spanish writers.

Recently exposed as a spy in the Franco era. Shame on you, Camilo! Beautifully written book about a region remaining in name, but practically a suburb of Madrid now.

I am also intrigued by this guy Julian Rios, who wrote a book called Larva (published by the Dalkey Archive), which is sort of a Spanish Finnegans Wake.

One writer I can recommend is the poet Antonio Machado. The Alan S Trueblood bilingual book is great. He also did a similar good job on the Mexican poet, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz.

keep them coming, even the most obvious are welcome. (rattle your jewellry, lorca.)

There's also this crazy displaced Spaniard who wrote in English, Felipe Alfau, who is published by, guess who, the Dalkey Archive.

Shamefully, I haven't read much in Spanish, and not much of it has been by Spanish people. I like Cuban filth-monger Pedro Juan Gutierrez, whose books are available in bowdlerized American translations. I also like Ernesto Sabato, from Argentina, but I haven't read all that much. 'The Tunnel' is the place to start, I think. I've read quite a few books of interviews, one of Sabato interviews, in which he talks about such things as Maradona and Operation Condor (not in the same breath) and one of conversations between Sabato and Borges. I started reading Mexican poet Octavio Paz's political essays and interviews, but I was too lazy to finish it.

Bed

LB

Anyone read Anatomy of a Moment by Javier Cercas? Doing the rounds at the mo.

no, though i'm curious about it, read about it somewhere, and again something is lost in translation with the book literally being called "anatomy of an instant" (although i can see why it wouldn't be directly translated).

not very helpful contribution of course. i've been meaning to read his soldadados de salamina for about five years.

No that's ok - thought you'd probably be the only one to reply anyway.

Not sure if this is a thread on Spanish writers from Spain. A couple of unexpected posts on Sabato who I have heard of for some reason but thought I'd probably come across a book in about five years.

i'm sort of shamefully ignorant of spanish writers, read very little that isn't totally canon (cervantes, lorca, unamuno, marias probably contemporary canon) always been more into the latin americans.

maybe this will do the trick, Jim: http://www.granta.com/Online-Only/Best-of-Young-Spanish-Language-Novelists

Off the top of my head, 2 Spanish novels I've loved recently-ish:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/P/1903517591.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg
Beautiful, short, wonderfully observed coming-of-age novel

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/P/0460877305.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg
The King Amaz'd by Gonzalo Torrente Ballester: wonderfully odd novel, about, among other things, the Spanish Inquisition, witches, a devout and polite priest who has regular chats with Satan, and a Spanish King who is determiend to see his own wife naked, despite the church's rules otherwise. First read this years ago, but dug it out again recently, and it really stood up well

Manuel Rivas - Books Burn Badly. Read a really good review of it in the LRB today! Might need to get that.

do argentine writers count? because i've been loving macedonio fernandez lately

Horrible art and the accumulated glories of the past, which have always existed, are a result of the following: the sonorousness of language and the existence of an audience; without this sonorousness, only thinking and creating would remain; without a clamoring public, art would not be drowned. Under these conditions, Literature would be pure art, and there would be many more beautiful works than there are at present: there would be three or four Cervantes, the Cervantes of the Quixote, without the stories, Quevedo the humorist and poet of passion, without the moralizing orator, various Gomez de la Sernas. We'll be liberated from the likes of Calderon, prince of the falsetto, from lack of feeling, which is poor taste itself; from the likes of Gongora, at least from time to time, with his exclamations of “Ay Fabio, o sorrow!” We'd have three Heines, each of sarcasm and sadness, or D'Annunzios to limitlessly verify passion. Happily, we would have only the first act of Faust, and in compensation various Poes, and various Bovaries—-with their sad affliction of loveless appetite, despicable and bloody—-and this other, lacerating absurdity: Hamlet's lyric of sorrow, which convinces and breeds sympathy, despite the false psychologism of its source. We'll be free of the scientific realism of Ibsen, one of Zola's victims, and this magnificent artist for his part will be dismantled by sociology and theory of heresy and pathology, and instead of a dozen master works we'll possess a hundred, of true, intrinsic artistic worth, not mere copies of reality. These works will be typically literary, works of Prose, not of didactics, without any musical language (meter, rhyme, sonorousness) or paintings with words, that is, descriptions.

Rivas is a Galician writer - should've acknowledged that.

Here is another one, this looks really interesting although I probably wouldn't read Autumn of the Patriarch or I, the Supreme again - a bit too dry for me.

http://www.nybooks.com/books/imprints/classics/tyrant-banderas/

Anyone tried Pla?

Just got a galley of a new Pla collection from Archipelago: looks interesting (and massive - 600p), but haven''t read it yet. Has nice and cheery title: http://archipelagobooks.org/wp-content/uploads/LifeEmbitters_CatCvr_r1.jpg

fuck, sorry, big pic

s'ok as (at least I) log on with pics turned off option.

Peter Bush sounds like one of those translators to watch.

James - let me know how you get on w/Pla.

Anyone read Álvaro Mutis' The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll, sounds amazing.

Its really good!

From memory, i think the nyrb edition contains what were originally 6 separate books. Lots of fun.

Has anyone read something by Enrique Vila-Matas? I´m still planning to read 'Bartleby & Co' one day.

Oh and Rafael Chirbes' latest novel got a lot of positive reviews lately, covering the current Spanish economic situation.

Bartleby & Co is grebt. Keep meaning to read some more.

EVM,s Never Any End to Paris is great , too

I'd second the last two Vila-Matas recommendations itt (Never Any End to Paris is my favorite so far). I'd also be interested to see what you make of that Pla collection, James: I've only read through the earliest entries in Pla's Gray Notebook--I liked Pla's playful attentiveness to the world around him, but I haven't had an opportunity yet to read further.

http://www.thewhitereview.org/interviews/interview-with-rodrigo-rey-rosa/

^ Man I need to read more from Central America

Anybody care to describe any of this?

describe what exactly?

the obituaries of the uruguayan grandee galeano inspired me to look at a book of his about football and it does rather conform to type. a lot of parables and vatic wisdom from the global south, this being the writer who told obama to be mindful that the white house was built by black slaves, which doubtless came as a huge surprise to the latter. the usual platine aversion to the english, who replace capricious plantation spaniards with a more prim and diffuse tyranny but whose muscular christian athletic fetish is repurposed in the joyous insurrectionary spirit of el pibe etc (hopefully he got around to writing a postscript about the suarez affair). there's a reference to the dynamo kiev 'death match' vs the nazis that renders it entirely without evidential or ideological nuance. another of his books was given by hugo chavez to obama, the sort of transactional guilting that the author would probably appreciate. i should like to read some more borges, some aira and cortazar which probably reflects biases towards the more (for want of nuance) 'european' end of latin american fiction

Thanks! That's what I meant (describe writing)

As I see it the vast majority of Latin American prose looks to Europe.

nakh - I think you might find the 'dictator' novels to be of some interest.

Galeano is interesting:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/14/books/eduardo-galeano-uruguayan-voice-of-anti-capitalism-is-dead-at-74.html?_r=2

“I wouldn’t be capable of reading this book again; I’d keel over,” Mr. Galeano said at a book fair in Brazil. “For me, this prose of the traditional left is extremely leaden, and my physique can’t tolerate it.”

Ive read rey rosa's Severina, a short novel about a man who becomes obsessed with a woman who shoplifts books. I liked it a lot. Have another but not started it yet becausebthe cover photo of a bird swallowing a frog keeps putting me off.

A great recommendation is Valeria Luiselli´s ´Sidewalks', a collection of essays. Her novel 'Faces in the Crowd´ (which namechecks Bolaño) is good too.

Just bought the pocket edition of Cortazar's 'Clases de Literatura' as there´s still no English translation available.

I'll be moving to Vilas-Matas shortly, see he has introduced a book by Sergio Pitol

Whom I've not read but the books look like something I'd want to read - essayistic, a translator himself so a wide range of reading..

Two new Vilas-Matas books out later this year from New Directions which look good.

this is an interview with Pitol's translator:

http://www.asymptotejournal.com/blog/2015/05/04/in-conversation-george-henson-translator/#more-5998

Excited to read another Mexican author.

http://www.openletterbooks.org/collections/juan-jose-saer

Is Saer any good?

'Scars' is very good, intense stuff

Great, I'll have a look at that and La Grande as well.

As I am reading books throughout any given year there is always something unforseen turning up - and it looks like a return to Spanish based literature this year, after reading lots of Latin American fiction and Bolano a few years ago.

This time around its nothing so boom based: more from Spain, Mexico and Central America.

James - started on La Grande and its pretty great so far.

yay! I need to get that. Really liked Scars, but never ventured further.

Sample of Sergio Pitol's writing: http://literalmagazine.com/20-may/

Lots of good stuff going on.

Finishing newly retranslated Alejo Carpenter. Donoso's Obscene Bird of Night has just been issued with a revised translation.

Probably worth doing a summary post of a few things here. Things that lasted and did not.

Please do. I'm looking for something new to read.

Its funny because its been nearly ten years since I last posted to this thread and I have learnt a bit about Spanish Language Lit. Its always ongoing, but I thought I'd jot down where I am at.

- This can't really start without going to the v beginning, which is "Don Quixote", which I read in this one 20th century translation, but it did run out of puff. Right now I want to re-read it in Tobias Smollett's translation. It is kinda highly regarded but also seen as strange (this is all from online conversations) so I'll try and dive in later this year.
- Then ofc Borges is the great, but its only one book of fiction, and one book of essays. Brilliant, yay. The people around him I kinda liked enough but never felt like going back to, so Ocampo, Casares, maybe Roberto Arlt...I wished I liked that stuff a lot more, but my tastes don't run too much into the fantastical, surreal. Shoot me for describing it like that.
- What I do like is either something that feels a bit on the wire existential or political (exploring revolution, fascism and imperialism). So with the former you gotta go to Antonio Di Benedetto, with the last of the trilogy coming out next year (https://www.nyrb.com/collections/antonio-di-benedetto). I love Ernesto Sabato's The Tunnel, and I'll report back on how I get on with "On Heroes and Tombs".
- On that Argie theme I think the best thing Open Letter ever did was to translate lots of books by Saer (https://www.openletterbooks.org/collections/juan-jose-saer). Back above I am asking whether its any good and I think he is excellent and its great that a small press gets into a run of dedicating themselves to one author like that, though I need to read all, but I felt like I exhausted myself with La Grande. That's the one to get.
- For Uruguayans Onetti is the one. "The Shipyard" but there is lots of books knocking about 2nd hand. His short stories were released by Archipelago and iirc they get finer the less he is into plot and more into mood.
- I also asked about Sergio Pitol and Deep Vellum made a similar commitment (https://www.deepvellum.org/authors/sergio-pitol). Just heroes for bringing that much out. The first Trilogy is a bit like a strange reading diary crossed with his experiences wrorking for the Mexican diplomatic service. There is nothing like it.
- I haven't really mentioned the Boom because I don't think I got on with it too well: didn't like "Conversations in the Cathedral", "Hopscotch" is too reliant on its concept. Funnily enough I only liked "One Hundred Years of Solitude". As I said I am trying "Obscene Bird of Night" again. I've not tried "Terra Nostra" and maybe I should.
- Pre-Boom Miguel Asturias "Mr.President" (his first novel) is really great, shorter and draws on similar themes to a lot of Latin Am political lit. I love the revelling in the carnage of that stuff. Even if it is painful. But Asturias wrote a lot about indigeneous cultures (the translator talks in an interview how he couldn't translate stuff like "Men of Maize" so I am not sure where to go with that).
- Alejo Carpentier has had two of his major novels recently re-translated (Explosion in the Cathedral, which I just finished, and The Lost Steps).
- But I also read "Reasons of State" a long time ago too. Lots of Latim Am novels like that one deal with a dictator, and while I've read a lot of it I wouldn't necessarily go for that. What makes one good and another just 'of interest' is a thing I have a think about now and then and I think it comes down to how interested the writer is in the whole picture, rather than mere goings on in a Presidential Palace. It feels like an undercurrent of a particular time that is being unravelled now.
- Spain has its own painful histories with Fascism: "Tyrant Banderas" by Valle-Inclán and then Cela's "The Hive" (re-translated last year and possibly the only novel that really does the grotesque thing that approaches Celine-like levels, in a different style).
- The one guy that I found that may never be (re)discovered is Juan Benet: "A Meditation" is knocking about. I liked it but it is Faulkner dense. His work really could do with revival and, for me, a bit more exploration.
- The one Spanish guy that seems to ignore the above is Josep Pla. I just love his worked over journal (on NYRB again) "The Gray Notebook".
- Short story wise this was a cracker, and I almost never go for short stories these days: https://www.nyrb.com/products/the-word-of-the-speechless
- And for novellas you can't go wrong with "The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll" by Mutis. His poetry has finally been issued by NYRB earlier this year (https://www.nyrb.com/products/alvaro-mutis?pr_prod_strat=jac&pr_rec_id=a8daa4817&pr_rec_pid=862342081&pr_ref_pid=417678241&pr_seq=uniform) and it will be good to see how the poetry and prose go with telling the same tale (he was a poet first, I believe).

Ofc I am just skimming the surface of what is available in the West but if there is anymore do mention as I am always looking.

Esther Allen, the translator of Benedetto, has declined an award.

🧵I declined the PEN/Ralph Manheim Award for Translation, in solidarity with the 1300+ writers who've decried @PENamerica silence on the genocidal murder of Palestinians, & with the @united_PEN fight to maintain free speech for PEN employees,

— Esther Allen (@estherlallen) April 5, 2024

Ernesto Sabato - On Heroes and Tombs. Just finished this - and fellas its something else. It starts as a chronicle of an intense relationship, but the "Report on the Blind" is like Bolano's "The Part About the Crimes", in the sense that its a truly strange place for a book to go to. The last part then circles back to the aftermath of that relationship, but its also a chronicle on Argentinian history and proletarian politics.

Like 2666 I just couldn't stop reading it for three days/nights.

An unjustly forgottten book.

Is it forgotten though?

Thanks!

xp. I don't think its read in comparison to The Tunnel.

Okay, yeah, totally.