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 | 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 | Poetry | Spanish
May, 2018Nahuatl poet Tochihuitzin was born sometime near the end of the fourteenth century and died near the beginning of the fifteenth. He was a contemporary of Nezahualcócotl and, in fact, is said to have rescued Nezahualcócotl once as his enemies surrounded him with every intention to slay him. He differs slightly from many of the well-known Aztec poets in his chosen subjects, opting not to write as much about the glory and grief of war as about metaphysical questions.
100 Refutations | Bolivia | Poetry | Spanish
May, 2018Born in Ayllu Qaqachaca, Department of Oruro, Elvira Espejo Ayca is a painter, weaver, poet, musician, documentary filmmaker, and storyteller in the oral tradition. She is a graduate of the Academia Nacional de Bellas Artes in La Paz. She has had numerous exhibitions and, in January 2013, was named director of the National Museum of Ethnography and Folklore (MUSEF) in La Paz.
100 Refutations | Mexico | Poetry | Spanish
May, 2018Jeannette L. Clariond is a poet, translator, and editor. Her published collections of poetry include Mujer dando la espalda (finalist for the Ramón López Velarde National Poetry Prize, 1992); Desierta memoria (winner of the Efraín Huerta National Poetry Prize, 1996); Todo antes de la noche (winner of the Gonzalo Rojas National Poetry Prize, 2001); Leve sangre, Marzo 10, NY (performed in Madrid using dance and music); 7 visiones (with Gonzalo Rojas); and the retrospective anthology Astillada claridad (UANL, 2014). She is also the author of the prose memoir Cuaderno de Chihuahua (Fondo de Cultura Económica). In 2003, Clariond founded the publishing house Vaso Roto Ediciones, which she has directed since then. She was awarded a Fundación Rockefeller-Conaculta grant in 2004 for her translation of Charles Wright’s Black Zodiac, a BANFF Translators Grant in 2004 for The School of Wallace Stevens: A Profile of North American Poetry (co-edited with critic Harold Bloom), and recognition from the Italian Institute for Culture in 2008 for her translations of the poet Alda Merini. For her poetry and her contributions to translation and culture, she was awarded the Juan de Mairena Prize by the University of Guadalajara in 2014.
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).