German | Novel (excerpt) | Switzerland
August, 2018Quarter Past Never (Original title: Viertel Nach Handgelenk) began as a series of blog posts written while the author was in rehab. First published in 2008, it became a cult success, selling out its first printing. It now stands as a document of not-so-carefree youth in the mid-2000s, a chronicle of excess set against the incongruous backdrop of sleepy Switzerland. The sheer exuberance of Wigglesworth's prose masks in an artful manner the deep melancholy of the novel as the narrator, Pippin, spirals further and further into addiction. David Foster Wallace once wrote that “one of the saddest times...is the invisible pivot when the party ends.” Quarter Past Never turns on that pivot.
- Marshall Yarbrough
100 Refutations | Essay | Poetry
July, 2018To conclude the 100 Refutations series, we offer you a final essay by Lina M. Ferreira C.-V.
– InTranslation editors
100 Refutations | Guaraní | Poetry
July, 2018“Not everything has a name. Some things lead us into a realm beyond words.”
– Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
100 Refutations | Poetry | Spanish
July, 2018Cacamatzin (1483-1520) was born into the most illustrious family of Tezcoco, a region known for its many wise governors and celebrated poets. He was the grandson of the famous poet-king Nezahualtcóyotl and son of the famous Lord of Tezcoco Nezahualpilli, whom Cacamatzin eventually replaced. As Lord of Tezcoco, Cacamatzin was unable to stop the invasion of gold-hungry Hernán Cortes and his conquistadors. In 1520, Cacamatzin was captured, tortured, and killed under the direction of Alvarado, whom Cortes left in charge before going on to commit further atrocities in the land of the Aztecs and beyond.
100 Refutations | Guatemala | Poetry | Spanish
July, 2018Enrique Noriega is a Guatemalan poet and the director of Guatemala’s Dependency Ministry Unit for the Promotion of Books and Reading. He has published many poetry collections, including Oh banalidad (1973), Post actus (1982), Libreta del centauro copulante (1994), La pasión según Judas (1998), El cuerpo que se cansa (1998), Libro caliente voz de hielo (1999), La saga de n (2006), Épica del ocio (2007), Lo que la memoria viste y calza (2012), and Guastatoya (2015). Noriega has also won numerous awards, including the Mesoamerican Poetry Prize “Luis Cardoza y Aragón” (2007, 2012), the Miguel Ángel Asturias National Prize in Literature (2010), and the Rubén Darío prize for poetry (2013).
100 Refutations | Paraguay | Poetry | Spanish
July, 2018Eloy Fariña Nuñez (1885-1929) studied in the Paraná seminary in Argentina, but soon thereafter traded his aspirations of an ecclesiastical career for a law career in Buenos Aires. He was eventually forced to abandon his studies for financial reasons, but this allowed him to dedicate himself wholly to the pursuit of arts and letters. He was a poet, storyteller, essayist, dramaturge, and journalist. He is often referred to as the greatest poet of Paraguay.
100 Refutations | Belize | English | Poetry
July, 2018Samuel Alfred Haynes (1899-1971) was an African-Caribbean soldier, activist, and poet who helped lead the 1919 riot by Belizean World War I veterans protesting the racial discrimination they faced at home. He wrote the lyrics of a song called “Land of the Gods” that later became Belize’s national anthem, "Land of the Free."
100 Refutations | Guatemala | Poetry | Spanish
July, 2018Rafael Landívar (1731-1793) was a Guatemalan poet and Jesuit priest. He was born in what was then called La Capitanía de Guatemala, and is now the territory of Guatemala, southern Mexico, and Antigua, and he died in Italy. He was a descendant of the conquistador Bernal Díaz del Castillo, and chose philosophy as his primary field of study. In 1749, he joined a Jesuit order and began working soon thereafter on what would become Rusticatio Mexicana, 15 books of poetry describing the regional fauna, flora, and customs using Latin hexameter. This text was translated into Spanish in 1897 by Antonio Ramírez Fontecha, in order to present it in the Exposición Centroamericana of the same year.
100 Refutations | Paraguay | Poetry | Spanish
July, 2018Manuel Ortiz Guerrero (1897-1933) was a poet, playwright, and musician. He was born in Villarrica, Paraguay and began to gain some popularity after the publication of one of his earliest poems, “Loca,” featured in the journal Letras. He was the founder of the literary journal Órbita, and his verses were often accompanied by the music of his friend José Asunción Flores. Guerrero published numerous works of poetry, prose, and drama in his lifetime, and two of his books were published posthumously. He was also the composer of the song “India,” which was later declared the national song by the Paraguayan government. He died of leprosy in the company of his lifelong partner, Dalmacia.
100 Refutations | Poetry | Spanish
July, 2018This poem tells the traditional Guaraní story of the creation of language as relayed over the course of hundreds of years. According to Alfredo López Austin, writing in La Literatura De Los Guaraníes (1965), the language formed in this myth by the great Creator is “the future essence of human souls.” Immediately after creating language, the great Creator decides to make the love human beings can feel for one another.
The Brooklyn Rail welcomes you to our web-exclusive section InTranslation, where we feature unpublished translations of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and dramatic writing. Published since April 2007, InTranslation is a venue for outstanding work in translation and a resource for translators, authors, editors, and publishers seeking to collaborate.
We seek exceptional unpublished English translations from all languages.
Fiction, Nonfiction, and Poetry: Manuscripts of no longer than 20 pages (double-spaced).
Plays: Manuscripts of no longer than 30 pages (in left-justified format).