Analyzing César Aira’s work as a translator, we can see there is no exact correspondence between his statements and the works he has in fact translated: the proportion of works that don’t fit within the category of “commercial literature” is pronounced for a translator who claims to have focused on translating bestsellers just to put food on the table and to have only translated real literature on rare occasions; the proportion of works translated after no longer needing the job for a living is pronounced for a translator who claims to be uninterested in translation for literature’s sake.
“Imperceptible Anatomies,” by Mexican writer and academic Guillermo Jesús Fajardo Sotelo, is an essay that, from the trigger of a genetic condition, elaborates a penetrating discourse on personal health, the dimensions of an exceedingly rare pathology, and its links to literary creativity. This is an essay that shows extraordinary balance between the confessional, intellectual inquiry, the clinical aspect, and literary reference points. It likewise represents a minor epic on life and the questions surrounding the demands of the human body—a body, as Fajardo Sotelo calls it himself, that is “anatomically disobedient.”
So much has heraldry abused the raptors, there are so many eagles, so many ospreys in military insignia, that it does not say much because of repetition, the sharp beak and the metallic talon.
I choose this deer, that, in order to be original, does not even have arboreal antlers; I choose the deer, unexplained by the pedagogues, and about which I would say to the kids more or less the following: “The huemul is a sensitive and petite beast; relative to the gazelle, which is to be related to perfection. Its strength lies in its agility. Refined senses are its defense: the delicate ear, the eye of attentive water, the sharp smell.
When Makunaíma created the grandmother
He put the pepper’s soul in her heart
So that she could protect herself from the mariwa, the bad spirits,
And it was true. She lived more than one hundred years.
My fight is to honor my grandmother’s fight every day without fatigue and forever.
University of Oklahoma
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Kaufman Hall, Room 105
Norman, OK 73019-4037
