"My Great Work is secret, clandestine, and encompasses my life in its entirety, even its most insignificant folds and those that seem the most banal.  Until now I have concealed my purpose under the accommodating guise of literature.  Because I am a writer, this causes no particular concern.  Marginally, this pretense has afforded me certain mundane pleasures, and an acceptable modus vivendi.  But my goal—which in my quest for transparency has become my best kept secret—is typical of the comic-book Mad Scientist: to extend my dominion over the entire world." —César Aira (as translated by Katherine Silver), The Literary Conference