What can be said about the silence that precedes a poem or a story? What myths have been thought up to explain the transition from "nothing" to a work of art? And when did the "account of composition" turn into a literary genre of its own? These questions are the heart of Pablo M. Ruiz's excursion into the center(s) of literary creativity. Filled with paradoxes and parables, "Four Cold Chapters" takes in Borges, Perec, and Felisberto Hern?ndez, as well as several suggested but politely avoided doctoral dissertations, on its journey through the universe of writing (and writing about writing).

Pablo M. Ruiz is Assistant Professor of Latin American Literature at Tufts University. His literary essays, translations and travel pieces have been published in Variaciones Borges, Formules, Yzur, La Habana Elegante, and Hermano Cerdo.