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  • Chinese literature – where are we now?

    The second PEN Atlas despatch in this week’s two-part sequence is by one of China’s most important writers and avant-garde poets, Han Dong, who looks into two very significant periods in China’s literary history. 

    Translated by Nicky Harman 

    When Chinese literature is mentioned, most people think of China’s long history, a long tradition, which can be traced back about 3,000 years. But one cannot ignore two periods of 30 years. These 60 years make a very short tradition, but this ‘mini-tradition’ has had a far more direct and profound impact on Chinese literature today than the preceding 3,000 years.

    The first 30 years (from 1949 to 1979) started with Mao Zedong and finished with Deng Xiaoping. In those days, there was only one kind of literature – one which served politics. Any piece of writing at odds with the official ideology was criticized or banned, and regarded as flouting the law. The smallest slip-up on the part of the author and he or she would be ousted from the Writers Association, and sent to prison or to a Labour camp. The vigilance of Party functionaries and the whims and fancies of certain leaders meant that there were no fixed rules even for writers who were willing to toe the Party line. Writing was a dangerous business. You were required to court disaster, but you had no idea when or where or why it would strike. Could you just write and remain unpublished? No way. Someone would be sure to report you, and very likely it would be your sleeping partner, your wife, husband or children, or a friend you’d known for years. There was a crime then known as counter-revolutionary thinking. It was an age when you did not dare reveal anything about yourself even in your private diary: literature was chopped off at the root and became just another object.

    The most extreme point was reached during the Cultural Revolution, when anything considered feudal, capitalist or revisionist was prohibited and destroyed. That 3,000-year-old literary tradition fell into the category ‘feudal’. ‘Capitalism’ meant western capitalism, and ‘revisionism’, the ideology of the former Soviet Union. Before the Cultural Revolution, and especially in the 1950s, Russian literature had been practically the only foreign writing which Chinese authors had access to, but after the break between the two countries, Soviet literature was regarded as unsafe and was gradually banned.

    In the 30 years from 1949-79, 3,000 years of literary tradition simply evaporated, turning literature into something completely different. Its practitioners faced external political pressures – and internalised them to the extent that they were transformed into an inner need and self-discipline. It was all part and parcel of an adaptive process without which writers could not have survived.

    Luckily, from the end of the 1970s and throughout the 80s, as China opened up to the outside world, there was an accompanying liberation in people’s thinking. In the literary domain, an enormous numbers of books by Western authors flooded into China in translation. A new generation of writers fell on them and devoured them. Inevitably, the choice of books to translate and read was made unsystematically and indiscriminately. Anything Western must be good – the very fact that it was from the West was a mark of its worth, in other words ‘The foreign moon was rounder than the Chinese moon…’ 1980s writing was filled with enthusiasm and excitement, forming an eclectic, crude mixture. There was a mad rush to write new experiences down, but there was little real desire to examine the underlying ideas and writing techniques, or find new ways to deal with reality. Still, it was an amazing time to live through. I miss the atmosphere of the literary world of the 1980s even though I don’t rate its achievements very highly.

     In 1979, the genesis of the unofficial publication Today, edited by the poet, Bei Dao, was enormously significant, especially when you consider that even now publications by private individuals are still in principle illegal. It was the first in a series of what the poet Xi Chuan has called the ‘small journals’. In the decade following the first issue of Today, unofficial journals published by groups of like-minded individuals took off and became the normal outlet for poetry, in particular. In Xi Chuan’s opinion, the experience of writers who have had their work published in these ‘small journals’ is quite different from those who have not. They provided a space for free expression and –marked out their writers as people who set themselves apart from official literature. You were an independent spirit, you did not have to depend on official favour. This tradition of ‘small journals’ has now spread to the internet, where poets and writers have set up their own websites and chat rooms.

    In the 1990s, almost every aspect of Chinese society underwent a radical shake-up as the process of what we call ‘marketisation’ intensified. The writing environment has been completely transformed. As the novelist Zhu Wen put it, China may not be the world’s poorest country any more, but the Chinese are definitely the people who are driven craziest by poverty. There is a difference between the two – poverty is a lack of material goods, whereas being driven crazy by poverty is a state of mind, greed. This pursuit of riches has become the new Chinese world view, the new dream. In my opinion, greed has become the motive force for material modernisation, and not only in China Literature has largely been abandoned by Chinese readers, because it is of no practical use. Guides to making money, playing the stock market, dealing in real estate, business management, social skills and so on top the list now, followed by books on health, collecting antiques, feel-good books – ‘chicken soup for the soul’ – and memoirs of famous people.

    There’s something else happening too: the literary world is fragmenting in the face of huge pressures. Some writers are just following market trends and turning out best-sellers which satisfy the readers’ needs for emotional release or a quick stimulus. Other authors write for the Party-controlled ‘system’. That way they get the right to be heard. With official backing, they do well in market terms too… China is unique in the power and legitimacy of officially-approved literature, which carries on the tradition of the first 30-year period, 1949-79, although there have been some changes in tactics and the latitude allowed to such writing. But however harmful the marketisation of literature has been, it has a positive aspect too: only the market is powerful enough to stand up to the system. Every aspect of China today is full of paradoxes, and literature is no different. On the one hand, the system conspires with the market to the detriment of idealism in writing. But on the other, these two forces hold each other in check. A rift has developed between them, giving independent writers space to eke out an existence. The hope for Chinese literature can only lie with the small number of authors who work away quietly on their own – even if they are almost unknown. The second 30-year period is now over. Chinese authors now have access to information, means of communication, stores of knowledge, all benefits we have enjoyed during 30 years of reforms, 1979-2009 – and we have open access to our 3,000 year-old tradition too. We can’t retreat from reality any longer. In terms of the drama of life and themes for our work, this period beats any other. The responsibility falls on each one of us as an individual to make use of all this in our own writing.

    © Han Dong 2012. Not to be reproduced on any other website or publication without prior permission. If you would like to request permission then please get in touch.

     About the Author

    Han Dong was born 17 May, 1961 in Nanjing. Han Dong’s parents were banished to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution, taking him with them. When the Cultural Revolution ended, he studied philosophy at Shandong University, graduating in 1982. He subsequently taught philosophy in colleges in Xi’an and Nanjing, finally relinquishing teaching in 1993 and going free-lance as a writer. Han Dong began writing in 1980, and has been a major player on the modern Chinese literary scene since the 1990s. He is well-known as one of China’s most important avant-garde poets, and is becoming increasingly influential as an essayist, short story writer and novelist.

    About the Translator

    Nicky Harman lives in the UK. She has worked as a literary translator for a dozen years and, until the spring of 2011, also lectured at Imperial College London. Now, in addition to translating, she organizes translation-focused events and mentors new translators from Chinese. She led the Chinese English group at the British Centre for Literary Translation Summer School from 2009 to 2011 and in 2011 was Translator–in–Residence at the London Free Word Centre. Authors she has translated include Zhang Ling (Gold Mountain Blues); Yan Geling (Flowers of War), Han Dong (A Phone Call from Dalian: Collected Poems, and Banished! A Novel), Hong Ying (K – The Art of Love) and Xinran.

  • Performing in Chains

    The PEN Atlas continues this week with a two-part blog sequence. The first despatch comes from one of China’s most established writers, Yan Lianke, who reflects on mechanisms of censorship.

    Translated by Carlos Rojas

    In ancient China, castration was an extreme method used by the imperial court to deal with people in which it had lost faith. After the removal of your male member, you would thereby lose the ability to have sexual relations, and consequently would become unable to bear offspring. The literature of contemporary China, meanwhile, similarly finds itself in the process of being gradually castrated. Hard power controls the spaces within which all art can circulate and be imagined, and anything beyond this will be regarded as illicit and subject to strict censorship. Unlike during the Maoist period, a contemporary author does not risk actual imprisonment or death as a result of challenging these conventions, though these strict censorship practices do condemn many “problematic works” to a premature death, just as modern medical technology has made it possible to have a painless abortion. You can write this, but can’t write that; imagine this sort of historical space, but not that one. . . . These censorship mechanisms specify the limits of what can be imagined, just as sidelines on a soccer field demarcate the limits beyond which players cannot cross without being penalized. Under this absurd reality, if you praise brightness you will be rewarded with brightness, while if you (artistically) reveal darkness you will be rewarded with darkness. Because things have been like this for a long time, literature has therefore learned how to perform in chains. It has learned how to obtain glory, acclaim, reward, and audiences, while gradually forgetting that it needs open space and autonomy, forgetting that it needs more freedom of imagination and a spirit of artistic exploration. This is like someone who, after being castrated, forgets that he needs great love and great life. Would a castrated official still be a man? How could he not be considered a man? Yet, what kind of official would he be? Is not a literature that can only dance within a tightly constrained space also a castrated literature? Can a castrated literature still be considered literature? And, if it is not literature, then what would it be?

    © Yan Lianke 2012. Not to be reproduced on any other website or publication without prior permission. If you would like to request permission then please get in touch.

    About the Author

    Yan Lianke was born in 1958 and is one of China’s most established literary writers. His many novels and story collections have won several of China’s most prestigious literary prizes. Dream of Ding Village (translated by Cindy Carter) deals with blood contamination in the province where he was brought up in China.  He has received many literary prizes, the most prestigious: the Lu Xun in 2000 and the Lao She in 2004.  

     The film adaptation of DREAM OF DING VILLAGE, renamed TIL DEATH DO US PART, was released in China on May 10 2011, starring Zhang Ziyi and Aaron Kwok. From acclaimed director, Changwei Gu, it was promoted at the Hong Kong International Film Festival and was the recipient of excellent reviews. 

    DREAM OF DING VILLAGE has been shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, won in the past by W G Sebald and Milan Kundera.

    About the Translator

    Carlos Rojas is Associate Professor of Chinese Cultural Studies, Women’s Studies, and Arts of the Moving Image at Duke University. He is author, co-editor, and translator or co-translator of seven books, including the forthcoming English-language edition of Yan Lianke’s novel Lenin’s Kisses.

  • What We Don't Know About North Korea

    This week’s PEN Atlas despatch comes from Krys Lee, who takes a look at the literature from (and about)  North Korea that is available in English translation.North Korea has featured prominently in the news for many years, particularly in recent months with the death of its leader Kim Jong-Il on Dec 17, 2011. But it has been largely absent in fiction, at least in English. What is available in English is Adam Johnson’s much-praised and recently published novel The Orphan Master’s Son, James Church’s Inspector O novel A Corpse in the Koryo, and a few stories from my book Drifting House. Translated works, usually from South Korea, open up a few more  opportunities, including Jia: A Novel of North Korea by Hyejin Kim that reads much like a news report, as well as a more nuanced rendition of the country in Young-ha Kim’s Your Republic Is Calling You.I was able to have brunch with Young-ha in New Yorka few weeks ago. I’ve been reading his work for over eight years, both in Korean and in translation, so when he came to the Center for Fiction where I was reading and suggested that we meet, I quickly agreed. I wrote in English but have lived in Seoul, South Korea for over ten years, and Young-ha wrote in Korean but has been living in New York for the past two years as a writer in residence at ColumbiaUniversity. We are both part of a wave of transnational writers, and seemed to recognize this in each other. We talked about many things, but one of them was the sense of loneliness that Young-ha, as a seasoned writer, warned me of, that would inevitably mark my life as a writer. The constant travel and time spent away from home will change your life, he said. This observation is much in keeping with his book Your Republic Is Calling You.Though Your Republic Is Calling You is set in South Korea, it is the best novel about North Korea available in translation. The novel follows one day in the life of a North Korean spy named Ki-yong who has been slumbering at his job incognito for many years in Seoul, when he is suddenly called back to the homeland. Though it was marketed as a thriller in the English-language market and given a new glamorous, chilling title, the original book in South Korea was seen as literary novel with the title which would translate roughly as The Empire of Light. As a thriller, it is quiet at best. Not much happens in terms of action, and more time is spent on the ruminations of the main narrator as he makes the greatest decision of his life: Does he return toNorth Korea, with no idea of what awaits him, or does he stay in the South, with all its potential unknown repercussions? Either way, the reader becomes intimate with his neither here nor there status, and with the sense of being an outsider that has shaped Ki-yong’s life. Young-ha’s intimacy with the details of North Korean life as well as his deep understanding of Korean culture, help readers vividly feel and understand the troubled modern history of the Koreas.Yi Mun-yol’s An Appointment with My Brother is another seminal work in Korean that is being retranslated into English by noted translator and writer Heinz Fenkl. Two separated brothers, one from North Korea and one from the South, meet in China after their father has died. This meeting between separated brothers is a popular theme in Korean modern literature as it is emblematic of the relationship of the divided Koreas, but this trope is still powerful and fresh in Yi Mun-yol’s telling. Yi, one of Korea’s most eminent living writers, knows this particular story intimately. His father defected to North Korea after the Korean War, which caused incredible economic and psychological hardship to the family, all subjects that Yi explores in his fiction.The story of division has figured largely in the imagination of South Korean literature, but more recently North Koreaitself has taken center stage with the novel Rina by South Korean writer Kang Yong-Suk. The novel’s premise is promising, and it begins with great urgency as we follow North Korean refugees in China through the jungles of Southeast Asia as they seek safety in a third country. Despite the one-dimensional characters and a rather limited understanding of North Korea, Rina was successful in the domestic market, showing that the issues are ever present.More fiction about North Korea will continue to be published in South Korea and abroad, but what is available from North Koreans themselves is usually of little artistic merit, as all art forms strictly serve the government’s purposes. North Korean defectors have not yet made significant contributions to the world of letters, in part due to the vastly different education and literary systems of North Koreaas well as skewed demographics, as most defectors originate from the northern provinces where farming, mining and logging are concentrated. The most prominent cause, however, is the difficult climate awaiting them in South Korea, Japan, theU.S., and other “safe” third countries. Adaptation to a foreign culture and to capitalism, discrimination issues and the daily war of survival have made literature a luxury for most. I look forward to a future when more defectors write fiction and poetry the way they are making inroads into memoir, visual art and film.Young-ha Kim and I parted after two hours of food and conversation. In that time we spoke in Korean with a smattering of English, but when the English rose up it felt awkward and artificial, so we reverted back to Korean. This state of being between languages and between cultures takes on an entirely different meaning and import for the North Korean defector community of today, the only community of North Koreans that the international community can truly know, if we care to.

    About the author

    Krys Lee is the author of Drifting House recently published by Faber and Faber in the U.K. and Viking/Penguin in the U.S.. She was born in Seoul, South Korea, studied in the U.S. andEngland, and lives in Seoul. Her work has appeared in the Kenyon Review, Narrative magazine, Granta (New Voices), California Quarterly, Asia Weekly, the Guardian, the New Statesman, the Huffington Post and Condé Nast Traveller,UK.www.krys.lee.comhttp://faber.co.uk/author/krys-lee/

    Additional Information

    Adam Johnson (1967): ‘The Orphan Master’s Son’, Doubleday, 2012.  American novelist and short story writerJames Church (pseudonym) ‘A Corpse in the Koryo’, St Martin’s Press, 2007. He is a former Western intelligence officer with decades of experience in Asia and an author of four detective novels featuring a North Korean policeman, Inspector O.Hyejin Kim:  ‘Jia – A Novel of North Korea’, Cleis Press, 2007 She has written for numerous publications including, Asia Times. ‘Jia’is her debut novel and was inspired by her encounters with North Korean refugees in northern China.Young-ha Kim (1968): ‘Your Republic is Calling You’, Mariner Books, 2010.  Novelist. His books are translated into many languages.Yu Mun Yol (1948):  ‘An Appointment with My Brother’, currently unavailable in English, is being retranslated by Heinz Fenkl for Azalea Journal. He is one of South Korea’s most admired novelists and his books are translated into many languages.Heinz Fenkl is a writer, editor and translator. His fiction includes ‘Memoirs of My Ghost Brother’, Anchor, US, 2007.Kang Yung-Suk; ‘Rina’, 2006, Munhakdongne Press. Kang is a respected short story writer and novelist. ‘Rina’ is her debut novel.

  • What We Don’t Know About North Korea

    This week’s PEN Atlas despatch comes from Krys Lee, who takes a look at the literature from (and about)  North Korea that is available in English translation.North Korea has featured prominently in the news for many years, particularly in recent months with the death of its leader Kim Jong-Il on Dec 17, 2011. But it has been largely absent in fiction, at least in English. What is available in English is Adam Johnson’s much-praised and recently published novel The Orphan Master’s Son, James Church’s Inspector O novel A Corpse in the Koryo, and a few stories from my book Drifting House. Translated works, usually from South Korea, open up a few more  opportunities, including Jia: A Novel of North Korea by Hyejin Kim that reads much like a news report, as well as a more nuanced rendition of the country in Young-ha Kim’s Your Republic Is Calling You.I was able to have brunch with Young-ha in New Yorka few weeks ago. I’ve been reading his work for over eight years, both in Korean and in translation, so when he came to the Center for Fiction where I was reading and suggested that we meet, I quickly agreed. I wrote in English but have lived in Seoul, South Korea for over ten years, and Young-ha wrote in Korean but has been living in New York for the past two years as a writer in residence at ColumbiaUniversity. We are both part of a wave of transnational writers, and seemed to recognize this in each other. We talked about many things, but one of them was the sense of loneliness that Young-ha, as a seasoned writer, warned me of, that would inevitably mark my life as a writer. The constant travel and time spent away from home will change your life, he said. This observation is much in keeping with his book Your Republic Is Calling You.Though Your Republic Is Calling You is set in South Korea, it is the best novel about North Korea available in translation. The novel follows one day in the life of a North Korean spy named Ki-yong who has been slumbering at his job incognito for many years in Seoul, when he is suddenly called back to the homeland. Though it was marketed as a thriller in the English-language market and given a new glamorous, chilling title, the original book in South Korea was seen as literary novel with the title which would translate roughly as The Empire of Light. As a thriller, it is quiet at best. Not much happens in terms of action, and more time is spent on the ruminations of the main narrator as he makes the greatest decision of his life: Does he return toNorth Korea, with no idea of what awaits him, or does he stay in the South, with all its potential unknown repercussions? Either way, the reader becomes intimate with his neither here nor there status, and with the sense of being an outsider that has shaped Ki-yong’s life. Young-ha’s intimacy with the details of North Korean life as well as his deep understanding of Korean culture, help readers vividly feel and understand the troubled modern history of the Koreas.Yi Mun-yol’s An Appointment with My Brother is another seminal work in Korean that is being retranslated into English by noted translator and writer Heinz Fenkl. Two separated brothers, one from North Korea and one from the South, meet in China after their father has died. This meeting between separated brothers is a popular theme in Korean modern literature as it is emblematic of the relationship of the divided Koreas, but this trope is still powerful and fresh in Yi Mun-yol’s telling. Yi, one of Korea’s most eminent living writers, knows this particular story intimately. His father defected to North Korea after the Korean War, which caused incredible economic and psychological hardship to the family, all subjects that Yi explores in his fiction.The story of division has figured largely in the imagination of South Korean literature, but more recently North Koreaitself has taken center stage with the novel Rina by South Korean writer Kang Yong-Suk. The novel’s premise is promising, and it begins with great urgency as we follow North Korean refugees in China through the jungles of Southeast Asia as they seek safety in a third country. Despite the one-dimensional characters and a rather limited understanding of North Korea, Rina was successful in the domestic market, showing that the issues are ever present.More fiction about North Korea will continue to be published in South Korea and abroad, but what is available from North Koreans themselves is usually of little artistic merit, as all art forms strictly serve the government’s purposes. North Korean defectors have not yet made significant contributions to the world of letters, in part due to the vastly different education and literary systems of North Koreaas well as skewed demographics, as most defectors originate from the northern provinces where farming, mining and logging are concentrated. The most prominent cause, however, is the difficult climate awaiting them in South Korea, Japan, theU.S., and other “safe” third countries. Adaptation to a foreign culture and to capitalism, discrimination issues and the daily war of survival have made literature a luxury for most. I look forward to a future when more defectors write fiction and poetry the way they are making inroads into memoir, visual art and film.Young-ha Kim and I parted after two hours of food and conversation. In that time we spoke in Korean with a smattering of English, but when the English rose up it felt awkward and artificial, so we reverted back to Korean. This state of being between languages and between cultures takes on an entirely different meaning and import for the North Korean defector community of today, the only community of North Koreans that the international community can truly know, if we care to.

    About the author

    Krys Lee is the author of Drifting House recently published by Faber and Faber in the U.K. and Viking/Penguin in the U.S.. She was born in Seoul, South Korea, studied in the U.S. andEngland, and lives in Seoul. Her work has appeared in the Kenyon Review, Narrative magazine, Granta (New Voices), California Quarterly, Asia Weekly, the Guardian, the New Statesman, the Huffington Post and Condé Nast Traveller,UK.www.krys.lee.comhttp://faber.co.uk/author/krys-lee/

    Additional Information

    Adam Johnson (1967): ‘The Orphan Master’s Son’, Doubleday, 2012.  American novelist and short story writerJames Church (pseudonym) ‘A Corpse in the Koryo’, St Martin’s Press, 2007. He is a former Western intelligence officer with decades of experience in Asia and an author of four detective novels featuring a North Korean policeman, Inspector O.Hyejin Kim:  ‘Jia – A Novel of North Korea’, Cleis Press, 2007 She has written for numerous publications including, Asia Times. ‘Jia’is her debut novel and was inspired by her encounters with North Korean refugees in northern China.Young-ha Kim (1968): ‘Your Republic is Calling You’, Mariner Books, 2010.  Novelist. His books are translated into many languages.Yu Mun Yol (1948):  ‘An Appointment with My Brother’, currently unavailable in English, is being retranslated by Heinz Fenkl for Azalea Journal. He is one of South Korea’s most admired novelists and his books are translated into many languages.Heinz Fenkl is a writer, editor and translator. His fiction includes ‘Memoirs of My Ghost Brother’, Anchor, US, 2007.Kang Yung-Suk; ‘Rina’, 2006, Munhakdongne Press. Kang is a respected short story writer and novelist. ‘Rina’ is her debut novel.

  • Yo ya no quiero salir en esta película

    La narrativa de la violencia en México 1: el cuento.

    Juan Pablo Villalobos

    Creo ciegamente que los escritores mexicanos estamos condenados a decepcionar a nuestros interlocutores extranjeros. Escribí una novela que ha sido traducida a varios idiomas y cada vez que tengo una entrevista o que participo de una lectura en el extranjero acabo con la sensación de no haber cumplido con la expectativa, frustrado por no poder ser suficientemente auténtico, lo que en el caso de México quiere decir folclórico. Me siento justo como el narrador de “Amigos mexicanos”, el divertidísimo y lúcido cuento de Juan Villoro, en el que un famoso periodista estadounidense, Samuel Katzenberg, contrata a un escritor mexicano para que sea su “contacto hacia lo genuino”, para que le ayude a diferenciar lo que es horrible de lo que es “buñuelesco”, para que le muestre el verdadero México. Al describir el México que Katzenberg quería conocer, Villoro resume a la perfección el abismo que separa a mexicanos y extranjeros al construir la imagen de nuestro país: “Él deseaba una realidad como los óleos de Frida: espantosa pero única”.

    En los últimos años la situación no ha hecho más que empeorar: la llamada “guerra contra el narco” del presidente Calderón ha provocado alrededor de 50.000 muertes violentas en el país. Nuestra realidad se ha vuelto espantosa, a secas, sin que tenga absolutamente nada de “única” o fascinante. De manera paralela a la escalada de violencia, ha surgido una escalada literaria, porque un número importante de escritores ha intuido la necesidad – social, diría yo – de buscar un lenguaje para narrar la violencia. Se escriben por igual novelas, cuentos, obras de teatro, guiones de cine e incluso poemas o performances, que recrean nuestro horror cotidiano. Comenzaré por el cuento.

    Narrar la violencia supone narrar el mundo del crimen organizado, las entrañas del monstruo aficionado a la decapitación. En el genial “Ese modo que colma”, Daniel Sada relata la fiesta de un grupo de narcotraficantes, fiesta que se suspende porque en una hielera de cervezas se realiza el hallazgo de tres cabezas humanas. Las páginas transcurren mientras las viudas pican hielo para evitar que las cabezas se pudran y apesten, los narcotraficantes comienzan a indagar quiénes son los traidores y las mujeres piensan en cómo dar sepultura a las cabezas: ¿en un féretro chiquito?, ¿en una caja de fruta? Sada culmina el cuento con una admonición escalofriante: “eso de las decapitaciones se estaba poniendo de moda”, “una moda que podría durar varios años”.

    ¿Qué nos ha pasado?, ¿cómo llegamos aquí?, son dos preguntas terroríficas que nos agobian. La realidad nos obliga a volver a pensarlo todo, a regresar, incluso, a lo elemental, a la definición de las cosas, para tratar de descubrir dónde nos hemos perdido. Francisco Hinojosa cree necesario, y lo es, citar el significado del verbo descuartizar en “Lo que antes eran calles”, cuento en el que un sicario con dislalia, apodado El Bóiler, termina descuartizando, por calentura, a la novia que lo ha engañado: “Descuartizar. Verbo transitivo que significa cuartear, hacer cuartos, despedazar, hacer pedazos, desmembrar, destrozar. Dividir en cuartos, a modo de castigo, el cuerpo de una persona”. Y sigue.

    Hay que volver a nombrar las cosas, narrarlas, porque ya no son lo que eran, o porque ya no son lo que parecen, o porque ya no parecen lo que son. En “Ojos que no ven” Iris García relata el reclutamiento de actores para un película entre los borrachos asiduos a una cantina. Su papel en el filme consistirá en declararse miembros del Cártel de Sinaloa culpables de algunos asesinatos. Delante de la cámara, a fuerza de golpes y balazos para dar realismo a la escena, porque no hay presupuesto para maquillaje, acabarán descubriendo que están siendo usados por el Cártel del Golfo para que se culpe al cártel rival de “todo lo que pasa”. Uno de los borrachos reclutados chilla una frase que bien podría decir cualquier mexicano que ve invadida su cotidianeidad por ese tipo de violencia que antes solo veíamos en el cine o la televisión: “Yo ya no quiero salir en esta película”.

    Algunos empezamos a delirar con visiones apocalípticas. Antonio Ortuño imagina en “Historia” que un país extranjero decide invadirnos, debido “al tráfico de drogas, el contrabando de órganos, el secuestro y homicidio de extranjeros, el estado de anarquía que priva y la migración masiva”. El protagonista del cuento intenta huir al tiempo que nos relata el miedo de los varones locales a que sus mujeres se ofrezcan a los soldados invasores para tener hijos rubios. Al final, justo antes de sucumbir al ataque de los tanques enemigos, se salva al encontrar refugio tras una puerta que le abre una mujer “gorda y renegrida”, “el cabello teñido de rubio y los dientes cubiertos por casquillos de oro”.

    Es la patria.

    Posdata: a los extranjeros aterrados con el presente texto, me gustaría transcribirles, para tranquilizarlos, una frase de Burroughs que Villoro repite en el cuento citado: “No te preocupes: los mexicanos solo matan a sus amigos”.

     Sobre el autor

    Juan Pablo Villalobos nació en Guadalajara, México, en 1973. Después de ocho años en Barcelona ahora vive en Brasil. Tiene dos hijos mexicanos-brasileños-catalanesitalianos. Su primera novela, Fiesta en la madriguera, fue publicada en 2010 y está siendo traducida a catorce idiomas. Su segunda novela se publicará en septiembre en español y en inglés durante el primer semestre de 2013. Escribe para diferentes revistas, periódicos y blogs de México, España, Brasil y Colombia.

     Sobre la traductora

    Rosalind Harvey ha vivido en Lima y en Norwich, donde se enamoró del español y de la traducción, respectivamente. Actualmente vive en Londres, donde traduce ficción en español. Su reciente traducción de Fiesta en la madriguera fue nominada al premio de primera novela del diario The Guardian. Es co-traductora, junto con Anne McLean, de El olvido que seremos de Hector Abad y de Dublinesca de Enrique Vila-Matas. El pasado otoño fue una de las primeras traductoras en residencia en el Free Word Centre.

    Información adicional

    Juan Villoro (DF, 1956): “Amigos mexicanos” en Los culpables, Almadía, Oaxaca, 2008.

    Daniel Sada (Mexicali, 1953-2010): “Ese modo que colma” en Ese modo que colma, Anagrama, Barcelona, 2010.

    Francisco Hinojosa (DF, 1954): “Lo que antes eran calles” en El tiempo apremia, Almadía, Oaxaca, 2010.

    Iris García (Acapulco, 1977 ) “Ojos que no ven” en Ojos que no ven, corazón desierto, Tierra Adentro, México, 2009.

    Antonio Ortuño (Guadalajara, 1976) “Historia” en La señora rojo, Páginas de Espuma, Madrid, 2010.

  • I Don't Want To Be In This Film Any More

    The PEN Atlas series continues with a powerful despatch by Mexican writer Juan Pablo Villalobos.  This piece has been translated from Spanish by Rosalind Harvey.

    The Narrative of Violence in Mexico 1: the short story

    Translated by Rosalind Harvey

    I believe unconditionally that Mexican writers are condemned to disappoint our foreign readers. I wrote a novel that has been translated into several languages and each time I do an interview or take part in a reading abroad I end up with the sensation of not having lived up to people’s expectations, frustrated at not being authentic enough, which in the case of Mexico means ‘colourful’. I feel just like the narrator of ‘Amigos mexicanos’ [Mexican friends], the hilarious and perceptive story by Juan Villoro, in which a famous American journalist, Samuel Katzenberg, hires a Mexican writer to be his ‘contact with the genuine’, to help him distinguish between what is hideous and what is ‘Buñuelesque’, to show him the real México. When he discovers the Mexico that Katzenberg wants to see, Villoro sums up perfectly the gulf separating Mexicans and foreigners when they come to construct an image of our country: ‘He wanted a reality like Frida’s paintings: horrific but unique’.

    In recent years the situation has done nothing but worsen: president Calderón’s so-called ‘drug war’ has caused around 50,000 violent deaths in the country. Our reality has become simply horrific, with nothing ‘unique’ or fascinating about it. The increase in violence has seen a parallel increase in literature, as a significant number of writers has sensed the need – a social need, I would say – to seek out a language for writing about the violence. Novels, short stories, plays, screenplays and even poems and ‘happenings’ are being written in equal measure, recreating our daily horror. I’ll begin with the short story.

    Writing about violence means writing about the world of organised crime, the inner workings of the monster so fond of decapitation. In the brilliant ‘Ese modo que colma’ [Sense of achievement], Daniel Sada describes a party thrown by a group of drug traffickers, a party called off because of the discovery in an ice box of three human heads. The story rolls on while the widows crush ice to stop the heads from decomposing and stinking, the traffickers start to investigate who the traitors are, and the women think about how to bury the heads: in a tiny little coffin? In a fruit crate? Sada ends the story with a chilling warning: ‘this decapitation thing was starting to become fashionable’, ‘a fashion that could last several years.’

    ‘What has happened to us?’ and ‘how did we get here?’ are two terrifying questions that are currently overwhelming us. Reality is forcing us to re-think everything, to go back, even, to basics, to the definition of things, in order to find out where we got lost. Francisco Hinojosa believes it is necessary – and it is – to cite the meaning of the verb descuartizar (to quarter, dismember or chop up) in ‘Lo que antes eran calles’ [What once were streets], a story in which a hitman with a speech impediment nicknamed ‘The Boiler’ ends up dismembering, in a fit, the girlfriend who has cheated on him: ‘Dismember. Transitive verb that means quarter, divide into quarters, disjoint, tear apart, break into pieces, chop up, destroy. To cut into four parts, as a form of punishment, a person’s body.’ And it goes on.

    We have to re-name things, write about them, because they are no longer what they were, or because they are no longer what they seem, or they no longer seem like what they are. In ‘Ojos que no ven’ [What you don’t know can’t hurt you], Iris García writes of actors being recruited for a film from among the regular drunks of a cantina. Their role in the movie is to admit to being members of the Sinaloa Cartel guilty of certain murders. In front of the camera, beaten and shot at, so as to lend the scene some realism since there is no budget for make-up, they discover that they’re being used by the Gulf Cartel so that their rivals in Sinaloa are blamed for ‘everything that happens.’ One of the hired drunks screams out a phrase that could well be uttered by any Mexican who sees his daily existence invaded by this kind of violence, which we used only to see in the cinema or on TV: ‘I don’t what to be in this film any more.’

    Some of us started to hallucinate with apocalyptic visions. In ‘Historia’ [History], Antonio Ortuño imagines that a foreign country decides to invade us, because of ‘drug trafficking, the illegal organ trade, the kidnap and murder of foreigners, the prevailing state of anarchy and mass migration.’ The story’s protagonist attempts to flee while describing the local men’s fear that their wives will offer themselves to the invading soldiers so they will have blond children. At the end, just before he surrenders to the enemy tanks, the man escapes by taking shelter behind a door opened by a ‘fat, blackish’ woman, ‘her hair dyed blonde and her teeth covered in gold caps.’

    She is the motherland.

    …

    Postscript: for foreigners terrified by the present text, I would like to transcribe, so as to reassure them, a phrase of Burroughs’ repeated by Villoro in the above cited short story: ‘Don’t worry: Mexicans only kill their friends.’

    Read the original text in Spanish here: Yo ya no quiero salir en esta película

    About the Author

    Juan Pablo Villalobos was born in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1973. After eight years in Barcelona he lives now in Brazil. He has two Mexican-Brazilian-Catalan-Italian children. His first novel, Down the Rabbit Hole, was published in Spanish in 2010 and is being translated into fourteen languages. His second novel will be out in Spanish in September and in English in the first quarter of 2013. He writes for different magazines, newspapers and blogs of Mexico, Spain, Brazil and Colombia.

    About the Translator

    Rosalind Harvey has lived in Lima and Norwich, where she fell in love with Spanish and translation, respectively. She now lives in London, where she translates Hispanic fiction. Her recent translation of Down the Rabbit Hole was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book award, and she is the co-translator with Anne McLean of Hector Abad’s prize-winning memoir Oblivion, and Dublinesque by Enrique Vila-Matas. Last autumn she was one of Free Word Centre’s first ever translators-in-residence.

    Additional Information

    Juan Villoro (Mexico city, 1956): “Amigos mexicanos” in Los culpables, Almadía, Oaxaca, 2008.

    Daniel Sada (Mexicali, 1953-2010): “Ese modo que colma” in Ese modo que colma, Anagrama, Barcelona, 2010. Almost Never his last novel is published by Graywolf in the US.  He began his career as a poet and was one of Mexico’s most admired novelists and story writers.

    Antonio Ortuño (Guadalajara, 1976) “Historia” in La señora rojo, Páginas de Espuma, Madrid, 2010. His writing has been translated into many languages. ‘Small Mouth, Thin Lips’ is a new story and can be read in Granta magazine 113.

    Francisco Hinojosa (Mexico city, 1954): “Lo que antes eran calles” in El tiempo apremia, Almadía, Oaxaca, 2010.

    Iris García (Acapulco, 1977 ) “Ojos que no ven” in Ojos que no ven, corazón desierto, Tierra Adentro, México, 2009.

  • I Don’t Want To Be In This Film Any More

    The PEN Atlas series continues with a powerful despatch by Mexican writer Juan Pablo Villalobos.  This piece has been translated from Spanish by Rosalind Harvey.

    The Narrative of Violence in Mexico 1: the short story

    Translated by Rosalind Harvey

    I believe unconditionally that Mexican writers are condemned to disappoint our foreign readers. I wrote a novel that has been translated into several languages and each time I do an interview or take part in a reading abroad I end up with the sensation of not having lived up to people’s expectations, frustrated at not being authentic enough, which in the case of Mexico means ‘colourful’. I feel just like the narrator of ‘Amigos mexicanos’ [Mexican friends], the hilarious and perceptive story by Juan Villoro, in which a famous American journalist, Samuel Katzenberg, hires a Mexican writer to be his ‘contact with the genuine’, to help him distinguish between what is hideous and what is ‘Buñuelesque’, to show him the real México. When he discovers the Mexico that Katzenberg wants to see, Villoro sums up perfectly the gulf separating Mexicans and foreigners when they come to construct an image of our country: ‘He wanted a reality like Frida’s paintings: horrific but unique’.

    In recent years the situation has done nothing but worsen: president Calderón’s so-called ‘drug war’ has caused around 50,000 violent deaths in the country. Our reality has become simply horrific, with nothing ‘unique’ or fascinating about it. The increase in violence has seen a parallel increase in literature, as a significant number of writers has sensed the need – a social need, I would say – to seek out a language for writing about the violence. Novels, short stories, plays, screenplays and even poems and ‘happenings’ are being written in equal measure, recreating our daily horror. I’ll begin with the short story.

    Writing about violence means writing about the world of organised crime, the inner workings of the monster so fond of decapitation. In the brilliant ‘Ese modo que colma’ [Sense of achievement], Daniel Sada describes a party thrown by a group of drug traffickers, a party called off because of the discovery in an ice box of three human heads. The story rolls on while the widows crush ice to stop the heads from decomposing and stinking, the traffickers start to investigate who the traitors are, and the women think about how to bury the heads: in a tiny little coffin? In a fruit crate? Sada ends the story with a chilling warning: ‘this decapitation thing was starting to become fashionable’, ‘a fashion that could last several years.’

    ‘What has happened to us?’ and ‘how did we get here?’ are two terrifying questions that are currently overwhelming us. Reality is forcing us to re-think everything, to go back, even, to basics, to the definition of things, in order to find out where we got lost. Francisco Hinojosa believes it is necessary – and it is – to cite the meaning of the verb descuartizar (to quarter, dismember or chop up) in ‘Lo que antes eran calles’ [What once were streets], a story in which a hitman with a speech impediment nicknamed ‘The Boiler’ ends up dismembering, in a fit, the girlfriend who has cheated on him: ‘Dismember. Transitive verb that means quarter, divide into quarters, disjoint, tear apart, break into pieces, chop up, destroy. To cut into four parts, as a form of punishment, a person’s body.’ And it goes on.

    We have to re-name things, write about them, because they are no longer what they were, or because they are no longer what they seem, or they no longer seem like what they are. In ‘Ojos que no ven’ [What you don’t know can’t hurt you], Iris García writes of actors being recruited for a film from among the regular drunks of a cantina. Their role in the movie is to admit to being members of the Sinaloa Cartel guilty of certain murders. In front of the camera, beaten and shot at, so as to lend the scene some realism since there is no budget for make-up, they discover that they’re being used by the Gulf Cartel so that their rivals in Sinaloa are blamed for ‘everything that happens.’ One of the hired drunks screams out a phrase that could well be uttered by any Mexican who sees his daily existence invaded by this kind of violence, which we used only to see in the cinema or on TV: ‘I don’t what to be in this film any more.’

    Some of us started to hallucinate with apocalyptic visions. In ‘Historia’ [History], Antonio Ortuño imagines that a foreign country decides to invade us, because of ‘drug trafficking, the illegal organ trade, the kidnap and murder of foreigners, the prevailing state of anarchy and mass migration.’ The story’s protagonist attempts to flee while describing the local men’s fear that their wives will offer themselves to the invading soldiers so they will have blond children. At the end, just before he surrenders to the enemy tanks, the man escapes by taking shelter behind a door opened by a ‘fat, blackish’ woman, ‘her hair dyed blonde and her teeth covered in gold caps.’

    She is the motherland.

    …

    Postscript: for foreigners terrified by the present text, I would like to transcribe, so as to reassure them, a phrase of Burroughs’ repeated by Villoro in the above cited short story: ‘Don’t worry: Mexicans only kill their friends.’

    Read the original text in Spanish here: Yo ya no quiero salir en esta película

    About the Author

    Juan Pablo Villalobos was born in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1973. After eight years in Barcelona he lives now in Brazil. He has two Mexican-Brazilian-Catalan-Italian children. His first novel, Down the Rabbit Hole, was published in Spanish in 2010 and is being translated into fourteen languages. His second novel will be out in Spanish in September and in English in the first quarter of 2013. He writes for different magazines, newspapers and blogs of Mexico, Spain, Brazil and Colombia.

    About the Translator

    Rosalind Harvey has lived in Lima and Norwich, where she fell in love with Spanish and translation, respectively. She now lives in London, where she translates Hispanic fiction. Her recent translation of Down the Rabbit Hole was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book award, and she is the co-translator with Anne McLean of Hector Abad’s prize-winning memoir Oblivion, and Dublinesque by Enrique Vila-Matas. Last autumn she was one of Free Word Centre’s first ever translators-in-residence.

    Additional Information

    Juan Villoro (Mexico city, 1956): “Amigos mexicanos” in Los culpables, Almadía, Oaxaca, 2008.

    Daniel Sada (Mexicali, 1953-2010): “Ese modo que colma” in Ese modo que colma, Anagrama, Barcelona, 2010. Almost Never his last novel is published by Graywolf in the US.  He began his career as a poet and was one of Mexico’s most admired novelists and story writers.

    Antonio Ortuño (Guadalajara, 1976) “Historia” in La señora rojo, Páginas de Espuma, Madrid, 2010. His writing has been translated into many languages. ‘Small Mouth, Thin Lips’ is a new story and can be read in Granta magazine 113.

    Francisco Hinojosa (Mexico city, 1954): “Lo que antes eran calles” in El tiempo apremia, Almadía, Oaxaca, 2010.

    Iris García (Acapulco, 1977 ) “Ojos que no ven” in Ojos que no ven, corazón desierto, Tierra Adentro, México, 2009.