Janitor by Night, Novelist by Day

choi

Taos Turner, Janitor by Night, Novelist by Day. Wall Street Journal, Feb 14, 2017.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/sub ... t-by-day-1486994725

Quote:

(a) "Mr [Enrique] Ferrari, a 44-year-old janitor who works nights [graveyard shift, starting at 11 pm] in the Argentina;s capital's [Buenos Aires's] metro [subway system], has spiky black hair and a Karl Marx tattoo. He didn't go to college or study writing but his novels have won literary prizes in Europe and Cuba. His sixth book, to be published in the spring, is 'If You Are Reading This,' about a man who travels back to 1940 to preemtively kill Leon Trotsky's assassin.

" 'While I'm mopping, my head is often thinking about how to make my novels work,' Mr Ferrari said. 'I'm constantly editing in my head.'

"He grew up in this city's Jewish enclave * * * He has worked as an electrician and at a bakery, and is active in his subway-workers union. He always love to read. His father, who worked at a bakery, wasn't bookish, Mr Ferrari said,
but sat him down at age eight and explained that reading is 'what differentiates us from apes.' "

(b) "Mr Ferrari has had a number of publishers and isn't sure how many books he has sold.

(c) "Iñigo Amonarriz, who runs Revólver, the publishing house that released Mr Ferrari's most recent book in Argentina, works as a bakery cashier.

" 'None of my writers, even those who've won the Dashiell Hammett Prize, lives off his writing,' said Mr Amonarriz.

My comment:
(a) There is no need to read the rest.
(b) His novels are written in Spanish, some of which are translated into English.
(c) I have no idea who he is, but find this report (in the Life & Arts section) endearing.

(d) The Italian surname Ferrari means child of another surname Ferraro. The latter referred to "a smith or iron worker, from ferro 'iron' (Latin ferrum)."
(i) The running mate of the 1984 Democratic presidential candidate Walter Mondale was Geraldine Anne Ferraro.
(ii) Italian-English dictionary:
* ferro (noun masculine): "iron."
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ferro