Spotlight on Mexican Fiction: "The Apaches of Kiev" by Agustín Cadena in Tupelo Quarterly, and Much More

Delighted to announce that my translation of the short story by Agustín Cadena, "The Apaches of Kiev," appears in the very fine U.S. literary journal, Tupelo Quarterly. It's a story at once dark and deliciously wry. It caught my attention because, well, everything Cadena writes catches my attention-- he is one of my favorite writers in Mexico, or anywhere-- and he happens to be living in Hungary, so the Eastern Europe angle is no surprise. In all, Cadena's is a unique and powerful voice in contemporary fiction, and I hope you'll have a read.


>>CONTINUE READING THIS POST ON THE NEW PLATFORM AT WWW.MADAM-MAYO.COM

THE APACHES OF KIEV

BY AGUSTIN CADENA

(Originally published in Spanish on Agustín Cadena's blog, El vino y la hiel) 

Translated by C.M. Mayo

The story about the body they found in the Botanic Garden came out in the newspapers and on television. The Kiev police identified it immediately: Dmitri Belov, reporter and political analyst known for his scathing criticism of President Poroshenko’s administration. Presumably it was a suicide, but until they could confirm this verdict, the police had been ordered to put all resources to work.

Among the underemployed— peddlers and prostitutes— who roamed the Botanical Garden, very few were aware of this. So how was anyone else to find out? They didn’t have televisions and they didn’t spend their money on newspapers. Understandably, those who knew about the body avoided that area. They knew there would have been a commotion, and especially if the body belonged to someone important. The police would go around searching for possible witnesses to interrogate, and by the way, shake them down on other charges. It wouldn’t do any good to explain to the police what they already knew: that every week all of these underemployed people paid a bribe to be left in peace. 

Ignorant of everything, three men of approximately 40 years of age, exotic-looking, dressed like Apaches in a Western movie, appeared after 11 in the morning. They were Ernesto Ortega, Gonzalo Acevedo and Milton Guzmán: Mexican, Salvadorean and Venezuelan, respectively. The three of them dressed identically: a headdress of white feathers that went from their heads down to their waists, jacket and trousers of coffee-colored leather with fringe on the sleeves and the back, moccasins, and ritual battle makeup. They carried assorted musical instruments and they took turns playing Andean music: “El cóndor pasa,” “Pájaro Chogüi,” “Moliendo café,” etc. They knew the music did not go with the costumes nor the costumes with their ethnicities, but this strange combination was what worked for them commercially. Americaphilia was at its height in Kiev, and passersby were happy to give money to these “North American Indians” who played the music “of their people.” Perhaps the happy notes of “La flor de la canela” led the Ukrainians to imagine the beauty of life in teepees, among the buffalo, wild horses, mountain lions, and bald-headed eagles. The fact is, in addition to playing and signing, the “Apaches” also sold their CDs of this same music, displayed on a cloth spread on the ground. [... CONTINUE READING] 

P.S. My amiga the poet and writer Patricia Dubrava also translates Cadena. Check out some of her excellent translations at Mexico City Lit.


# # #

This past Saturday I had the good fortune to be able to attend Cadena's book presentation in one of my favorite Mexico City bookstores, the FCE Rosario Castellanos in Condesa. (Here is where I interviewed Michael Schuessler about his biography of Pita Amor, among other works.) Cadena was presenting a novel for young readers, La casa de los tres perros (The House of the Three Dogs) and along for the ride came a group of Mexican writers who have stories in his latest anthology, Callejeros, cuentos urbanos de mundos soñados (My rough translation of that might be, Street People: Stories of Urban Dreamworlds). Happily for me, this also meant a chance to visit with my friend the Mexican novelist and historian Silvia Cuesy. Here we are with Agustín Cadena:

C.M. Mayo, Agustín Cadena, Silvia Cuesy
at the Rosario Castellanos FCE Bookstore, Mexico City

Agustín Cadena's anthology of short fiction, Callejeros
and novel for young readers, La Casa de los tres perros

Mexican writers in Agustín Cadena's anthology, Callejeros
Front row:
León Cuevas, Sandra Luna, Agustín Cadena
Back row:
 Eduardo islas, Cristina Manterola, ?, ?,
José Antonio Bautista, Silvia Cuesy

Table of contents, Callejeros

Back cover, Callejeros

Cadena, right in white hat, presenting his novel for young readers.
La casa de los tres perros,
in the FCE Rosario Castellanos bookstore in Mexico City
August 5, 2017

Watch the video for Kickstarter with Mayte Romo of Editorial Elementum, publisher of Callejeros:

Click here to watch the video

Putting on my armchair-sociologist sombrero now: Aside from its high quality (both its literary content and as an object), what is especially interesting about Callejeros is that the editor lives abroad and the publisher is based in a provincial town-- Pachuca, in the state of Hidalgo. Mexican literary culture and publishing has long been overwhelmingly concentrated in Mexico City, but with the digital revolution it seems this is opening up quickly. I talked a bit about this in my talk for a 2015 American Literary Translators Association panel I chaired:

Translating Contemporary Latin American Poets and Writers:

Embracing, Resisting, Escaping the Magnetic Pull of the Capital

P.S. I mention both this wondrous Mexico City FCE bookstore and Cadena in my longform essay now available on Kindle, "Dispatch from the Sister Republic or, Papelito Habla," an overview of the Mexican literary landscape and the power of the book.

And for those who follow this blog, yes, I remain at work on the book about Far West Texas. Stay tuned for the next podcasts. My latest writing on the subject includes a review of Patrick Dearen's Bitter Waters: The Struggles of the Pecos River.

> Your comments are always welcome. Write to me here.

Reading Mexico: Recommendations for a Book Club 

of Extra-Curious and Adventurous English-language Readers

Translating Across the Border:

Transcript of My Talk for the American Literary Translators Association

Panel, "Translating the Other Side"

On Writing About Mexico: Secrets and Surprises

A Banquet of Literary Translations for Travelers & ALTA Fabulosity

This post is dedicated to two of my favorite Spanish language translators, both ever and always the very souls of kindness and dedication and generosity, who could not be at ALTA this year: Cola Franzen and Margaret Sayers Peden. 

Dear reader, if you are at all interested in literary translation, whether you are the shyest of maybe-might-want-to-try-its or, shall we say, the Grand Poo-Bah of Literary Translation Theory Crunchiness, if you haven't already, take a look at the excellent work of ALTA, the American Literary Translators Association and their annual conference. For greater national coverage, the annual fall conference changes venue from year to year. In 2014 it was held in Milwaukee, last year, Tucson; this year, Oakland, California; next year (brrrrr) Minneapolis. 

Herewith, my recap of ALTA Oakland 2016:

[[ WHEREABOUTSPRESS.COM ]]

Voila, the historic Whereabouts Press editors photo taken on October 7, 2016 in Oakland, after the American Literary Translators Association (ALTA) Conference panel celebrating the Literary Travel Companion series-- and a dangerously caloric lunch of fried chicken and waffles at Miss Ollie's. From left: Jill Gibian, editor of Argentina; Alexis Levitin, editor of Brazil; William Rodarmor, editor of France and French Feast; our guru, visionary founding publisher of the Whereabouts Press Travelers Literary Companion series, David Peattie; and, far right, Yours Truly, editor of Mexico. 

The Travelers Literary Companions paperbacks are not guidebooks, but carefully curated collections of writing about a country by writers from that country, many in English translation for the first time. If you are planning any travels, for real or via armchair, to any of these countries or, say, Chile, Costa Rica, Greece, Israel, Italy, Vietnam and so many more... any of one of these "travelers literary companions" deserves space-- and it won't take up much-- in your hand luggage.

> Listen in to my interview with NPR about Mexico: A Literary Traveler's Companion, and read some of the stories by Araceli Ardón's "It Is Nothing of Mine";  Mónica Lavín's "Day and Night" (both my translations) and Geoff Hargreaves' translation of Ricardo Elizondo Elizondo's "The Green Bottle" at 
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5317783


MORE ALTA FABULOSITY

[[ JESSE LEE KERCHEVAL'S LATEST
TRANSLATIONS OF URUGUAYAN POETRY ]]

The other highlight for me was the chance to see my amigas Patricia Dubrava and Clare Sullivan, among so many others, old friends and new:

Pamela Carmel; 

Ellen Cassedy, who has a new book out of translations from the Yiddish (more about that anon); 

Barbara Goldberg; 

Susan Harris of Words Without Borders; 

Jesse Lee Kercheval, who continues doing wonders for Uruguayan poetry; 

Dennis Maloney of White Pine Press; 

Amanda Powell; 

Jessica Powell; 

Mahmud Rahman; 

Carolina de Robertis;

Zack Rogow, co-author of the play Colette Uncensored and blogger extraordinaire at Advice for Writers (see his take on the Nobel Prize for Bob Dylan) ;

Alberto Ruy Sánchez;

Mark Statman; 

and, surely having left aside a football team's worth of excellent people, I must now conclude with the deftly brilliant translator of Mexican poetry Mark Weiss.

One especially memorable panel included the reading of works by the late poet Eduardo Chirinos by his translator, G.J. Racz. Check out Still Life with Flies, published by the elegant Dos Madres Press.

For the Spanish bilingual readings I read an excerpt from my translation "The Apaches of Kiev," a hot-off-the-blog short story by Mexican writer Agustín Cadena.

PS. TheBoxWalla.com guy said that where it's happening is Instagram. Oh well! 

> Read Patricia Dubrava's recap on the conference, "Only at ALTA"

MY EVER-GROUNDING TAKEAWAY

The longer I am at this "business" I find that behind all the kazoos and flutes and trumpets and drumrolls and Potemkinesquerie, literary translation is, in the end, a labor of love. It calls certain poets and dreamers, for a time. For some, literary translation becomes a lifelong path, a yoga. For others, their enthusiasm lasts until their illusions are peeled away and/or their energies are spent, and for most, that will be quickly. What I said in a previous blog post on literary travel writing also applies to literary translation:

I would tell any young writer getting started today that if you want the freedom to write things you will be proud of, first find a reliable alternative income source and from there-- always living below your means-- build and diversify your sources of income away from the labor market. (Getting an MFA so you can teach in a creative writing program? That might have made a smidge of sense two decades ago. Now you'd be better off starting a dog grooming business, and I am not joking.) Yes, if you are brilliant, hard-working and lucky, you might one day make a living from your creative writing. But why squander your creative energy for your best work worrying about generating income from, specifically, writing? Quality and market response only occasionally coincide. Jaw-dropping mysteries abound. 

(Did I mention, Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize?)

In other words, barriers to entry in most of the arts are lower than a slug's basement, while those artists with staying power beyond a first book, first show, first whatever, prove to be few. The big hiding-in-plain-sight secret is that money may provide an advantage, but it's vital only at the bare, survival-level. Somehow, even billionaires with a yen to make art find their days and weeks and months and years gummed up with hithering and thithering; yet throughout the history of the book, writers with tremendous, even horrendous obligations and/or challenges, whether from work or family or health or in war-time, have managed to write, to make art. The War of Art, as Steven Pressfield titles his book, requires personal resources more powerful than mere money.

OK, but, dear reader, don't let this natter about love & yoga & the war of art stop you from buying a Whereabouts Press book from the Traveler's Literary Companion series!! I am proud to say that Mexico: A Traveler's Literary Companion is still in-print on its 10th anniversary and available from any one of a number of online and bricks-and-mortar booksellers. And here's hoping that Patricia Dubrava and I can put together the collection of our translations (some hers, some mine) of Agustín Cadena's short stories and find it the publisher he well deserves.

More anon.

*   *   *

MISC UPDATES FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF LABORS OF LOVE

Almost finished with my translation of a most unusual and poetic collection of short stories by Mexican writer Rose Mary Salum... And almost finished with Marfa Mondays podcast 21... Stay tuned... 

> Your comments are always welcome. Write to me here.

Café San Martín: Reading Mexican Poet Agustín Cadena 

at the Café Passé in Tucson, Arizona

"Translating the Other Side":
Transcript of my Remarks for the 
American Literary Translators Association Conference Panel
Translating Across the Border:
Tucson, 2015

Why Translate? 
The Case of the President of Mexico's Secret Book

Mexican Fiction in Translation: Agustín Cadena and Rose Mary Salum in ArLiJo

I am very honored and delighted to announce that the new issue #91 of Robert Giron's ArLiJo features two of my translations of Mexican short fiction: Agustín Cadena's "The Coco" and Rose Mary Salum's "Someone is Calling Me." 

>> Read ArLiJo #91 here << 

More about Agustín Cadena:

> His blog, El vino y la hiel

> "Lady of the Seas" by Agustín Cadena in my anthology Mexico: A Traveler's Literary Companion

> A Note about Cadena's poem "Blind Woman" in BorderSenses

> A Note about Cadena's short story "The Vampire" in MexicoCityLit

> Café San Martín: Reading Mexican Poet Agustín Cadena at the Café Passé in Tucson, Arizona

More about Rose Mary Salum:

> Rose Mary Salum's blog, Entre los espacios

> Rose Mary Salum, Founding editor of Literal

> A Conversation with Rose Mary Salum (super crunchy)

> A Note on the second issue of Origins, edited by Dini Karasik, featuring Mexican writer Rose Mary Salum

A tip of the sombrero to you, my fellow El Pasoan, dear Robert Giron!
Thank you for your long-time support for literary translation!

[[ ¡Viva ArLiJo issue #91! ]]

A Note on Literary Projects & Literary Translation by Yours Truly
Alas, given that there are not 50 hours in the day and 700 days in the year I am not anywhere near ever becoming a full-time literary translator. My main literary projects at the moment are my own book on Far West Texas, and the related podcast series, "Marfa Mondays," but, as I have for many years now, I make it a regular practice to translate Mexican contemporary short fiction and poetry. (My most recent book is about and includes a book I translated-- an exception to my usual translation work on many levels, including the fact that the author was murdered in 1913. That book is Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero and His Secret Book, Spiritist Manual.)

As a resident of Mexico City, and a writer and poet myself, I treasure the opportunity to translate my Mexican contemporaries and bring them to English language readers. And I have plenty to say about all that: See "Translating Across the Border," my talk for the 2015 American Literary Translators Association Conference panel on "Translating the Other Side."

At present, I am working on The Water that Rocks the Silence, a collection of linked short stories,  El agua que mece el silencio,  by Rose Mary Salum (three more to go for a complete first draft); a short story by Araceli Ardón (advanced draft); a second short story by Ignacio Solares (rough draft); and poem by Alberto Blanco (draft). Fingers crossed, later this year, I may have some news about a collection of stories by Agustín Cadena. 

Would that the day had more hours!

> For more about my published translations, click here.

> My amiga the poet and writer Pat Dubrava and I both translate Mónica Lavín and Agustín Cadena. Read her post about her visit to Mexico City in her blog, Holding the Light.

> Your comments are always welcome. Write to me here.
> My newsletter goes out to subscribers soon. I welcome you to join the list here.

Why Translate? The Case of the President of Mexico's Secret Book

Looking at Mexico in New Ways: An Interview with John Tutino

For Mexicophiles

NPR Interview with C.M. Mayo on the Art of Literary Translation

On Writing About Mexico: Secrets and Surprises

Café San Martín: Reading Mexican Poet Agustín Cadena at the Café Passé in Tucson, Arizona

Sparkling sky and only a jeans jacket on the night before Halloween, University of Arizona students everywhere, in witches' hats and zombie makeup: that's how it was in Tucson when, as part of the American Literary Translators Conference "Café Latino" bilingual reading fiesta at Café Passé in Tucson, I read my translation, together with the Spanish original, of Mexican poet Agustín Cadena's poem "Café San Martín." That translation appears in poet Sarah Cortez's recent anthology, Goodbye Mexico (Texas Tech Press).

> Read Cadena's poem and about Goodbye Mexico here.

> Listen to the recording of my reading of Cadena's "Cafe San Martin" in the Café Passé as a podcast here.

Alas, Cadena could not be in Tucson because he lives in Hungary, where he teaches Latin American Literary in Debrecen. Follow his blog, El vino y la hiel.

Cadena's name and many works -- he is incredibly prolific and writes in almost every genre--were mentioned many times over the course of this year's ALTA conference. My dear amiga Patricia Dubrava, who also translates Cadena's poems and short fiction, shared a panel with me on the following day. 

> Read about that panel, and my talk for that panel, here.

It was an extra special honor to read Cadena's poem and my translation because not only is Cadena a treasure of a writer-- among the very finest Mexico has ever produced-- but he has translated many of my works, including the most recent Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution (as Odisea metafísica hacia la Revolución Mexicana). 


The audience was also especially distinguished, including Jeffrey C. Barnett, Mary Berg, Ellen Cassedy, Dick Cluster,  Pamela Carmel, Jill Gibian, Jesse Lee Kercheval, Suzanne Jill Levine, Angela McEwan, Barbara Paschke, Liliana Valenzuela, and so many other writers, poets and literary translators of note. 

And a very special thank you to Alexis Levitin, my favorite Portuguese translator (and, by the way, editor of Brazil: A Traveler's Literary Companion), who organized and MC'ed the reading.




P.S. I will be teaching the workshop "Podcasting for Writers" as part of the San Miguel Writers Conference this February 2016 in Mexico. More about that on my workshop schedule page and on the San Miguel Writers Conference page.

Five Quick Questions for Agustín Cadena

Q & A with Agustin Cadena

(Tameme)

Cadena's "Lady of the Seas" in Robert Giron's ArLiJo

La ofrenda debida by Agustín Cadena

Mexico: A Traveler's Literary Companion

listen to a podcast of the preface

plus read the short story by Agustin Cadena

Translating Across the Border

Translating Contemporary Latin American Poets and Writers:

Embracing, Resisting, Escaping the Magnetic Pull of the Capital

CLICK HERE.

Sarah Cortez, ed., Goodbye, Mexico: Poems of Remembrance (Texas Review Press, 2015)

AGUSTIN CADENA

As a poet I keep a sharp eye out for calls for submissions but alas, or rather, in a way, happily, for Texan poet Sarah Cortez's Goodbye, Mexico, I had nothing, nada, because for me, it's "Hola, México," just about every day. Translation: I'm living in Mexico City and not planning on leaving anytime soon. But happily, always happily, I translate contemporary Mexican poetry, and I knew of just the perfect poem: Agustín Cadena's "Café San Martín," so haunting and musical, from his splendid collection, Cacería de Brujas. And so I am delighted to say that Cadena's poem, in my translation, was selected by Sarah Cortez to be included in this important collection.

About Cadena:
Agustin Cadena was born in the Valle de Mezquital, Hidalgo, Mexico. For several years Cadena has been living in Hungary, where he is professor at the University of Debrecen. Author of more than twenty books, including the poetry collection, Cacería de Brujas, Cadena writes in multiple genres, including the novel, screenplay, short story, poem, essay, and children's literature.

> Visit his blog, El vino y la hiel.

From the back cover of Goodbye, Mexico:

"This anthology gathers the strong voices of accomplished poets reaching into and beyond nostalgia to remember, to honor, and to document through figurative imagery their experiences of Mexico and the vibrant border areas before the ravages of the narco-violence. That Mexico has been irrevocably altered by illegal human trafficking and drug cartel violence is indisputable. Together with other complex dynamics of the current century, such as globalization, the failing middle class, and the disrupted tourist industry, this beloved country has changed almost beyond recognition. Many on both sides of the border grieve the loss of the Mexico that was, particularly the Mexico that existed during the last half of the Twentieth Century. This loss engenders memory; memory engenders poems."*

Other poets in this collection include Diana Anhalt, Alan Birkelbach, Sarah Cortez, Martín Espada, James Hoggard, Janet McCann, and Alberto Ríos. If you know poetry, you know that's an all-star list.

With his permission, here is my translation of Agustín Cadena's poem, "Café San Martín":

CAFÉ SAN MARTÍN

Do you remember the Café San Martín?
I do, sometimes,
when it rains in the afternoon and it’s summer.
We liked to go there and drink coffee
and smoke while we looked at the rain.
The Café San Martín was small,
lukewarm, and it had big windows
that looked onto a meridian of June.
But it is no longer there.
Now on that corner where it was
they sell video games.
Have you tried to go back?
Have you walked in the rain, alone,
remembering the girl you were
and asking yourself where would these people have gone,
with their pink curtains and old spoons
and their Café San Martín?
Yes, I have wanted to go back,
many times,
when I happen to think of you,
when my shoes fill with water
and I wish I were that age again
and not so foolish
as to let go of your hand that afternoon.
Once again it is June and raining.
Everywhere there are cafés
in certain neighborhoods.
The present erases all traces. 

P.S. Sarah Cortez and other poets will be reading from Goodbye, Mexico on Saturday June 27, 2015 @ 7 - 9 PM  The Twig Book Shop, 306 Pearl Parkway, San Antonio, Texas.

* I hasten to mention that despite the troubles on the border and elsewhere, many areas of Mexico are stable and even thriving. I also hasten to add that the narco-violence finds fuel north of the border, and for anyone doubting the deep contradictions and corruption in the United States itself in regard to narcotics policies and trade, I highly recommend— for a start on that gnarliest of subjects— Sam Quinones' alarming and deeply researched new book, Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic.

+ Five Quick Questions for Agustin Cadena

+ "Lady of the Seas" a complete short story by Agustín Cadena translated by C.M. Mayo in Mexico: A Traveler Literary Companion

+ My review of Sarah Cortez and Sergio Troncoso, eds, Our Lost Border: Essays on Life Amid the Narco-Violence in Literal.

+ Looking at Mexico in New Ways: An Interview with John Tutino

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