The featured author of this new issue of Latin American Literature Today is Argentine prosist César Aira. His work practically needs no introduction. He is one of the most recognized writers in the Spanish language today. Daniel Mecca—another Argentine writer—reflects on Aira based on two images: that of disproportion and that of happiness. Disproportion due to the quantity of books published by Aira, now more than a hundred. And no shortage of translations: his work has been rendered into thirty different languages. Mecca’s happiness, of course, is due to the pleasure of reading this singular, disproportionate body of work, the fruit of a ludic imagination the likes of which are seldom seen in Latin America. Nonetheless, this dossier seeks to shed light on a different César Aira, one who is almost unknown: Aira as a translator. And not just any translator, but rather a writer who, for decades, has translated all sorts of literary works, both good and bad, commercial and classic.
This dossier on Aira was curated by guest editor María Belén Riveiro. Our initial idea was to publish the translation of the prologue to Aira’s translation of Shakespeare’s Cymbeline. María Belén undertook this work alongside Philippa Page, a researcher at the University of Newcastle, along with an enthusiastic group of students and professors from the United Kingdom. But that’s not all: María Belén also invited translator and literature professor Aixa Zlatar to contribute an article. María Belén herself compiled an illuminating collection of quotes from César Aira in which he writes and reflects on translation. In these quotes, Aira sometimes seems to contradict himself, but don’t let that fool you: Aira has thought long and hard about translation, but he has not always thought the same thing. Of course, in this dossier we include Aira’s prologue to his translation of Cymbeline. These texts are accompanied by a detailed translators’ note by María Belén and Philippa. And, in an interview with Colombian journalist and cultural critic Juan Camilo Rincón, Daniel Mecca discusses Aira as the author of an oeuvre that is simultaneously disproportionate and rigorous. We are confident that, with this dossier, we offer a new reading of one of the least-known facets of this great Argentine writer.
The other dossier we feature in this new issue of LALT focuses on Latin American young adult literature. This genre, so well-established in the English-speaking world, does not share the same conditions of translation, publication, and distribution in our countries. We wanted to know what’s going on with this literature, and this dossier is the result of that question. This initiative was led by British translator Claire Storey, who assembled a set of texts that offer a comprehensive look at different angles of literature for young readers. In this dossier, Daniela Ottolenghi reflects on the relationship between literature and virtual spaces; David Jacobson writes on the translation of Latin American young adult literature and the tremendous challenges this endeavor implies; Claire Storey and Federico Ivanier also respond to questions on their respective practices. What can we say of these “people who write about young people” in this age of algorithms and artificial intelligence? I’ll quote Federico Ivanier: “In reality, with or without the internet, teenagers today face the same challenges as always: understanding who they are, what they desire, how to achieve it, how to coexist, how to transition into adulthood, what love consists of, or how to be yourself, and this is not an exhaustive list.” That’s what young adult literature is all about: making connections; discovering yourself and discovering in general; talking to those young readers who, while reading themselves, start to read others and understand how different we all are from each other. The dossier closes with an excerpt from Never Tell Anyone Your Name by Federico Ivanier, translated by Claire Storey.
A great many names grace this issue of LALT. Indranil Chakravarty writes from India on Octavio Paz’s experience as a diplomat in his country; Juan Camilo Rincón and Natalia Consuegra interview Mexican writer Jazmina Barrera. In our Brazilian Literature section, Sheyla Smanioto and Cristiane Sobral write on the Black experience in Brazil. Our translation previews, as usual, aren’t to be missed: Katie Brown, Lizzie Davis and Kevin Gerry Dunn, and Jordan Landsman share their respective translations of Alejandra Blanca, Daniela Tarazona, and Ángel Bonomini. This issue also includes the second installmen of our collaboration with Hablemos, escritoras, where LALT’s readers can find three interviews, all by Adriana Pacheco, with Ecuatorian writer Mónica Ojeda, Argentine writer Clara Obligado, and Puerto Rican writer Esmeralda Santiago.
What’s more, our lead translator and Managing Editor, Arthur Malcolm Dixon, interviews Brazilian writer and translator Bruna Dantas Lobato, winner of the 2023 National Book Award for Translated Literature for her translation of Stênio Gardel’s The Words That Remain. In our section of texts from World Literature Today, we highlight Albanian writer Ismail Kadare, winner—among many other honors—of the 2020 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, awarded by WLT from the University of Oklahoma. It is fitting to quote his nominating juror’s justification for endorsing Kadare for the Neustadt: “Kadare is the successor of Franz Kafka. No one since Kafka has delved into the infernal mechanism of totalitarian power and its impact on the human soul in as much hypnotic depth as Kadare.” The three articles we share in this section, available for the first time in Spanish, were first published in WLT Vol. 95 No. 1 in 2021. In his acceptance speech, Kadare refers to the relationship between literature and totalitarianism. No surprises here. His reflections arise from his lived experience in Albania, and are more pertinent today than ever. Kadare recalls that, “In totalitarian regimes, literature and the arts were tested cruelly, in a manner unknown in world history until then. We know about the punishment of writers even before: the censors, the prisons, and the camps were well known.” What astonishes us is not the cruelty of the past, but the dangers of the future. And not just for literature and writers.
It would be impossible to summarize everything contained in our June issue. Here, readers will once again find poems, stories, and reflections on the practice of translation. New names. In our Indigenous Literature section we present three trilingual poems by Macuxi poet Trudruá Dorrico. A final curiosity in this issue is a brief text by Gabriela Mistral, “Less Condor and More Huemul,” first published in Santiago de Chile in 1925 and translated here by Gonzalo Montero. The huemul is a species of deer native to the Andes that appears on the coat of arms of Chile alongside the condor. In this text, Mistral revindicates the spiritual, feminine figure of this peaceful animal, wishing, “let the huemul be the first face of our spirit, our natural pulse, and let the other be the beat of urgency. Pacifiers of all peace in good days, soft in our faces, our words, our thoughts…” It is clear that Mistral is referring here to something more. As in Kadare’s case, this meditation is both a revindication and a warning. In these polarized times, there is much to be said—in Mistral’s own words—for belonging to “the order of the gazelle.” In 2024, totalitarianisms lie just around the bend. And who knows if there also hangs a condor in the air, awaiting our arrival, circling over a potential wasteland.
Translated by Arthur Malcolm Dixon
