Palabras Errantes Latin American Literature in Translation
A House with Ten Pines
By Fabián Casas. Translated by Alan Williams. For Quique Fogwill Ever since I started to be published, people ask me: ‘Is this autobiographical?’ Or: ‘The main character, that’s you, right?’ So I’m going to start off by saying that everything that follows is absolutely true. It happened exactly as I’m going to tell it. That […]
Dance for Oblivion/Danza para el olvido (selection)
By Melissa Ghezzi. Translated by Christopher Schafenacker. TRANSLATOR’S NOTE: In Dance for Oblivion Melissa Ghezzi assumes the voice of a poet who enters a women’s prison to teach poetry workshops and subsequently develops a romance with one of the prisoners. The Spanish original communicates the same-sex nature of this bond in subtle ways that cannot […]
Mariquita Sánchez
By Paula Jiménez España. Translated by Jeremy Osner. Sargento: […] a toast to anonymous revolutions; in them does liberty flower! –Juan B. Alberdi I was expecting Vicente at five, but it was four in the afternoon when the bell rang. I asked the maid to see who it was; to deal as quickly as possible […]
My Neighbour without Men
By Dinapiera Di Donato. Translated by Fionn Petch. a fence made of cactus marked the home of the sting ray’s harpoon her black veils rippled no one talks to her not the breeze, not the dried-up well the girls from Madeira sell lace from a white bundle they feel like pigeons beneath her gaze avoid […]
MOUTH WIDE OPEN
By Odette Alonso. Translated by Peter W Davies. “Does it hurt?” As I can’t answer, I shake my head from side to side. It seems like a test from God: before, the persistence of the drill caused me to suffer terrible nightmares; now her hands are holding one and her fingers are caressing my gums, building […]
6 Muriel 6: Acrostics
By Ana Nuño. Translated by Lawrence Schimel. More free than you of not growing confused under the luminous foliage of that garden of berries, risking her amorous past to the whims of fate; innocent, you claim, as she watches without ever touching and you find yourself opening like an inverted blossom. Mendacious with […]
Lesbian Sestina
By Ana Nuño. Translated by Lawrence Schimel. Tactical, but allowing for disorder. Words made to the measure of rejection, the body, all of their bodies, dressed for day even at night, always ready but as if on the margin: superior, unnoticed, alone. The precise image, by itself, alone, raises a polemic about the […]
Love
By Mariana Docampo. Translated by Carolina Orloff. Love She loves the contour. But only at the precise moment. The three days before and the three days following the initiation. She loves the fingers raised. The toenails slightly uneven, the varnish messed up. The hairs on the legs. It lasts only three days. Like an […]
The Divided Sky
By Reina Roffé. Translated by Roanne Kantor. FRAGMENTS 1. In the café where Donna, after the conference in the Cultural Centre, would reveal her secret to Eleanora, Mijal would berate her for being a woman without a face: “A passive, complacent spectator.” In time, she would understand the depth of those words, which, at that […]
Tilsa Otta
Translated by K.T. Billey. today for the first time I was offended by god having met you as a woman without a penis you who likes them so much you say pricks speaking of sizes I have one but it’s for personal use it’s not really mine I couldn’t use it with you it’s […]
Artemisa Téllez
Translated by Charlotte Whittle The Day After Tomorrow When I am dead Will the risen ones come to the world and seek my eyes among the tombs of the graveyard? Will my hands be licked by the dogs that didn’t live to see another summer? Will I be mourned by my brother, the one […]
Reality and Desire
By Gisela Kozak Rovero. Translated by María José Giménez Reality, yes, reality: A seal of closure on all doors of desire. Olga Orozco The young woman has read the following text over and over on her computer screen: She was always a woman whose heart was set on fire, always exercised her freedom because you […]
Tests
By Elena Solis. Translated by Ellen Jones. We were very worried about the appearance of a third cyst on my maxillary sinus. I told you that, many years ago, I’d had one removed, and another last year too. Last year’s hadn’t been analysed because the doctor was convinced it was completely benign. So we were […]
Methadone
By Elena Solis. Translated by Ellen Jones. I am writing without getting out of bed, because when I do Jacinta and Artu go insane. They run circles around me, saying hello and playing. Jacinta thinks she’s a cat and bites and scratches me. But her teeth are too strong and her claws too hard. I’m […]
THESE ARE THINGS THAT I ONLY TELL MYSELF
By Rosa María Roffiel. Translated by Charlotte Coombe. Oh, the fantasy! Oh, the reality! Yes, these are things that I only tell myself. Like how when we had our first meeting to see if you would take me on as a patient and if I wanted you as my therapist, straight off I liked the […]
Something Naked
By Martín Cerisola, translated by Keith Ekiss. Photography by Diego Vidart. from Something Naked “All the beautiful phrases spoken about transcending nature prove ineffectual in the face of the primordial forces of life.” —Frank Kafka, Diaries I A cemetery of elephants. A vast territory of immense, white bones. Suddenly, in a corner, […]
Sonetos a dos
from Sonetos a dos by Horacio Cavallo and Francisco Tomsich, translated by Geoffrey Brock. Photography by Diego Vidart. Hermes I. Crickets are errors in the silence, or so thinks sleepless Hermes, in his boxer shorts. Chin on his fist, packet of cigarettes beneath the portrait of Florencio. The moon, the window: up […]
Elisa Mastromatteo
By Elisa Mastromatteo, translated by Orlando Menes. Photography by Diego Vidart. As Simple as That One must simply let it come out, one must let it it wants to come out, and it goes forth forges new energies comes out, breathes rummages through objects, removes lint it looks and points, makes drawings leaps […]
Alicia Preza
By Alicia Preza, translated by Julia Leverone. Photography by Diego Vidart. The Spell Long ago, I left my home. In this new place, remote, no one can find me. An ancient woman took me in— her age breeds gleeful bats. The woman prepares a treat, shuts herself in the kitchen. Her dogs lie […]
Miguel Avero
Miguel Avero, translated by Jona Colson. Photography by Diego Vidart. Sea breaking open The night disintegrates over the brightness of the umbrellas, over the countless skins gradually hardened. In the folds of the quivering breeze air and water are the same. Individuals rush trampling the perplexed mirrors of the street. A gray smoke that […]
Javier Etchevarren
By Javier Etchevarren, translated by Don Bogen. Photography by Diego Vidart. The Despicable Man Watching TV it enters the eyes and comes out the mouth a feed of words to get our drives drooling with exotic passions that sustain us through the shock of unending effluvium everything happens at a distance the […]
Andrea Durlacher
By Andrea Durlacher, translated by Anna Rosenwong. Photography by Diego Vidart. Life is as much the same as it is profane We will flee between the rocks we are disquisition. The absolute outburst of destiny go talk to someone else about free will, about human individuality! What for? Day after day we deny […]
Laura Chalar
By Laura Chalar, translated by Erica Mena. Photography by Diego Vidart. Helsinki When that bitter rag gets rammed in her throat, which may happen several times during a standard day, she closes her eyes and imagines herself in Helsinki. The air draws blood from those who breathe it, the sun smooths the streets, the […]
River Plate
By Leonardo Lesci, translated by Christopher Schafenacker. Photography by Diego Vidart. Río de la Plata El río de la plata is low and I enter on its blind side, the water drops further still like a woman penetrated by the steps of a bizarre dance. El río de la plata is low […]
For the Seals/ Para las focas
By Juan Manuel Sánchez, translated by Cindy Schuster. Photography by Diego Vidart I Of late the city is awash with seals. Seals at my heels penguinized seals chimney-smoking seals in meetings. Seals sealing deals drinking scotch on the rocks. I lock myself in the bathroom I need legs. I […]
Poems of Martín Uruguay Martínez
By El Hoski, translated by Kevin González. Photography by Diego Vidart. Silence the milky cock slams the table a mallet the milky cock slams the table oh oh oh what is this I hear? it is the poets they beg for good words and a rain of triangular dicks that […]
The Conqueror’s Elastic Entrails
By Bernardo Fernández. Translated by Lucy Greaves. For Gerardo Horacio Porcayo español Accountant Rabindranath Jiménez rechecked the data showing on the micro-screen implanted in his retina. Apparently the planet in question was rich in copper. Extraordinarily rich in copper. He had a last check through the results that the Corporation’s probe had sent back. […]
The blood our heroes shed
Written by Bernardo Fernández in collaboration with Gerardo Sifuentes. Translated by Isabelle Chaize. español If all our dreams came true, the world would become a nightmare John Updike 1 Brazil, 1979 A few hundred metres below us Carnival seethed. Rio was a madhouse without walls. But up here, in our penthouse, his back to the […]
The Latin Cities
By Alberto Chimal. Translated by Fionn Petch. español A, of the many entrances: its walls are made of doors and the inhabitants all have a window to the front – whether painted or not we do not know. B, which is mounted on vast wooden platforms and pulled back and forth across the plain by […]
Twenty About Robots
By Alberto Chimal. Translated by Fionn Petch. For Bernardo Fernández Bef español 00000 “Robots’ dreams taste of oil and electricity, like anyone else’s. But they have flowers and crystals no one else can see, unfathomable anguish, logical snares…” “Do humans’ dreams taste of oil and electricity too, then, teacher?” “Within a few centuries we […]