Translator\u2019s Note<\/b><\/p>\n
Leonardo Valente\u2019s <\/span>D\u2019s Cryogenics or a Manifesto for Lost Pleasures<\/span><\/i> is a novel marked by introspection and intimacy. On the one hand, its narrator, D., shares their innermost thoughts, urges, dreams, and mistakes with astonishing candor. On the other, D. remains hard to pin down as a character, ever-shifting and changing their mind and resisting categorization. They use she pronouns on one page, then he on the other. Their six ex-husbands appear on the street in the flesh, then as ghostly characters on TV. Breaking literary and gender conventions, this is a novel about the trickiness of the physical body, the relationship between the self and narratives of the self, and the impossibility of capturing emotional truth. \u201cTo lay myself bare\u2026 is to make myself illegible,\u201d D. writes.<\/span><\/p>\n Published in Brazil in 2021 to critical acclaim, <\/span>D\u2019s Cryogenics<\/span><\/i> has also been published in Argentina, Uruguay, and Portugal. A theatrical monologue based on the book, performed by actress T\u00e2nia Alves, recently premiered at the Niter\u00f3i Theater.<\/span><\/p>\n Leonardo Valente is the author of three other novels, including <\/span>O Beijo da Pombagira<\/span><\/i>, a finalist for the Rio Literature Prize, and <\/span>Calote<\/span><\/i>, winner of the Julia Lopes Prize. He is a professor of International Relations at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n From <\/b>D\u2019s Cryogenics or a Manifesto for Lost Pleasures<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n this book is the greatest of my infidelities. displaced epilogue<\/b><\/p>\n i find myself dry and frigid like a leaf from an ancient tree in winter snow, dry from the cold i have to bear, in the abundance of all i have to offer. i really am happy and tired in times of droughts of the soul, in the season of dry romantic hypocrisy; i\u2019m calm and overflowing with myself even in precious periods of disaffection; i\u2019m cunning, mischievous, and feral in them, and i can see what that idiot never saw or pretended to never see. it\u2019s in disaffection i can make myself a writer. oxal\u00e1 all love will make me dry. wherever i am.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n starting<\/b><\/p>\n here i am constant night. i hang from a hook in the back of the closet and lock the door. once far from myself, i can sit down and write about what i\u2019m not. and by writing about what i never was, i make myself understand what\u2019s essential.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n restarting<\/b><\/p>\n actually, i am jealousy. i just saw on TV someone i admire and i couldn\u2019t bear it. i lost all desire to sleep, i got up with migraines and willing to be better than him. but better how? i don\u2019t know. at everything, maybe. i just need to be. i have a great recipe that always puts me to sleep when i have insomnia triggered by jealousy and also this anger that consumes me from time to time. I take a few deep breaths and start an artificial dream, one of those you script before falling asleep. i imagine myself at the center of attention, in the most genuine and superior place of success, a great radiating object of admiration to all who ever crossed my path, even if briefly. the script stays the same for a few days, for as long as it works. i replace it with another equally narcissistic and grandiloquent one when the previous one loses its effect. i won\u2019t reveal any details of these dreams, because i believe what i imagined won\u2019t happen if i share them. \u201cplans aren\u2019t meant to be shared with anyone,\u201d my mother always said. this idea that unspoken plans are the only ones that come to fruition is my inheritance. i won\u2019t reveal any details because i need the hope that they will happen, if not to live then at least to sleep. i almost always fall asleep in the first few minutes of the story, so i don\u2019t usually have an ending for them, only openings. my desires are nothing more than starts. but today, when i saw this familiar face on the TV on a timer set to power it off\u2014i didn’t expect to see him, i just wanted to fall asleep to the sounds of the live audience\u2014i couldn\u2019t think of anything, lying in bed and facing the peeling wall of my bedroom, physically ready for the scripting process. his story was better than mine. that\u2019s why i\u2019m lying here, sleepy and restless, trying to fill pages of my purest personal pride disguised as venting, to finally sleep, empty of myself.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n restarting again<\/b><\/p>\n awake. that man on TV last night was never important in my life, but at that moment it felt like he could have been the most important of all. my husband, the one i never really had. i\u2019d married five men and none. he was one of the five that never were, and i suspect he would have been better than the whole bunch of them together. and i still don\u2019t know if by watching him on the screen i was trying to love him or get over him, kill him or surrender, admire him or conspire against him. i thought of the night before. i\u2019m jealousy. i\u2019ve never loved anyone, always competed for love. i never loved but i don\u2019t remember a single time i didn\u2019t completely give myself over. who says love and surrender have to be related? i read cells. some people read palms, others read letters, many prefer the Bible, but i read cells. they say it\u2019s a gift. i\u2019m a good observer of the macro just from looking at the micro. give me a word, just one, a tone of voice, and i can explain its whole existence. i can build a whole life of intentions and desires from a single smile or from his absence. i\u2019m a translator and judge of other people\u2019s particulars. i also cultivate macromolecules. knowing them, i made myself a good cook. some people rinse basmati rice at least three times before cooking it because that\u2019s what they\u2019ve been taught, and because otherwise it\u2019ll get chunky and sticky like sushi rice. i don\u2019t. i rinse it because i see the macromolecules of starch come out of each grain in the water with the movements of my wooden spoon. and as i see them, i make them, they become part of my modest collection. i see them without seeing them, the way i see my husbands\u2019 souls. is that what i\u2019m seeeing?<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n introducing myself<\/b><\/p>\n pardon my rudeness, i haven\u2019t even introduced myself yet. i\u2019m D. i believe this is more than enough information, considering all i intend to throw at you in the next pages that is infinitely more important than my social identity or what i do for a living. i make myself truly known when i\u2019m alone in my free time, the rest of the time i\u2019m just a standard-bearer for what isn\u2019t mine, i am what i write and what overflows.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n revealing myself<\/b><\/p>\n Tolstoy wrote <\/span>Anna Karenina<\/span><\/i> based off a neighbor\u2019s tragedy. Bibikov had a lover whose first name inspired the protagonist\u2019s. after a few years, Bibikov left her for his children\u2019s teacher, whom he planned to marry. A desperate Anna collected some of her things and for three days wandered through the fields, until she threw herself under a train. before that, however, she wrote Bibikov a note: \u201cyou are my murderer. you will be happy with her if murderers can be happy. if you want to see me, you can come and view my body on the rails at Yasenki.\u201d after hearing the story, i asked myself: would i have it in me to throw myself in front of a train if i got cheated on? the answer came quickly, without a shadow of a doubt: no. but i would be capable of throwing whoever cheated on me in front of the train, with pleasure. this is me in the flesh.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n undressing myself<\/b><\/p>\n every day a locomotive rips me apart, turns me into pulp, flesh, bone, and blood squashed between the infertile soil and the railway sleepers. there is no exact time. it\u2019s usually at night, but it also happens in the morning. i pick myself up with a dustpan, carefully put myself in a wastebasket, and take myself home. there are always remains between the railway sleepers. each time, i fall asleep disfigured to wake up composed, never the same as i was the day before, to be run over again. and i admit: i\u2019ve never thrown anyone in front of a train. i like to cook because i can observe chemical and physical metamorphoses in the food, imposed by extreme forces: cold and heat. my metamorphosis, however, caused by the intensity of the locomotive, is imposed by a more genuine and pure mechanical force, inescapable. cooking is the perfect act of substantiation, the most purified science in favor of life. i\u2019ve prepared many a praiseworthy dish for friends, but no more. i\u2019ve grown apart from them because of my husbands. i\u2019ve grown apart from them because of myself. sometimes i exchange messages with these no-longer friends, we like some of each other\u2019s things on social media, but we never eat together. and if we don\u2019t eat together it\u2019s because our ties aren\u2019t the same anymore. affection lives around the table, so much so that it is from the table that we quickly remove those who are no longer wanted or who have disappointed us. the table reveals more intimacy than the bed. a stranger might recognize the texture of my bedsheets or the density of my springy mattress within minutes of experiencing it, but they\u2019d never be able to sit at my table before first becoming the object of my affection, a signifier with many signifieds in my relationships, and that takes time. that sleepless night when i saw my husband on TV, i made pasta after i fell asleep. i boiled water, selected the thin Italian spaghetti and delicately put it in the pot. i don\u2019t add olive oil to my water, like many boast of doing. olive oil in the water is the post-truth of those who think they know how to cook. i have many rules around the term post-truth, but i think it\u2019s the perfect expression for this need to use olive oil in order to have nicely cooked pasta. i followed the whole process standing by the stove. for a few minutes, i felt the steam reach my face, until i sovereignly decided it was ready, because i\u2019m the master of my own pasta. i strained the spaghetti and put it on a plate at the dining table, next to a glass of red wine and in front of the TV, another TV, not the one in the bedroom, but one i actually have and that didn\u2019t show that familiar face anymore. i ate the way i thought i should eat, and that represented my day, my night, my constant sleeplessness, my jealousy, and my desire to make pasta: with no sauce. i have yet to consult an online dream dictionary to see what this meant.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n confessing<\/b><\/p>\n i have affective immune deficiency syndrome, i contracted it from my second husband. he didn\u2019t develop the disease though he has the virus, since he was stronger than me, and as soon as we separated\u2014as soon as he separated from me\u2014i started to feel the symptoms. they say this disease has no cure, in fact, experts differ on its origin, it seems some people remain immune to it, even after they\u2019ve already been infected by the virus, while others develop the most aggressive form without even having had contact with the microorganism, a predisposition and post-decision thing, some studies say. but my case is not his fault, and i don\u2019t need tests to prove it, if my thesis were refuted scientifically, i would lose the justifying elements of my anger and the desire for everything to go wrong forever in your life; i would have to come up with other stories to justify the huge investment i have in bad omens, the opposite of hope, in the confirmation of the infamy fate made me the victim of, not me. we\u2019ve been separated for a decade, and since the day i last saw him when he was still my husband, we\u2019ve only exchanged quick, disconcerted hellos, almost like strangers, on three occasions; three other times he passed me on the street, but pretended not to see me; two more he spotted me from the middle of the block and crossed the street. and that\u2019s it. an estranged husband and a strange husband, a stranger with an unexplored heart, but whose skin i understand by the coordinates, whose geography i fully know. i have no reason to doubt my thesis, that i was infected by him, as i remember exactly the moment of contagion, right at the beginning of our relationship. he was walking down the street on his way to our fourth date, two weeks after the first and after much insistence from him, who spoke of marriage from the very beginning. on the way, i felt my cell phone vibrate in my pocket, it was a text message from him: \u201ci had a great time last night, kisses.\u201d we hadn\u2019t had a last night. I arrived with the full intention of not going on a fifth date with him, i heard from his own mouth that for some reason an old message had been sent to my phone. i had all the empirical and rational arguments to tear down his excuse, but i ignored them. I believed him for the seven years we were together, i mistrusted him for the seven years i cheated on him and he cheated on me. that damn message had infected me. my predisposition to this syndrome, however, i inherited from my first husband.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Translator\u2019s Note Leonardo Valente\u2019s D\u2019s Cryogenics or a Manifesto for Lost Pleasures is a novel marked by introspection and intimacy. On the one hand, its narrator, D., shares their innermost thoughts, urges, dreams, and mistakes with astonishing candor. On the other, D. remains hard to pin down as a character, ever-shifting and changing their mind […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":26961,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4167],"tags":[4658],"genre":[],"pretext":[],"section":[],"translator":[2737],"lal_author":[4654],"class_list":["post-27144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sobre-la-traduccion","tag-numero-27-es","translator-bruna-dantas-lobato-es-2","lal_author-leonardo-valente-es"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27144"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27620,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27144\/revisions\/27620"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27144"},{"taxonomy":"genre","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/genre?post=27144"},{"taxonomy":"pretext","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pretext?post=27144"},{"taxonomy":"section","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/section?post=27144"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/translator?post=27144"},{"taxonomy":"lal_author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/lal_author?post=27144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Bruna Dantas Lobato<\/span><\/h5>\n
\n<\/span>D.<\/span><\/p>\nTranslated by Bruna Dantas Lobato<\/span><\/h5>\n
Photo: Edu Lauton, Unsplash.<\/span><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"