“Years ago the man got married and years ago the man became unhappy in his marriage. The man lives in Buenos Aires and he passes his time, or tries to make time pass, thinking about the Aztec Empire . . .”
I have a new translation out! A very short story by Rodrigo Fresán, in my English, is part of World Literature Today‘s May 2018 speculative fiction feature. The story is “Ancient History,” and it continues my short streak of translating stories about Mexico by non-Mexican writers! You can read the story online or in print; World Literature Today is sold at my local independent bookstore (as well as Barnes & Noble), so it’s probably sold at your nearest bookstore too. I hope you’ll read the full issue, whether in print or online, as it’s full of great works translated from many languages, and has a super-strong book review section, too.
I translated this story for no real reason last summer—I was reading Blanco Móvil on my laptop in a coffee shop, and stumbled across the original story, “Historia Antigua.” I liked it lots, and it was quite short, so I translated it on the spot just for fun. After that, I didn’t revisit it for several months, until I heard about WLT‘s upcoming speculative fiction special feature and realized I had something just right for it, hiding out in my computer files. A happy coincidence.
Rodrigo Fresán is an incredible and prolific Argentinean writer, who already has a few books out in English translation. Will Vanderhyden’s latest translation of Fresán, The Bottom of the Sky, will be published by Open Letter Books in just a couple weeks! So if you like this short story in World Literature Today, you should definitely get yourself a copy of the book as soon as it’s out.
Hope you enjoy reading Rodrigo Fresán, in English or in Spanish!
Read my translation of Rodrigo Fresán, “Ancient History,” in World Literature Today.