Palabras Errantes Latin American Literature in Translation
Frances Riddle
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 Impostor and the Shadow
By Carmen Rioja. Translated by Frances Riddle. en español In the living room there’s a shadow who insists I am the impostor. I have chased him out several times but he persists in staying to tint everything with mauve and burgundy. Sometimes it takes me an entire day to get him out of the house. […]
Incommunicado
By Carmen Rioja. Translated by Frances Riddle. en español “Why, if that’s what the dream is for, to reveal the beast in the end? But no, then the dream is to let the leopards continue their endless spiral…” Julio Cortázar, A Certain Lucas, trans. by Gregory Rabassa. After the earthquake the city looks deserted. It […]