NOTE

I hold with León Fuertes (see Chapter 17): “A careful fake is better than the truth.” Hence, I write fiction.

This book is fiction. I made it up.

I began inventing the Republic of Tinieblas a few years ago in another work of fiction. I have invented more of it here. I have also invented a “next world,” an “afterlife.” It and Tinieblas have the same kind of reality.

If the reader of this note is interested exclusively in the so-called “real world”, I advise him not to spend time or money on The Dissertation but to invest instead in a ride on the New York Rapid Transit System or some similar experience. The “real world” is a sloppy actuality. The Dissertation is a careful fake.

—R. M. K.