“Es verdad. Si se para uno a considerarlo bien, hay muchos libros. Se tropieza uno con ellos a cada paso. Acechan a la vuelta de los más ocultos recovecos; acompañan en el viaje, aunque no se más que el modestísimo del tranvía; entretienen el aburrimiento o la angustia de las salas de espera; templan la melancolía de las convalecencias y de las tardes de lluvia; usurpan, a veces, las funciones del amado ausente; montan guardia en las mesas de noche, al alcance de la mano del insomne; se esconden bajo las almohadas como el secreto más peligroso de la adolescencia; presiden ciertos actos solemnes y risibles; resplandecen de venalidad en los escaparates de lujo; amarillean en los puesto callejeros; se mustian bajo las axilas de los estudiantes; se abren, de par en par, en las cátedras; duermen en las bodegas de los ricos; arden en las hogueras de los fanáticos.
As ever, my ability to keep this blog “up-to-date” is . . . lacking . . . BUT! I wanted to share a couple videos of things I’ve been doing, virtually, during this pandemic autumn.
In October, I read my translation to English of one of Rosario Castellanos’s essays, “El zipper: La hora de la verdad” (“The Zipper: The Moment of Truth”), at the lovely Us & Them reading series’s fall event. Us & Them is usually held in Brooklyn but has adapted for these Zoomy times, so we’ve been fortunate enough to keep seeing this reading series put translators and writers (and writers and translators) into conversation and community even now, which might be when we need it more than ever. Here’s the video of the event, time-stamped to the start of my contribution (16:57; but, if you have the time, I encourage you to listen to the rest of the readings—they’re fabulous!). And check out the Us & Them website to see their reading archive and keep up on future events.
Then, at the end of October, I got to give a virtual talk (in Spanish) as part of a roundtable series on identity construction, culture, and power (Construyendo identidades: Cultura y poder, Ciclo de mesas redondas) hosted by the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM)’s Centro de Investigaciones de América Latina y el Caribe in partnership with UNAM-Chicago, UNAM-Boston, and Loyola University. My talk, one in a panel moderated by Benjamín Juárez Echenique, is about Castellanos’s construction—and questioning—of a Mexican feminist identity in her newspaper essays. I’ll share the video below, time-stamped to the start of my presentation (and again, I encourage you to watch the other presentations if you have the interest and time!).
I feel like this is so obvious to me that it’s strange to say it, but I know I should: I felt (feel) really grateful and honored to get to participate in virtual events like this, for so many reasons. Because I’m well and privileged enough to carry on (maybe at a different pace, in different rhythms, but still, carry on) with my translating and scholarship during this incredibly unstable time; because I got to share a virtual stage with some really brilliant creators and thinkers; because I won’t ever take these communities and connections for granted, especially now; and because I get to share work I really care about, about a writer whose ideas/writing, I believe, deserves more (and deeper) attention, in multiple languages. So: to those of you who invite, read, write, share and listen: thank you!
Mujer, pues, de palabra. No, de palabra no.
Pero sí de palabras,
muchas, contradictorias, ay, insignificantes,
sonido puro, vacuo cernido de arabescos,
juego de salón, chisme, espuma, olvido.
This is one of my favorite poems by Rosario Castellanos. For those of you who can read Spanish, don’t miss reading the full poem here. (This site also has an audio recording of Castellanos reading the poem, so don’t miss that either!)
