Category Spanish
Magic Formula: Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Albina and the Dog-Men, Translated by Alfred MacAdam
Reviewed by Jenny Buckland Alejandro Jodorowsky’s latest novel Albina and the Dog-Men is a sensual, surreal romp through the magical landscapes of Peru and the author’s native Chile. Employing a motley cast of absurd, technicolor and often overtly symbolic characters, Jodorowsky administers an exuberant dose of allegorical organized chaos in order to reveal truths about […]
Mexican Noir: Death in Veracruz by Héctor Aguilar Camín, Translated by Chandler Thompson
Reviewed by Charlotte Whittle In the 1970s, foreign debt, inflation, and political crises plagued Mexico’s previously strong economy, and the discovery of extensive oil reserves in the country’s rural Gulf Coast region seemed to many to offer a panacea for the nation’s ills. The resulting oil boom ushered in a period of speculation and prosperity […]
Negative Illumination: Ricardo Piglia’s Target in the Night, Translated by Sergio Waisman
Reviewed by Lucina Schell, Editor In November, 2015, Mauricio Macri won Argentina’s presidency in a run-off election, ending twelve years of Peronist-party rule by the Kirchners. Ricardo Piglia’s Target in the Night takes place before the fractured optimism of Perón’s brief return to power in the 1970s, but was published in 2010, the year President […]
Subverted Eden: Poems by Ramón López Velarde, Translated by M.W. Jacobs
Reviewed by Charlotte Whittle Ramón López Velarde enjoys the status of a national poet in Mexico, where his best-known work, “Suave patria” (Gentle Homeland), is recited in classrooms across the country. Yet López Velarde’s work is all but unknown to English-language readers. López Velarde, who was active around the time of the Mexican Revolution, came […]
A Catalog of Reviews of The Story of My Teeth by Valeria Luiselli, Translated by Christina MacSweeney
or, a hyperbolic meditation on the ways in which literary reviews manipulate value and affect sales HYPERBOLIC LOT NO. 1: “The Story of My Teeth” Starred Review WRITER: PW Staff PROVENANCE: Publishers Weekly LISTING: 10M The coveted starred review in Publisher’s Weekly, a steadier buzz-generator than an electric toothbrush, set a high valuation bar for […]
Passing in Translation: Jessica Powell on Antonio Benítez-Rojo’s Woman in Battle Dress
Interview by Lucina Schell, Editor Woman in Battle Dress, the last published work by renowned Cuban writer Antonio Benítez-Rojo, is just out in translation by Jessica Powell from City Lights Books. The sweeping epic imagines the remarkable life of 19th-Century historical figure Henriette Faber, who lived as a man in order to study medicine and […]
Not One: Asymmetries. Anthology of Peruvian Poetry by Cardboard House Press
Reviewed by Charlotte Whittle Asymmetries, an anthology of Peruvian poetry produced by new bilingual press Cardboard House, introduces readers to an extraordinary diversity of voices that represent the course of Peruvian poetry since the post-avant-garde moment of the 1940s. Edited by Paul Guillén, Giancarlo Huapaya, Cristian Medina, and Maggie Messerschmidt, the collection includes the work […]
City Blocks: Elvira Navarro’s The Happy City translated by Rosalind Harvey
Reviewed by Kate Lynch Granta introduced the anglophone world to Elvira Navarro by naming her one of the best young Spanish language novelists in 2010, but Rosalind Harvey’s translation of her second novel The Happy City marks her first full-length work in English. The 2009 Spanish original earned both the Jaén Fiction Award and the Tormenta […]
Notes from an Island: Mylene Fernández-Pintado’s A Corner of the World Translated by Dick Cluster
Reviewed by Charlotte Whittle The question of whether to stay or to leave is central to the lives of almost all of the characters in A Corner of the World, Mylene Fernández Pintado’s first book-length work in English translation. Trained as a lawyer, Fernández-Pintado is known in Cuba for her novels and short stories, for […]
More than Márquez: Hispabooks’ Ana Pérez Galván on Contemporary Spanish Literature
Brand new, Madrid-based independent publishing house Hispabooks has already generated buzz in the literary translation community and the publishing world, enriching the English-language book market with their first batch of releases from some of the most exciting and innovative contemporary Spanish authors. Founded in October, 2011 by Ana Pérez Galván and Gregorio Doval, two editors at large with […]
Beautiful Monstrosity: Leopoldo María Panero, translated by Arturo Mantecón
Reviewed by Lucina Schell, Editor “…almost all [critics] agree that he is the greatest living poet in Spanish, and the most significant one since García Lorca and Aleixandre,” Arturo Mantecón writes in his introduction to his selected translations of Leopoldo María Panero Like an Eye in the Hand of a Beggar (17). A big claim, […]
The Dark Territory in Ana Minga’s Tobacco Dogs, Translated by Alexis Levitin
Reviewed by Emily Thompson In his preface to Ana Minga’s Tobacco Dogs, translator Alexis Levitin sets the scene for the collection’s thirty-four poems: “Let us think of Hieronymus Bosch. Let us think of Francis Bacon. Let us think of Goya. These, to my mind, are her anguished compatriots” (viii). That the poet should find herself […]
Passionate Nomads by María Rosa Lojo, Translated by Brett Alan Sanders
Reviewed by Lucina Schell, Editor Ideally, literature in translation can illuminate an aspect of our own culture that deserves further reflection. Passionate Nomads by Maria Rosa Lojo, translated by Brett Alan Sanders, is such a work. Tackling Argentina’s difficult history of indigenous genocide, which bears striking resemblance to that carried out in the United States, […]
Donald Wellman on Antonio Gamoneda’s Description of the Lie
Donald Wellman joins me virtually upon the release of his latest translation of Antonio Gamoneda’s Description of the Lie for a conversation about the breakthrough poetic work in post-fascist Spain, from one of the country’s most celebrated contemporary poets. “I’ve been haunted by his voice…The power of the voice is irresistible.” “I am learning from [Gamoneda […]
Between Words: Juan Gelman’s Public Letter, translated by Lisa Rose Bradford
Reviewed by Lucina Schell, Editor All acts of translation pose challenges, but as an art form concerned with articulating the inexpressible, the nascent meanings underlying language, poetry is particularly complicated. The process of carrying meaning from one language to another requires navigating a sometimes wide chasm between words, and it is in the spaces between […]