Despite hopes that it might go ahead as scheduled in October, Madrid’s annual theatre book fair fell victim to the second wave of the Covid19 pandemic. However, with some last-minute funding, the meeting of writers and translators went ahead online. I received around 50 plays over the weekend of 21-22 November, and had a full more »
Category archives: proposals
Formas de estar lejos (Edurne Portela)
Formas de estar lejos is the second novel by Edurne Portela, following on from Mejor la ausencia. You can read my translation of the opening chapter and short introductory essay at the online edition of The Common. Rights are handled by her publisher, Galaxia Gutenberg. Contact details available on request.
20th International Theatre Book Fair, Madrid 2019: meeting between authors and translators
I was lucky enough to be one of five translators invited to participate in this annual event that brings together translators and playwrights. At some point I’d like to blog about it properly. In the meantime, here’s my executive summary: Spain is absolutely brimming with playwriting talent and, as a translator, having the chance to more »
Morderás el polvo (Roberto Osa)
Published by Fundación José Manuel Lara/Planeta, 2017 (2nd edition, 2018), 176 pages Synopsis Águeda has just turned thirty, she’s eight months pregnant, and lives alone in a flat furnished with cardboard boxes. She is missing one eye. She has a perfect boyfriend, and a father she hasn’t spoken to for years. Her life is monotonous: more »
La desaparición del paisaje (Maximiliano Barrientos)
Published by Periférica (Cáceres, Spain). 272 pages. The process by which some books make it into English and others don’t has always struck me as a bit of a mystery. I’ve read a lot of great novels in Spanish over the last year and I’m reluctant to choose favourites but if you allowed me to more »
Mejor la ausencia (Edurne Portela)
Literary fiction, published in Spanish in September 2017 by Galaxia Gutenberg (Barcelona), 240 pp. Mejor la ausencia is a compelling coming-of-age story set in 1980s Bilbao against the backdrop of domestic violence, petty crime and political conflict, told through the eyes of an absolutely engaging first-person female narrator: Excerpt 1 (1979) We reach the huts more »
Las madres negras (Patricia Esteban Erlés)
Excerpt 1 (Mida): Mida tells herself that maybe she shouldn’t take too much notice of the hazy girl (what was her name, Humility?) who told her about the wolves, because in the convent everyone invents things as they search for an explanation, just as everyone who crosses the threshold or dies eventually disappears and becomes more »
Oriente medio, oriente roto (Mikel Ayestaran)
The black Mercedes 300 parks in the middle of what was once a square. Sandbags block any further progress. It’s raining and very cold. As soon as we step out of the car, we hear the first shot in the distance. “Yalla, yalla!” shouts the driver, urging us to be quick. I follow Richard and more »
Los extraños (Vicente Valero)
Whether that man whom nobody ever called grandfather or even father – despite his having been a grandfather and thus a father as well – had thin, bony hands like mine and thick, dark eyebrows, or the propensity, of which I complained so much in my youth, towards cold sores, is something I have never more »
Los estratos (Juan Cárdenas)
From the window I can see the pool, surrounded by houses that are identical to my own, my neighbours’ children swimming as the evening sun draws the last glimmers of light from the water. Perhaps it is the contentment of the scene – the children shouting, the swallows, the splashing – sounds which, far from more »