100 Refutations | Bolivia | Poetry | Spanish
June, 2018Adela Zamudio (1854-1928) was a highly intellectual Bolivian writer, feminist, and educator. She wrote verses from her adolescence under the nom de plume “Soledad” and lived her entire life in the city of Cochabamba, dedicated completely to education and literature. She was a formidable debater, using her talents often to defend the rights of women in the official debates of her time. According to her biography in the Antología de la Poesía Hispanoamericana (1965), in 1926 she was officially crowned for the government of her country. She is credited with beginning Bolivia's feminist movement and remains one of its most famous poets.
100 Refutations | Mexico | Poetry (excerpts) | Spanish
June, 2018Juana Inés de Asbaje y Ramírez de Santillana (1648-1695), or as she is better known, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, was a self-educated poet, philosopher, and composer during the colonial period in Mexico—then called the territory of New Spain. She was fluent in Latin and Nahuatl in addition to her native Spanish. She is considered one of the most important and influential writers of the period, not merely within the Mexican or Hispanic American traditions, but in the entire Spanish-speaking world. She was forced to join a nunnery in her late teens by her own confessor and later lifelong antagonist the Bishop of Puebla. In a letter years later she would recall this, writing, “If you had known I was to write verses you would not have placed me in the convent but arranged my marriage.” The cloistered life afforded her time, access to books, and a cell of her own, and thus it became her most prolific period. The poetry she composed there would make her famous in the world well beyond the convent walls, and allow her to reel the world back into those walls, receiving many visitors and admirers and earning the protection and patronage of the viceroys of De Mancera, the archbishop viceroy Payo Enríquez de Rivera, and the marquises de la Laguna de Camero Viejo. Her work has long been honored by the Mexican government, and her life and works have inspired numerous authors, composers, and filmmakers. Carlos Fuentes once called her "the first great Latin American poet." She died at age 43 of an unknown plague while caring for a sister of her religious order, shortly after writing the now-famous letter to Sor Filotea de la Cruz, the pen name for the Bishop of Puebla.
100 Refutations | Essay | Poetry
June, 2018Welcome to the tenth week of 100 Refutations. For one hundred days, we’re publishing a daily poem from one of the countries recently denigrated by the president of the United States. Lina M. Ferreira C.-V., who conceived and compiled the series and translated many of its poems, has been working tirelessly on this enormous project, with the help of several collaborators, since the president’s comments in January. We’re accompanying the daily poems with a weekly essay by Lina, and the tenth one is featured here.
– InTranslation editors
100 Refutations | Poetry | Spanish
June, 2018The poem featured here was written by an unknown Guaraní poet from the Maká people, an indigenous group native to Paraguay. This type of verse is considered part of the Guaraní tradition of religious songs.
100 Refutations | Peru | Poetry | Spanish
June, 2018Manuel Gonzáles Prada (1844-1918) was an influential figure in Peruvian culture and politics during his lifetime. His essays were known for being full of irony and humor, and his innovative poetry has been described as a precursor to Modernism. In addition to his writing and political careers, Prada spent several years working as the Director of the National Library of Peru.
100 Refutations | El Salvador | Poetry | Spanish
May, 2018Francisco Gavidia (1863-1955) was a well-respected public figure in El Salvador known for his work as a writer, politician, lawyer, historian, educator, and journalist. His wide-ranging body of work includes everything from poetry and plays to music, pedagogy, and literary translation. In 1964, the Salvadoran government created a medal for intellectual merit named after Gavidia, to be awarded each year to a Central American writer or journalist who has made significant cultural contributions.
100 Refutations | Poetry (excerpts) | Spanish
May, 2018Chimalpahin, or Domingo Francisco de San Antón Muñón Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin (1579-1660), was born in Chalco, in what is now central Mexico. He is best known for writing the history of Mexico in both Nahuatl and Spanish. The better known of his surviving works is Relaciones, or Anales, which includes testimonies from indigenous people and descriptions of the events before and after the colony was established. He died in Mexico City.
100 Refutations | Colombia | Poetry | Spanish
May, 2018Carmen Peña Visbal, born in Barranquilla, Colombia, is a poet, journalist, lawyer, and expert in strategic communications. Visbal has studied human resources at the Industrial University of Santander; law at the Free University of Colombia; human rights at the ESAP (Escuela Superior de Administracion Publica); security and national defense at the War College of Colombia (Escuela Superior de Guerra); criminal law and forensic sciences at the Catholic University of Colombia; senior management at Nueva Granada Military University; and political management and governance at the University of the Rosary. She has held numerous leadership positions in journalism, government, and consulting. Visbal’s collections of poetry include Dite (1994), Las vestiduras de mi alma (1998), Mi voz no te alcanza (2008), and Todo silencio es esencial (unpublished). She has also been included in several anthologies such as Poseia Colombiana del siglo XX escrita por mujeres, Vol. 2 and Siete Poetas: Dreams of a country at peace without mines.
100 Refutations | Poetry | Puerto Rico | Spanish
May, 2018Virgilio Dávila (1869-1943) was born in Toa Baja, Puerto Rico. Though he experimented with a Romantic style of verse, he is often mentioned as the primary representative of the Modernist movement in Puerto Rico. The influence of Rubén Darío, for example, can be clearly noted throughout his work. He devoted many of his poems to the indigenous beauty of his native island and unique syncretic culture therein. He was widely published by the time he died in Bayamón in 1943.
100 Refutations | French | Haiti | Poetry
May, 2018Amédée Brun (1868-1896) published his first poems when he was only seventeen, and later studied law in Paris. His poetry is usually categorized under the Romantic period, and, despite his short life, he managed to publish prolifically. His works include novels, poetry, and short stories inspired by his observations of quotidian Haitian life.
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).