Over at the New York Times‘ Paper Cuts blog, their “Stray Questions” segment features none other than… Roberto Bolaño.  Excerpted from our new collection of interviews with Bolaño — Roberto Bolano: The Last Interview & Other Conversations — the questions show Bolaño’s more casual, and certainly humorous side, as in this back and forth with journalist Monica Maristain from the last interview he ever gave:

M.M.: Have you shed one tear about the widespread criticism you’ve drawn from your enemies?

R.B.: Lots and lots. Every time I read that someone has spoken badly of me I begin to cry, I drag myself across the floor, I scratch myself, I stop writing indefinitely, I lose my appetite, I smoke less, I engage in sport, I go for walks on the edge of the sea, which by the way is less than 30 meters from my house and I ask the seagulls, whose ancestors ate the fish who ate Ulysses: Why me? Why? I’ve done you no harm.