Ariana Harwicz: “Seeing my novel at Cannes was a shock”

She has been living in France for years, but her writing still pulses with a Rioplatense accent—raw, direct, unfiltered. Ariana Harwicz doesn’t write to please or adapt: she writes to unsettle, to touch what hurts, what is left unsaid. Mátate, amor, her debut novel, was a sharp blow to contemporary literature, and now it has reached the big screen as Die, My Love, produced by Martin Scorsese, available worldwide on MUBI from November 7. It premiered at the Cannes Film Festival to a standing ovation. “It was a shock,” Ariana says, describing what it felt like to see her story turned into a movie. In this interview, we talk about her journey, what it means to write from afar without becoming a tourist of oneself, and why labels like “women’s literature” don’t interest her.

Die, My Love, the film based on Mátate, amor, made a splash at Cannes with huge names behind it: Martin Scorsese, Lynne Ramsay, Jennifer Lawrence. What was it like for you to see such a personal story turned into a film seen by thousands? How did it feel seeing it projected on the big screen?

That’s exactly how it felt. It went from being an absolutely intimate story—even though it had gone through many translations, languages, and stage adaptations—to remaining largely private, non-mainstream, like a portrait framed within four walls, like self-portrait paintings or photographs… and then suddenly seeing it at the Cannes premiere with 3,500 people in the audience. And above all, the jump to Hollywood, the drastic change, into another language—English. Because although it has been translated into many languages, it’s still the book. This is a change of language and a change of format—from book to film—and then to Hollywood. So yes, it was a shock. It was incredible, really very moving, very unsettling for me. It was like splitting myself. On one hand, it was my story; on the other, it wasn’t. On one hand, it was what I lived, juxtaposed—because the movie contains much of the novel—and on the other, it was like a bipolarity, because it wasn’t me at all. So it was a very strange, disorienting effect. Like bipolar disorder.

"Seeing my work “Mátate, amor” at the Cannes Film Festival was a shock"

You haven’t lived in Argentina for years, yet your texts still have a very local, Rioplatense root. What place does the country occupy in your mind and in your writing today? Can you write from afar without falling into nostalgia?

It’s an interesting question because I don’t maintain a relationship with the Rioplatense language, Argentina, Buenos Aires, my neighborhood, customs, or anything from a nostalgic or sentimental distance. If that were the case, there could be an artificial effect in the language, I think—trying to write in Rioplatense but showing the distance, doing it almost like a tourist, or in a language designed for translation. But in my case, that’s not true. It just happened naturally. The violence and beauty in my texts are Rioplatense. To what extent, in what measure—they are Rioplatense—isn’t for me to say. That’s up to the interpretation of the reader. But the feeling is alive, very close, almost at ear level.

"The violence and beauty of my texts are Rioplatense"

Your novels explore motherhood, the body, desire, the uncomfortable. Does it bother you to be labeled as a “female literature” author? Do you feel that label is too limiting?

Honestly, those labels, stereotypes, and pseudo-genres don’t bother me. I don’t write that way, I don’t think that way about literature. I don’t write from a trendy topic. I try to remove all that from blurbs and back covers. I don’t consider myself a feminist author, nor do I think motherhood governs my writing. If it appears so, it’s an excess of interpretation or a misreading.

In Perder el juicio, you revisit the wild through the figure of a mother who kidnaps her children. What led you to write this story? Do you feel you pushed themes you had already been exploring to the extreme?

Perder el juicio, which will also have film and theater adaptations, came from a personal experience—a legal trial. Not a child kidnapping, of course, but a judicial experience, a descent into a Dantean hell. From that immersion in the judicial system as a foreigner in France, I transformed, transmuted, and dramatized it through literature. And yes, I pushed themes further—motherhood, eroticism, violence, foreignness, family relationships, love, sex, fear, politics—each time deeper, more complex.

"Perder el juicio arose from a personal experience"

You have translations, awards, and adaptations, and it all arrived relatively quickly. How do you experience this recognition? How do you keep writing freely, without worrying about expectations?

It wasn’t actually fast. I wrote Mátate, amor in 2011; it was published in Spain and Argentina in 2012. For five years there were almost no translations (except Hebrew) and no adaptations. I never won any major awards. Then in 2018, the English translation came out, the longlist for the Booker Prize, followed by other translations, and then in 2024–2025 came the Scorsese adaptation and Cannes. But 90% of my publishers are independent.

I still do readings in very small bookstores, participate in workshops and reading groups, and publish while maintaining a connection with translators, avoiding automation. I’m interested in the double circulation: independent theaters, artisanal translations, and smaller publishers. And does recognition affect my writing? No. When creating a novel, all that exists is the universe of what I want to write—the language I want to reinvent. Nothing else.

PING PONG

A book that blew your mind? Kolyma Tales by Varlam Shalamov

An author you always read, no matter what? Adan Kovacsics

A movie scene you can’t shake? The fire in Tarkovsky’s The Sacrifice

What do you miss about Argentina, besides the chaos? That no one corrects you when you speak