About

To misquote Prince Malcolm in Macbeth, as far as Alejandro H. Rodriguez-Giovo is concerned, “Nothing in his life became him like the preserving it”. Indeed, as a small child, he was an insouciant survivor of what has become known in history as the tragic “T-Rex Massacre” during the New York World Fair, when a 65 million-year error of adjustment in Sinclair Oil Company’s “Time Travel” pavilion unexpectedly  imported one of these ferocious Cretaceous predators into 1964. (Once the marauding reptile had been neutralized, not without some difficulty, by the collective firepower of NYPD, its body was carefully preserved, using the most advanced taxidermal techniques, and is now on display in the American Museum of Natural History. Thanks to the generous consent of his relatives, the victim still in the tyrannosaur’s jaws benefitted from the same procedure, adding to the reconstructed scene’s verisimilitude). Rodriguez-Giovo’s sang-froid during the entire episode was the subject of an editorial in The New York Times, which examined a number of possible interpretations, ranging from heroic courage to terminal autism caused by excessive exposure to “The Three Stooges”. Be that as it may, what made Rodriguez-Giovo’s resilience in the face of lethal danger all the more remarkable was that he had already survived the Cuban Missile Crisis two years previously.

Whether Rodriguez-Giovo’s miraculous escapes on these occasions were a blessing for mankind is open to debate. He went on to pursue largely undistinguished studies in the Universities of Buenos Aires (Argentina), York (Great Britain), Geneva (Switzerland) and Bath (Great Britain). As a journalist for the Buenos Aires Herald (where he was hired by the Moors Cabot Prize-winning editor Robert Cox, who may have overestimated Rodriguez-Giovo’s talent), he weathered (once again, whether to anyone’s advantage other than his own is a moot point) the murderous military dictatorship in Argentina during the mid to late 1970s, no doubt because the regime’s henchmen were baffled by his effete and convoluted prose. He was later employed by a number of international organizations and academic institutions, probably by mistake. He is still teaching English Literature and Theory of Knowledge at the International School of Geneva, and just about getting away with it.

Rodriguez-Giovo is the author of several unwritten novels, which are the focus of much critical speculation and potential acclaim.

Enthusiastic mothers frequently thrust their babies into the arms of Rodriguez-Giovo, who kisses them dutifully and endures the ordeal with papal stoicism. Rarely does he get to kiss the mothers, however.