand magic as a technique that can be explained. The Unconscious can do all kinds of things our poor conscious self would never dream were possible.

And now, as I begin the project of continuing the luminous novel, and even receive a grant that means I can devote all my time to the task, lo and behold: more strange bird-related occurrences. A dead bird appears, then the possible widow appears and behaves very oddly. Might this, I’ve been thinking recently, be a symbol as well? A symbol of my dead spirit, which no widow (my conscious self, let’s say) will be able to revive in spite of her best efforts. If this is the case, Mr Guggenheim can give up on the idea that his grant will produce the expected results.