For many years now I've been a big admirer of Mexican writer Agustin Cadena's fiction. One of his short stories, "Lady of the Seas," appears in my anthology, Mexico: A Traveler's Literary Companion (Whereabouts Press, 2006), and another was the first Tameme Chapbook ~ Cauderno, Carne verde, piel negra / An Avocado from Michoacán (Tameme, 2007). A third translation of mine, his story "Parque Murillo," is forthcoming from Small Beer Press, in a collection edited by Eduardo Jimenez Mayo. I strongly feel that many more of Cadena's works deserve to be translated into English. For those of you who read Spanish, check out his blog, El vino y la hiel. And if you're in Mexico City this week don't miss the launch of his new collection of short stories, Las tentaciones de la dicha (Editorial Jus), with presenters Eve Gil, Miguel Couturier, and Luis Bernardo Pérez, this Thursday at 7 pm, address: Donceles 66, Col Centro (entre Rep Chile y Palma). The event is free and open to the public. Here's the jacket text:
Hay, en las historias de Agustín Cadena, un diálogo con los aspectos tristes de la vida que sin embargo nos arrancan sonrisas y complicidades para envolvernos en la oscura magia de sus desgracias. Los cuentos que componen este libro son una muestra de ello: viejos vampiros en busca de inquilinos, una pareja que al vacacionar en las playas del mar Negro encuentra a un hombre con un misterioso maletín, un castillo convertido en hotel de lujo donde se dan cita personajes excéntricos. Una a una las historias de Las tentaciones de la dicha nos seducen, nos vuelven cómplices, nos hacen reír mientras veladamente asistimos a la pérdida de la inocencia del mundo que nos rodea.
P.S. Cadena, I am truly honored to say, is the translator of my novel, The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire, which comes out next month as El último príncipe del Imperio mexicano, with Random House Mondadori.
More anon.
