Interview with Raul Bueno Chavez

Validity of the semiotic and pedagogical legacy of Desiderio Blanco

Abstract

The book Metodología del análisis semiótico (Lima, 1980), co-authored by Desiderio Blanco and Raúl Bueno, fell into my hands in 2007, when Raúl Bueno[1] came to the University of Sonora as a guest speaker at the Coloquio internacional de literatura mexicana e hispanoamericana. I declare myself one of the many academics who entered the world of semiotics through that door. Subsequently, the magnificent translations of essential semiotists such as J. Fontanille and C. Zilberberg made by Desiderio Blanco (1929-1922), and books authored by him such as Vigencia de la semiótica (2009), would give viability to the passion for semiotics that started with that book. On the occasion of the tribute that Tópicos del seminario is preparing one year after his death, I thought that perhaps Raúl Bueno, who treated him so closely, could share with us a valuable testimony about Desiderio and his circumstances. Generous, as always, he accepted the proposal, and I immediately sent him by email a series of questions grouped in clusters. Here are his warm, fine and splendid responses.