TRANSLATION :: A NECESSARY RESISTANCE IN TROUBLING TIMES
And, Announcing: New Dual Language Translations from the Operating System for 2019
It is easy to feel dismayed by the systematic oppression grinding us into precarious exhaustion, here in the US where the Operating System is based — as other countries look on in disgust. What is to be done? A ever growing litany of things that more and more become a daily necessity: action on the streets, petitions, donations to on-the-ground nonprofits, midterm elections, calling our representatives, educating ourselves, organizing.
The reason I started an organization that focused on documentation and publishing was because I felt increasingly uncomfortable with the ways in which our increasingly capital-driven models of education and resource distribution were affecting the cultural landscape — especially in relationship to the production, distribution, teaching, and archiving of radical, experimental works and voices.
New technologies and the feasibility of smaller scales of production digital printing offers allow for agile production of books, digital files, and materials on what amounts to a non-existent budget: sales of any work paying it forward to the production of new work, with all volunteer labor.
When these tools become available, and the systems get set into place, those who hold in our hands the power to accept, seek out, and distribute literature become arbiters of possibility — we may not wish to be gatekeepers, having positioned ourselves in the world in defiance of this model, and yet, we are.
Despite our frequently touted “connectivity” we are embarassingly disconnected from humans in other places in our world. Most of us know very little work in translation, beyond a sort of cross-cultural “canon” of its own: books that become iconic, symbolic, holding space for rather than shining light on cultural difference, nuance, and the myriad voices from each place these titles represent.
As we consider the current political climate, it is imperative that we recognize that this is a more important time than ever to get to know each other, across borders, and beyond corrupt, illusory nationalisms, as humans — in our own voices, in our own languages, in the hopes of continuing to build cross-cultural awareness and compassion in as many as will listen… and to hold space for the potential of that opening, in the quiet of a room, with a book, feeling a connection to a human that person might have considered other.
I often feel like putting out translations may be the most important thing we can do, politically, as an independent publisher especially in the case of silenced voices. Of course, there are silenced voices in English, too, which is why we will continue to hold space for trans* authors through our Kin(d)* imprint, and seek out diverse, challenging texts from across the spectrum of age, gender, race, disability, class, and discipline.
But I am committed to running a publishing organization where translation is front and center, and as a result our catalog will weigh more and more heavily in that direction in the years to come — especially focusing, at current, on voices from the Middle East, as well as Central and South America — populations facing constantly escalating systemic abuse and hatred in the United States.
We are honored to announce the addition of four new Glossarium: Unsilenced Texts titles to our 2019 catalog, which will include eight translation titles for the year in total.
These recent acquisitions are:
In the Drying Shed of Souls: Poetry from Cuba’s Generation Zero(Anthology); edited / with translations by Katherine Hedeen and Víctor Rodríguez Núñez
Spanish-english Dual Language Edition with selections from Luis Yuseff, Isaily Pérez González, Javier Marimón Miyares, Leymen Pérez García, Marcelo Morales Cintero, Oscar Cruz, Liuvan Herrera Carpio, Jamila Medina Ríos, Moisés Mayán Fernández, Legna Rodríguez Iglesias, and Sergio García Zamora [Cuba]
It’s not a cliché by any means to declare that few times in its history has Cuban poetry been more varied, innovative, critical, and attractive than it is right now. And an undeniable part of it is what has been written by the so-called Generation Zero (Generación Cero), poets born after 1970 and who begin publishing after 2000. It’s a numerous group, as the title of their most complete anthology illustrates, La isla en versos: Cien poetas cubanos [The Island in Verse: One Hundred Cuban poets] (2011 and 2013). In fact, our selection of 11 poets was compiled having read over sixty books, tens of anthologies, and numerous journals and magazines. Indeed, the only way to truly do justice to this poetry is to offer up book-length anthologies; our aim in these pages is to be the first to simply introduce it to English-speaking readers.
These days, no one expects this kind of poetry from a Cuban, not in literary circles in the Spanish-speaking world, on the left or the right, not in North American academic and creative writing circles either. And perhaps that’s why it hasn’t received the attention it deserves.
Though they are relatively isolated, whether it be because of extremely limited access to the Internet or the difficulties of traveling off the island, Generation Zero poets aren’t behind the times at all, on the contrary, they are at the forefront of poetry being written anywhere in the world. Here there’s no trace of superficiality, no fear of emotional complexity or intellectual density, of formal rigor or experimentation. It’s poetry open to reality and the most diverse forms of representation. The authors know that intellectuals participate in society through their cultural production.
Katherine M. Hedeen is a specialist in Latin American poetry and has both written extensively on and translated contemporary authors from the region. Her translations include collections by Rodolfo Alonso, Juan Bañuelos, Juan Calzadilla, Juan Gelman, Fayad Jamís, Hugo Mujica, José Emilio Pacheco, Víctor Rodríguez Núñez, and Ida Vitale, among many others. She is the Poetry Translation Editor for the Kenyon Review and a two-time recipient of a NEA Translation Project Grant. She resides in Ohio where she is Professor of Spanish at Kenyon College.
Víctor Rodríguez Núñez (Havana, 1955) is one of Cuba’s most outstanding and celebrated contemporary writers. Over 40 collections of his poetry appear throughout Latin America and Europe, and he has been the recipient of major awards all over the Spanish-speaking world, including, in 2015, the coveted Loewe Prize, the highest honor an unpublished book of poetry can receive in the region. He has compiled three anthologies that define his poetic generation, as well as another of 20th century Cuban poetry, La poesía del siglo XX en Cuba (2011). He has brought out various critical editions, introductions, and essays on Spanish American poets. He divides his time between Gambier, Ohio, where he is currently Professor of Spanish at Kenyon College, and Havana, Cuba.
Street Gloss: Brent Armendinger With Translations From Alejandro Méndez, Mercedes Roffé, Fabián Casas, Diana Bellessi, And Néstor Perlongher
Translingual Experimental Text [Argentina]
In this work, Brent Armendinger follows the work of five contemporary Argentinian poets into the streets of Buenos Aires, attempting to map the ways a word might be an echo of the city itself. Interested in the surface areas of language and the generative potential of failure in translation, the author follows a set of procedures oriented simultaneously in the lines as well as in the streets of the city, gathering impressions, associations, and language through unpredictable encounters with the place and its inhabitants. Notes from these encounters appear interlaced, here, between the original poems in Spanish and their translations.
Alejandro Méndez (Buenos Aires, 1965) is the author of Variaciones Goldberg (2003), Medley (2003), Tsunami (2005), Chicos índigo (2007), Cosmorama (2013), and Pólder (2014). He coordinates Las Elecciones Afectivas, the first self-managed curatorship of contemporary Argentinian poetry, and is the editor of the poetry journal, Deshielo. Méndez currently teaches in the creative writing program at the Universidad Nacional de las Artes in Buenos Aires.
Mercedes Roffé (Buenos Aires, 1954) is the author of many books of poetry, including El tapiz (1983), Cámara baja (1987), La ópera fantasma (2005), Las linternas flotantes (2009), and Diario ínfimo (2016). In 2017, her book, Ghost Opera (translated by Judith Filc) was published by co-im-press. She is the founder and editor of Ediciones Pen Press, an independent press dedicated to the publication of contemporary Spanish-language poetry. Roffé has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Civitella Ranieri Foundation Fellowship.
Fabián Casas (Buenos Aires, 1965) is the author of six books of poetry: Tuca (1990), El Salmón (1996), Oda (2003), El Spleen de Boedo (2003), El hombre de overol (2007), and Horla City y otros (2010). In 2016, Eloísa Cartonera published his memoir, Diarios de la Edad del Pavo. Casas is also the author of two works of fiction: Ocio (2000) and Los Lemmings y otros (2006). With Lisandro Alonso, he wrote the screenplay for the surrealist Western, Jauja.
Néstor Perlongher (1949–1992) was a poet, activist, and anthropologist, whose books include Austria-Hungría (1980), Alambres (1987), Hule (1989), Parque Lezama (1990), Aguas Aéreas (1990), and El chorreo de las iluminaciones (1992). In the 1970’s, he helped to found the Frente de Liberación Homosexual Argentino, and he was active in various movements against the military dictatorship. In 1985, he was appointed professor of Social Anthropology at the State University of Campinas (UNICAM) in São Paulo. He died of AIDS in 1992.
Diana Bellessi (Zavalla, Santa Fe, 1946) is the author of many books of poetry, including Crucero equatorial (1981), Eróica (1988), El jardín (1992), La edad dorada (2003), La rebelión del instante (2006), and Pasos de Baile (2015). She was one of the founders of the influential feminist journal, Revista Feminaria, and she has translated the work of poets such as Denise Levertov, Adrienne Rich, and Ursula LeGuin. Bellessi has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Konez Award in Argentina.
Brent Armendinger was born in Warsaw, NY, and studied at Bard College and the University of Michigan, where he received an Avery Hopwood Award in Poetry. He is the author of The Ghost in Us Was Multiplying (Noemi Press, 2015), a finalist for the California Book Award in Poetry, and two chapbooks, Undetectable (New Michigan Press, 2009) and Archipelago (Noemi Press, 2009). His poems and translations have appeared in many journals, including Anomaly, Asymptote, Aufgabe, Bloom, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, Ghost Proposal, Hayden’s Ferry Review, LIT, Puerto del Sol, Volt, and Web Conjunctions. He is a recipient of fellowships from the Blue Mountain Center, Headlands Center for the Arts, and Squaw Valley Community of Writers. Brent teaches creative writing at Pitzer College and lives in Los Angeles, where he is an active member of the L.A. Tenants Union.
Operation On A Malignant Body (Operación Al Cuerpo Enfermo) — Sergio Loo (Trans. Will Stockton)
Spanish-english Dual Language Edition [Mexico]
This translated collection of prose poems and diagrams leverages Sergio Loo’s diagnosis with cancer (an Ewing’s Sarcoma in the left leg) to explore anatomical, linguistic, and social relationships between queerness and disability. With an introduction, in Spanish, from Loo’s friend, writer Jonathan Minila.
Sergio Loo (1982–2014) was a prolific Mexican writer at the forefront of contemporary queer Latinx poetics. Prior to his death from cancer at the age of thirty-one, he authored several collections of poetry, including Sus brazos labios en mi boca rodando (2007); and a novel, House: retratos desarmables (2011).
Will Stockton is a professor of English at Clemson University. As an early modernist, his books include Members of His Body: Shakespeare, Paul, and a Theology of Nonmonogamy (Fordham University Press). With D. Gilson, he is also the author of Crush (Punctum Books) and Jesus Freak (forthcoming from Bloomsbury).
Are There Copper Pipes In Heaven (Eru Koparrør Í Himmiríki), Katrin Ottarsdóttir (trans. Matthew Landrum)
Faroese-English Dual-Language Edition [Faroe Islands]
Faroese is a traditionally repressed language though it has made great strides since gaining semi-autonomy from Denmark after WWII. For several decades, Katrin Ottarsdóttir — a pioneer in Faroese filmmaking and poet — has been making work across disciplines, committed to breaking this silence in defiance of the secretive culture in the Faroe Islands that demands it.
Ottarsdóttir’s groundbreaking, award-winning 1999 film, Bye, Bye, Bluebird was the first feature film made in the Faroese language; to date she has made several documentaries, shorts etc., as well as two more award-winning feature films: Atlantic Rhapsody (1989), and Ludo (2014). Ottarsdóttir has since gone on to write two books of poetry. The first, now forthcoming from the Operating System in a rare dual-language translation including the Faroese, is Are there Copper Pipes in Heaven, an autobiographical account of her abusive mother’s drug use and eventual suicide. This book was the first Faroese collection of confessional poetry and was highly controversial in a society that does not make public such personal topics, yet despite this it was awarded the Faroese Litterature Award in 2013. (Her film, Ludo, explores the same material.) In 2015 Ottarsdóttir published the poetry collection Mass For A Film, and in 2016 a collection of short stories, After Before.
Matthew Landrum holds an MFA from Bennington College. His poems and translations have recently appeared in Agni, Image Journal, Michigan Quarterly Review, Asymptote, and Modern Poetry in Translation. He lives in Detroit.
These projects are supported by volunteer labor and by your donations — please keep these voices alive and supported by helping the Operating System today!
We’d also like to recognize other folks doing amazing work in and around translation who we admire, so we’ve added a list of links below and a link to PEN America’s list of publishers of works in translation (which may be slightly out of date).
