Much of Israel Centeno’s work has challenged historical myths, even reimagined history.
In 2002, the celebrated Venezuelan author penned the thriller El Complot (The Conspiracy), in which an assassination plot stokes violence and paranoia, upends the country, and calls its foundational principles into question. As the novel went to press amidst a failed coup attempt on Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, it was viewed as an affront, resulting in Centeno and his family’s exile to Pittsburgh 15 years ago.
“I refused to disappear,” he recently wrote about that time. Centeno arrived as a writer-in-residence at City of Asylum and attended English classes at Literacy Pittsburgh (formerly Greater Pittsburgh Literacy Council), where he now serves as a Compass AmeriCorps member. “Every publication, no matter how symbolic, was an act of defiance. It was a way to keep moving forward, even if only by an inch, to remain alive as an author.”
A decade after El Complot’s translation into English, Centeno says he’s still finding new ways to push forward and open new perspectives. In November, the award-winning writer self-published his 20th novel, and his first-ever book written in English, The Poe’s Project: Stealing Genius.
Described by Centeno as three noir novelettes, the new book was “inspired by the gothic aura” of Edgar Allan Poe, and follows in the writer’s footsteps to examine “the dark corners of [his] literary legacy.” Poe’s life contains a number of mysteries, including his cause of death.
“I tried to rewrite his biography,” Centeno tells Pittsburgh City Paper.
Set in the turbulent 1890s — sometimes called the “reckless decade”— The Poe’s Project blends distinct historical settings, unfolding across Caracas, Venezuela, then embroiled in a civil war, New York City amidst the Spiritualism movement, Poe’s adopted hometown of Baltimore, Md., and Gilded Age Pittsburgh. At the book’s center is protagonist Clementina, the granddaughter of a Venezuelan independence general, who eventually finds herself in Homestead during the infamous 1892 steel strike.
Centeno says he’d long hoped to explore historical links between Pittsburgh and Venezuela, both places where steel production once boomed.
“When I came here, Pittsburgh was very different. It was coming out of this experience of being almost on the brink of being broken and was in the transition [from] being a steel city,” Centeno says. “Before I even imagined myself coming here, I knew about Pittsburgh because of that, building our own steel industry [in Venezuela].”
Characteristic of his approach, Centeno says the book’s structure was partially inspired by the parlor game exquisite corpse. In the game, players draw or write on a sheet of paper, fold it, then pass it to the next player who contributes without seeing what others have written. Invented by the Surrealists — and used by Argentine writer Julio Cortázar, who also wrote a Poe biography — the game is intended to encourage creativity and the process of “writing over,” inviting new interpretations, reconstructions, and affinities. In the same way, the structure of The Poe’s Project traverses seemingly disparate historical events and sees what parallels emerge.
While there are some thriller conventions from his earlier books, Centeno describes The Poe’s Project as closer to “a parody of a thriller,” and instead categorizes it as a “historical mystery.”
“I am now trying to revisit everything through this lens … revisiting authors and going through some mystery that needs to be solved,” Centeno says. Formerly a professor of American literature, Centeno says readers will also recognize references to other literary icons of the era, including Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Similarly, a forthcoming book project features science fiction and horror writer H. P. Lovecraft, who receives a letter from a Venezuelan man warning him against supporting aviator Charles Lindbergh (who later ran for political office) due to his Nazi sympathies.
“I can touch [on] things about politics, [and] it’s not like I am doing a novel with a high content of politics, but it’s part of the process,” Centeno explains. “When you revisit a time, you always take something [from] that period of time.”
Centeno describes writing his first book in English in Lovecraftian terms.
“I transcend my own universe,” he says. “My universe of thought is in Spanish, and I transcend it.”
While Centeno has worked as a translator, and his previous works have been released in translation, he says the decision to self-publish The Poe’s Project came about due to ongoing reticence about his work among Venezuelan and other Spanish language publishers.
“I’m still on a sort of blacklist,” he says. “One of the things that challenge[s] you when you are in exile is not only to lose your identity, but if you are a writer or an artist, to lose your natural audiences.”
Still, literature cannot be understood as something done in isolation, Centeno says. In that spirit, he espouses the practice of “radical charity.” Half of the royalties from The Poe’s Project will be donated to The Red Door, a program at Downtown’s Saint Mary of Mercy Church (where Centeno is also a church member). Started during the Great Depression, The Red Door provides daily meals to those experiencing homelessness.
Calling Pittsburgh his “second city,” at 67, Centeno says he feels it’s now time “to give something back.” He describes his shock at the “lack of compassion” toward unhoused people after living in the United States for 15 years.
“They are invisible for us, and you pass through them,” he says. “If somebody comes to the United States and sees the streets full of homeless [people], it’s like seeing the ugly face of the country.”
“Sometimes you get lost in abstraction, how to change the whole world,” Centeno says. “But you forget that you can do something very concrete, just sending an Amazon box of soup to The Red Door or other charitable work.”
That sense of community extends to his artistic practice.
“I love to write, and to recreate the world, and to see the world through art,” he says. “For me, it’s very important to not lose the connection. It’s how I find my connection with people also.”
This article appears in Feb 26 – Mar 4, 2025.
