Palabras Errantes Latin American Literature in Translation
The Machete couldn’t split the rock
By René Roquet. Translated by Joe Williams. español In front of me is Anastasio with a machete sticking out of his face. Dead. There was nothing I could do. Even as a doctor. This rural clinic, equipped with used bandages, basic auscultation equipment and some odd bits of medicine for treating infections and minor injuries is […]
Catapoesia II
By Colectivo Jovem do Matição. Translated by Ana Frankenberg-García. The Catapoesia project started in 2009, as one of the actions of the “Living Reading” project, based within the Trilhas da Serra – Education, Culture and Citizenship NGO’s wider programme to encourage reading and writing skills. Its first intervention took place in the Quilombola Community of Mato do Tição, […]
Catapoesia I
By Maria Gabriela Gomes da Silva and Isadora Geórgia dos Reis. Translated by Ana Frankenberg-García The Catapoesia project started in 2009, as one of the actions of the “Living Reading” project, based within the Trilhas da Serra – Education, Culture and Citizenship NGO’s wider programme to encourage reading and writing skills. Its first intervention took place in the […]
La Cartonera II
By Remi Blánchard and Kristos. Translated by Elsa Treviño. La Cartonera, founded in 2008, is a small publishing house, entirely independent, artisan and artistic, located in Cuernavaca, Mexico. It’s activities are not-for-profit and it does not receive financial support from any institution. Its purpose is to make the most of literature by creating and […]
La Cartonera I
By Gilda Cruz Revueltas and Araceli Tecolapa. Translated by Elsa Treviño. La Cartonera, founded in 2008, is a small publishing house, entirely independent, artisan and artistic, located in Cuernavaca, Mexico. It’s activities are not-for-profit and it does not receive financial support from any institution. Its purpose is to make the most of literature […]
Dulcinéia Catadora II
By Eminéia Silva Santos. Translated by Ana Frankenberg-García e Alex Flynn When I arrived from Bahia I was just five years old. I came with my parents and I’ve been working with recycling ever since. I learned that there’s no such thing as waste, only people who don’t know how to recycle. I see […]
Dulcinéia Catadora I
By Andréia Emboava. Translated by Ana Frankenberg-García and Alex Flynn São Paulo 2018 OK! My name is Andréia. I was born in São Paulo, the state capital. I have been involved in recycling since I was a kid, my grandfather was a waste picker, my father is a waste picker and so how could I […]
No es un cuento
By Lorena Baker (La Rueda Cartonera). Translated by Alice Swift. “You smell like shit,” she said as soon as he opened his eyes. Although she always woke up next to him, this morning was different. Without a thought for how much her life would change, she unhesitatingly voiced what her nose had already told her […]
Cartoneras in Translation
By Lucy Bell, Alex Flynn & Patrick O’Hare Cartoneras in Translation presents a selection of texts by four cartonera publishers from Brazil and Mexico: Dulcinéia Catadora (São Paulo), Catapoesia (Gouveia, Minas Gerais), La Cartonera (Cuernavaca) and La Rueda Cartonera (Guadalajara). This co-publication is part of the broader “Cartonera Publishing” project, a multi-disciplinary research collaboration between […]
II. downcast eyes and a crooked glance
Extract from Inflamadas de retórica: escrituras promiscuas para una tecnodecolonialidad (Editorial Desbordes, 2016) By Jorge Díaz and Johan Mijail. Translated by Shahid Wahab. español Les yeux sont encore capables de pousser un cri René Cher A CROOKED EYE We grow up cross-eyed, with a crooked, squinty, queer eye that finds it hard to focus and […]
La débil mental (extract)
By Ariana Harwicz. Translated by Sarah Moses. español Here we are in the guest room, it’s large, stripped bare. The faint sound of swarms of flies and bluebottles, of different birds with beaks long as horns, the noise of the songs of some over others. Mum smooths out her ash-blond hair, in bed, gently. Her […]
Summer animal
By Lola Arias. Translated by Catriona McAllister. español My legs have gone to sleep from sitting in the same position for hours. My mother says I’m like a rabbit when I’m in a bad mood, but she’s like a naked cow when she plucks her eyebrows in the bathroom mirror. She thinks it’s healthy for […]
Rice
By Alejandra Kamiya. Translated by Kymm Coveney. español Today is Thursday and on Thursdays we have lunch together. We talk a lot, or what for us is a lot. Neither of us is the kind of person anyone would call a conversationalist. Sometimes we eat in complete silence. A comfortable silence, as weightless as the […]
Journey to My Father’s Country
By Natalia Brandi. Translated by Lindsey Ford. español The journey all started because of one of those things you say without thinking. “Can I come with you?” My dad lifted his eyes from his plate and looked at me. He wiped a little sauce from his mouth with his napkin, a little more with his […]
An Orphan’s Freedom
By Paula Varsavsky. Translated by Sarah Moses. español There’s a dream I used to have over and over again. My father was alive. I’d find him after eighteen years without seeing him. Dad wasn’t surprised or glad to see me. I felt he’d been avoiding me. The fact that we were together again seemed to […]
A Long River
By Pía Bouzas. Translated by Andrea Shah. español If my father hadn’t had two daughters with my mother, he probably wouldn’t have gone to see her at the oncology clinic. He would have stayed at home, reading the paper. If it were a Sunday, he would have gotten ready to go to mass. Perhaps he would […]
Apparition
By Vera Giaconi. Translated by Carolina Orloff and Fionn Petch. español She underwent one of those impossible tests where you can’t work out the connection between what they’re asking and what they want to know. Ana answered: a girl with a stolen plastic bracelet, to my mother, petrol, a forest seen from underneath, every day, […]
Run
By Francisco Cascallares. Translated by Lucina Schell. español Two months ago, her father was local operations manager for a multinational corporation. Now, she and he were crossing the desert by car. Along the way she, the daughter, wondered how much longer the car would last after their savings ran out and they wouldn’t even be […]
Birth
By Camila Fabbri. Translated by Sarah Booker español 1. Every time someone talks to me, they cannot help but let their gaze linger over my corvina-shaped scar. Instantly, they ask about Pedro. 2. I met him when I was very young. We were in our early twenties. We chatted in a plaza beneath the sunbeams. […]
Yellow Submarines
By Carolina Bruck. Translated by Ellen Jones español For Violeta Catalina looked at her mother and the mother looked at her daughter. Had some disaster befallen Catalina too? […]
And who do I marry
By Jacqueline Golbert. Translated by Lauren Fiszzon. español The story went something like that, but I don’t remember that much of it. ‘… don’t let me die, make me wake up with happiness…’ It was routine for my mum to run herself a bubble bath which filled the tub. I would perch on the toilet […]
Strawberries
By Valeria Tentoni. Translated by Dani Gisselbeck. español I was an only child still. They put me in a playpen padded along the edges with brightly colored fabric. I entertained myself: sticking my fists into the plastic mesh, sometimes getting stuck, and crying a little. My whole world was in that little ring alone in the […]
Interrupted Plans
By Aurora Venturini. Translated by Lucy Christmas. español “All it would take to hit new depths of solitude was to start playing with the thingamajigs of death”. A tale of loss. Included in Nosotros, los Caserta (Penguin Random House, 2011) I adopted Bertha and wore her on a silver chain around my neck like a locket. […]
Mom’s Birthday, 1991
By Alejandra Zina. Translated by Frances Riddle. español Same as always. That’s what you thought. Same as always. Negra and José were your best friends. The only ones you let come over to the house. It wasn’t the first time your mom had invited them to her birthday. They’d come before. They didn’t mind. The […]
The Green Ray
By Inés Garland. Translated by Natasha Tanna. español Dad and Ana, my best friend, reach Salinas at midday. Mum and I are shaking the sand off our feet when the car comes up the path by the side of the house and grinds to a halt, chewing up the lawn. “Careful with the hydrangeas!” says […]
Magritte and Rage
By Cristina Zabalaga. Translated by Lois Baer Barr. español I am incapable of sleeping during the flight. I am furious. Just furious. So mad that nothing can distract me. Not the tight ass on the flight attendant who manages to graze against my hand every time she passes, not the stupid movies that have me […]
Griselda
By Amparo Dávila. Translated by Sarah Booker español The blond girl paused for a few moments, hesitant, before the half-opened door, but she decided, finally, to enter. She could not resist the total abandonment of the garden. Due to the quantity of weeds that had invaded it, one could barely walk down the path that […]
The Devil and the Dominguez Family
By Mariana Enríquez. Translated by Ruth Clarke. español The bedroom door was open and Veronica went in. Her mum was still in bed, but she had her eyes open; she wasn’t asleep. A collection of glasses sat on the bedside table, some empty, some holding orange juice, water that had long since gone flat; tissues, […]
The Old Age of the Twins from The Shining
By Espido Freire. Translated by Fionn Petch. español These days we go out less: one or the other of us is always suffering from an overwhelming lethargy. We toss and turn before we get out of bed, then we calmly dress, approaching the mirror time and again to check our socks are properly pulled up […]
The Dragon
By Edmundo Paz Soldán. Translated by Christopher Schafenacker. español I woke up in Jaelle this morning. I was with Laurence, who was once again with the trembling. His arms jittered, he blinked uncontrollably, his cheeks twitched. The human being is a trembling thing, he said, when I asked him what was going on. The same […]