With his first fiction feature, Walter Salles protégé Sergio Machado makes a thorough study of the Brazilian bas-fonds, from a bloody cockfight with a knife-fight coda to strip clubs, whorehouses, sweat-stained flops, low-rent boxing gyms, rusty cargo ships filled with slobbering gobs, back-alley sex, late-night holdups—everything, it seems, but a crack den. You may well wonder if Machado's protagonists—a pair of boat-owning buddies and the young hooker who triangulates them—ever just go to the movies, or watch a soccer match in a bar not filled with sweaty women and drooling criminals. The ambience resonates off the walls—in what has become the proto-professional template for exportable Brazilian films, Machado's imagery is saturated with the high-contrast colors of rotten fruit, and the grungy lowlife is never less than convincing.
You can find the review here
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Interview with Guillermo Arriaga
Best known in the United States for writing the screenplays to "Amores Perros" and "21 Grams" - films centered around dramatic car accidents - Arriaga published three novels in Spanish before turning to cinema.
Arriaga now is on tour to promote "The Night Buffalo" (Atria Books), which is the first of his novels to be released in the United States. Originally published in Spanish in 1999, it features Arriaga's distinct storytelling style - a disjointed puzzle of flashbacks woven into layers of dreams and conversations that add up to a love affair in the aftermath of a suicide.
You can find the interview here
Arriaga now is on tour to promote "The Night Buffalo" (Atria Books), which is the first of his novels to be released in the United States. Originally published in Spanish in 1999, it features Arriaga's distinct storytelling style - a disjointed puzzle of flashbacks woven into layers of dreams and conversations that add up to a love affair in the aftermath of a suicide.
You can find the interview here
Don Quixote translated to Quechua
The version of the classic “Don Quijote de la Mancha” in the indigenous language of Quechua makes this book, marking the birth of the modern novel as a literature genre, now available in a language spoken by nearly 20 million people in seven South American countries.
Symbol of the powerful Incan culture, Quechua is a common language of ethnic groups in Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, contributing to keep it alive.
Presented Thursday in Spain by Tupac Yupanqui, member of the Peruvian Academy of the Quechua Language, the volume is enriched by the reproduction of illustrations made by farmers of the San Juan de Salua region.
You can find the article here
Symbol of the powerful Incan culture, Quechua is a common language of ethnic groups in Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, contributing to keep it alive.
Presented Thursday in Spain by Tupac Yupanqui, member of the Peruvian Academy of the Quechua Language, the volume is enriched by the reproduction of illustrations made by farmers of the San Juan de Salua region.
You can find the article here
Interview with Isabel Allende
Among the bright lights and celebrities gracing our valley for last weekend's big wine auction, none shine so vividly on the international stage as the provocative author, Isabel Allende.
Her fans are passionate and legion, and Allende is a platinum-selling, bona fide "rock star" of the literary world. Yet Allende slipped quietly into St. Helena Saturday evening, without entourage, in the company of her hosts Agustin and Valeria Huneeus, the proprietors of Rutherford's Quintessa, to make her contribution to the fund-raising and festivities.
The three have been close friends for nearly 20 years, bonding in San Francisco through the shared experience of being transplanted ex-pats -- exiles from the turbulent politics of 1970s Chile who now count themselves Californians. But beyond this, the three share an indomitable joie de vivre, perhaps more appropriately rendered in Spanish, gozo de la vida, and an appreciation of the necessity of wine and food and conversation to enliven the soul.
Both this alegria and the California-Chilean connection sparkled unpretentiously in Quintessa's live auction lot Saturday which offered up an intimate dinner party with the irrepressible Allende at the Huneeus' winery home -- a "quintessential fiesta" of Latin music, food and Isabel's spicy storytelling. The lot included a bonus of signed first editions of her latest bestseller and California historical novel, "Zorro." Ann Colgin's winning bid brought $130,000 to the Napa Valley Vintners' funds benefiting local health care, housing and youth development programs.
You can find the interview here
Her fans are passionate and legion, and Allende is a platinum-selling, bona fide "rock star" of the literary world. Yet Allende slipped quietly into St. Helena Saturday evening, without entourage, in the company of her hosts Agustin and Valeria Huneeus, the proprietors of Rutherford's Quintessa, to make her contribution to the fund-raising and festivities.
The three have been close friends for nearly 20 years, bonding in San Francisco through the shared experience of being transplanted ex-pats -- exiles from the turbulent politics of 1970s Chile who now count themselves Californians. But beyond this, the three share an indomitable joie de vivre, perhaps more appropriately rendered in Spanish, gozo de la vida, and an appreciation of the necessity of wine and food and conversation to enliven the soul.
Both this alegria and the California-Chilean connection sparkled unpretentiously in Quintessa's live auction lot Saturday which offered up an intimate dinner party with the irrepressible Allende at the Huneeus' winery home -- a "quintessential fiesta" of Latin music, food and Isabel's spicy storytelling. The lot included a bonus of signed first editions of her latest bestseller and California historical novel, "Zorro." Ann Colgin's winning bid brought $130,000 to the Napa Valley Vintners' funds benefiting local health care, housing and youth development programs.
You can find the interview here
Monday, June 12, 2006
The Eagle's Throne by Carlos Fuentes
Carlos Fuentes, a longtime critic of American imperialism and economic policies in Latin America, is best known for his 1962 novel The Death of Artemio Cruz. A lawyer and Mexican dissident, Fuentes has had a political career that runs the gamut: assistant head of the press section of Mexico's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, head of the Department of Cultural Relations and, after a period of exile in Paris, Mexican ambassador to France. Fuentes wrote The Eagle's Throne, originally published in Spanish in 2002, after he was asked by President Bill Clinton why Mexico had no vice presidents and what would happen if the Mexican president died in office. In such a situation, the Mexican Congress appoints an acting president, but, as Fuentes shows us, there are enough contenders for the office of president - the eagle's throne of the title - without adding a vice president to the mix.
The Eagle's Throne starts in the not-too-distant future of January 2020, and President Lorenzo Teran of Mexico has called for the withdrawal of American occupation forces from Colombia and a ban on Mexican oil exports to the United States unless Washington agrees to abide by OPEC pricing. The U.S. responds by blacking out the international communications satellite for Mexico, leaving the country without phone, fax or e-mail service. But this is only back story to allow for the novel's epistolary form as the characters are forced to communicate via letters. The Eagle's Throne is a political Dangerous Liaisons, with all the intrigue, blackmail, backstabbing and seduction of a telenovela.
Fuentes' politicians aren't particularly upset by their current rupture with the U.S., because they have other concerns: The 2023 presidential election is looming, and the current president has yet to anoint a candidate as his successor. The behind-the-scenes jockeying for power begins, with Cabinet members pitted against each other and using every possible tactic to gain the advantage.
You can find the review here
The Eagle's Throne starts in the not-too-distant future of January 2020, and President Lorenzo Teran of Mexico has called for the withdrawal of American occupation forces from Colombia and a ban on Mexican oil exports to the United States unless Washington agrees to abide by OPEC pricing. The U.S. responds by blacking out the international communications satellite for Mexico, leaving the country without phone, fax or e-mail service. But this is only back story to allow for the novel's epistolary form as the characters are forced to communicate via letters. The Eagle's Throne is a political Dangerous Liaisons, with all the intrigue, blackmail, backstabbing and seduction of a telenovela.
Fuentes' politicians aren't particularly upset by their current rupture with the U.S., because they have other concerns: The 2023 presidential election is looming, and the current president has yet to anoint a candidate as his successor. The behind-the-scenes jockeying for power begins, with Cabinet members pitted against each other and using every possible tactic to gain the advantage.
You can find the review here
La Malinche by Laura Esquivel
Nearly five centuries after she helped Hernan Cortes conquer the Aztec Empire, Malinche is still a controversial figure in Mexican history.
A noble-born child sold into slavery by her mother, she used her unusual ability as a linguist to enable the Spanish to negotiate alliances with the native tribes against the Aztec Emperor Montezuma. As a result, she's reviled as a traitor to her people and, because she was Cortes' mistress and bore him a son, regarded as the symbolic mother of the Mexican people.
In "Malinche," Laura Esquivel, known best for her 1992 best seller "Like Water for Chocolate," reimagines her in this latter role, as a deeply devout woman caught in a clash of civilizations and attempting to make sense of what she experiences.
You can find the review here
A noble-born child sold into slavery by her mother, she used her unusual ability as a linguist to enable the Spanish to negotiate alliances with the native tribes against the Aztec Emperor Montezuma. As a result, she's reviled as a traitor to her people and, because she was Cortes' mistress and bore him a son, regarded as the symbolic mother of the Mexican people.
In "Malinche," Laura Esquivel, known best for her 1992 best seller "Like Water for Chocolate," reimagines her in this latter role, as a deeply devout woman caught in a clash of civilizations and attempting to make sense of what she experiences.
You can find the review here
La Malinche by Laura Esquivel
It ought to be difficult, if not impossible, to make the Spanish conquest of Mexico lyrical, but Laura Esquivel comes close in her fifth novel. This is not a good thing either for history or for literature.
Most readers will remember Esquivel for her debut novel, Like Water for Chocolate, the story of how a woman transforms heartbreak into culinary astonishments, using recipes and magical realism to explore life in early 20th century Mexico. In Malinche, the eponymous heroine encounters her share of heartbreaks, but there's little magical or realist about the process.
Mexican national memory hasn't been kind to La Malinche, the Mexica woman who came into the possession of Herman Cortes as a slave, learned Spanish and as Cortes' translator helped talk Montezuma out of an empire, with ghastly, near-genocidal results. She mediated between the Spaniards and the Mexica (Aztec) people whom Montezuma governed. She also bore Cortes a son, Martin, the first true mestizo Mexican.
Esquivel deserves credit for attempting the difficult task of imagining herself into the skin and heart of a woman whom history has found it easy to scorn. Some revisionists argue that La Malinche saved her people from total destruction because she gave Cortes the chance to negotiate with words instead of swords.
It's unclear whether Esquivel shares this particular revisionist point of view, but then many things in this novel are unclear. We get a few scenes of pillage and massacre, fever dreams that interrupt the story that Esquivel really cares about: one woman's spiritual journey.
The novelist treats her heroine with refreshing sympathy. How can you not feel for a 5-year-old girl whose mother, eager to remarry after the death of her first husband, gives her away to slave-traders? All the young Malinalli has to hold on to are memories of her grandmother, a loving woman rich in the spirituality of Mexica culture. But by the time Malinalli travels with Cortes to Tenochtitlan, Montezuma's capital, her grandmother's indigenous lyricism has given way to self-aggrandizing, almost New Age escapism.
You can find the review here
Most readers will remember Esquivel for her debut novel, Like Water for Chocolate, the story of how a woman transforms heartbreak into culinary astonishments, using recipes and magical realism to explore life in early 20th century Mexico. In Malinche, the eponymous heroine encounters her share of heartbreaks, but there's little magical or realist about the process.
Mexican national memory hasn't been kind to La Malinche, the Mexica woman who came into the possession of Herman Cortes as a slave, learned Spanish and as Cortes' translator helped talk Montezuma out of an empire, with ghastly, near-genocidal results. She mediated between the Spaniards and the Mexica (Aztec) people whom Montezuma governed. She also bore Cortes a son, Martin, the first true mestizo Mexican.
Esquivel deserves credit for attempting the difficult task of imagining herself into the skin and heart of a woman whom history has found it easy to scorn. Some revisionists argue that La Malinche saved her people from total destruction because she gave Cortes the chance to negotiate with words instead of swords.
It's unclear whether Esquivel shares this particular revisionist point of view, but then many things in this novel are unclear. We get a few scenes of pillage and massacre, fever dreams that interrupt the story that Esquivel really cares about: one woman's spiritual journey.
The novelist treats her heroine with refreshing sympathy. How can you not feel for a 5-year-old girl whose mother, eager to remarry after the death of her first husband, gives her away to slave-traders? All the young Malinalli has to hold on to are memories of her grandmother, a loving woman rich in the spirituality of Mexica culture. But by the time Malinalli travels with Cortes to Tenochtitlan, Montezuma's capital, her grandmother's indigenous lyricism has given way to self-aggrandizing, almost New Age escapism.
You can find the review here
Last Evenings on Earth by Roberto Bolano
At the time of his death at age 50 in 2003, the Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño was already considered one of the great talents of his generation, and since then his reputation has only increased. With the posthumous publication of the novel "2666," his place within Latin American letters is indisputable. But Bolaño has until fairly recently remained somewhat obscure outside the Spanish-speaking world. Thankfully, this is changing: New Directions (the same visionary house that introduced W.G. Sebald to the United States.) has published two Bolaño novels to date: "By Night in Chile" in 2003 and the stunning "Distant Star," last year. His work has begun appearing in some of the United States' better literary journals, and the prestigious publishing house Farrar, Straus, and Giroux is preparing the release of "2666" for next year.
Now New Directions is offering Bolaño's short fictions, and for those who are unfamiliar with this author, "Last Evenings on Earth" is a fine place to begin. It is a powerful introduction to the exquisite sadness of Bolaño's world, gathering texts from his two story collections, "Llamadas Telefonicas" ("Phone Calls," 1997) and "Putas Asesinas" ("Murderous Whores," 2001). Both were published to wide acclaim, and neither has been translated in full: "Last Evenings on Earth," despite being a sort of greatest hits compilation, comes together remarkably well, with 14 mostly autobiographical tales, all imbued with a helpless devotion to writing as the only potential means of redemption.
The finest pieces here come from Bolaño's second collection, "Putas Asesinas." "Gomez Palacio" and the title story, both of which first appeared in the New Yorker, are masterpieces of restraint: the latter, ostensibly about a father-son vacation in Acapulco, tackles the psychological aftermath of Chile's traumatic recent political history. The protagonist, identified only as B, has survived the 1973 coup that brought Pinochet to power and cannot bring himself to explain to his father what it was like. The two men talk past each other, each impossibly isolated in his own world. "Dentist," the penultimate story, exists as if on the edge of an unsettling dream: 15 pages in, after a few false starts, the narrator and a friend wind up in a shack at the edge of a provincial Mexican city, reading the hallucinatory fiction of an unlikely 16-year-old prodigy. This moment, when it arrives, is wondrous, strange, dizzying, and no one-sentence explanation can do it justice. The final piece, "Dance Card," is a perfect summation of Bolaño and his literary ethic: a harrowing mash-up of fact and fiction, biography and fantasy, with appearances by the ghosts of Adolf Hitler and Pablo Neruda, nods to Zen meditation, a recognition of the inevitability of smoking, and the specter of political failure -- shot through with the memory of "those who believed in a Latin American paradise and died in a Latin American hell."
You can find the review here
Now New Directions is offering Bolaño's short fictions, and for those who are unfamiliar with this author, "Last Evenings on Earth" is a fine place to begin. It is a powerful introduction to the exquisite sadness of Bolaño's world, gathering texts from his two story collections, "Llamadas Telefonicas" ("Phone Calls," 1997) and "Putas Asesinas" ("Murderous Whores," 2001). Both were published to wide acclaim, and neither has been translated in full: "Last Evenings on Earth," despite being a sort of greatest hits compilation, comes together remarkably well, with 14 mostly autobiographical tales, all imbued with a helpless devotion to writing as the only potential means of redemption.
The finest pieces here come from Bolaño's second collection, "Putas Asesinas." "Gomez Palacio" and the title story, both of which first appeared in the New Yorker, are masterpieces of restraint: the latter, ostensibly about a father-son vacation in Acapulco, tackles the psychological aftermath of Chile's traumatic recent political history. The protagonist, identified only as B, has survived the 1973 coup that brought Pinochet to power and cannot bring himself to explain to his father what it was like. The two men talk past each other, each impossibly isolated in his own world. "Dentist," the penultimate story, exists as if on the edge of an unsettling dream: 15 pages in, after a few false starts, the narrator and a friend wind up in a shack at the edge of a provincial Mexican city, reading the hallucinatory fiction of an unlikely 16-year-old prodigy. This moment, when it arrives, is wondrous, strange, dizzying, and no one-sentence explanation can do it justice. The final piece, "Dance Card," is a perfect summation of Bolaño and his literary ethic: a harrowing mash-up of fact and fiction, biography and fantasy, with appearances by the ghosts of Adolf Hitler and Pablo Neruda, nods to Zen meditation, a recognition of the inevitability of smoking, and the specter of political failure -- shot through with the memory of "those who believed in a Latin American paradise and died in a Latin American hell."
You can find the review here
La Malinche by Laura Esquivel
It ought to be difficult, if not impossible, to make the Spanish conquest of Mexico lyrical, but Laura Esquivel comes close in her fifth novel, "Malinche." This is not a good thing either for history or for literature.
Most readers will remember Esquivel for her first novel, "Like Water for Chocolate," the story of how a woman transforms heartbreak into culinary astonishments. That book used recipes and magical realism to explore life in early 20th-century Mexico. In Esquivel's new book, the eponymous heroine encounters her share of heartbreaks, but there's little magical or realist about the process.
Mexican national memory hasn't been kind to La Malinche, the Mexica (Aztec) woman who came into the possession of Herman Cortes as a slave, learned Spanish and as "The Tongue" — Cortes' translator — helped talk Montezuma out of an empire, with ghastly, near-genocidal results. She mediated between the Spaniards and the Mexica people whom Montezuma governed. She also bore Cortes a son, Martin — the first true mestizo Mexican, or at least the most famous one — before the conquistador married her off to a much nicer man named Juan Jaramillo, with whom, according to Esquivel's account, she had a daughter.
As far as I can tell — one of the many shortcomings of Esquivel's book is that it leaves the reader grasping for details — Malinche was one of the names by which Cortes was sometimes known. It means something like captain, so the captain's translating mistress became La Malinche. Esquivel gives her the birth name of Malinalli, which refers to a sacred grass and also seems to have associations with death.
Esquivel deserves credit for attempting the difficult task of imagining herself into the skin and heart of a woman whom history has found it easy to scorn. Some revisionists have argued that La Malinche saved her people from total destruction because she gave Cortes the chance to negotiate (sometimes) with words instead of swords — not that he was afraid to use those.
You can find the review here
Most readers will remember Esquivel for her first novel, "Like Water for Chocolate," the story of how a woman transforms heartbreak into culinary astonishments. That book used recipes and magical realism to explore life in early 20th-century Mexico. In Esquivel's new book, the eponymous heroine encounters her share of heartbreaks, but there's little magical or realist about the process.
Mexican national memory hasn't been kind to La Malinche, the Mexica (Aztec) woman who came into the possession of Herman Cortes as a slave, learned Spanish and as "The Tongue" — Cortes' translator — helped talk Montezuma out of an empire, with ghastly, near-genocidal results. She mediated between the Spaniards and the Mexica people whom Montezuma governed. She also bore Cortes a son, Martin — the first true mestizo Mexican, or at least the most famous one — before the conquistador married her off to a much nicer man named Juan Jaramillo, with whom, according to Esquivel's account, she had a daughter.
As far as I can tell — one of the many shortcomings of Esquivel's book is that it leaves the reader grasping for details — Malinche was one of the names by which Cortes was sometimes known. It means something like captain, so the captain's translating mistress became La Malinche. Esquivel gives her the birth name of Malinalli, which refers to a sacred grass and also seems to have associations with death.
Esquivel deserves credit for attempting the difficult task of imagining herself into the skin and heart of a woman whom history has found it easy to scorn. Some revisionists have argued that La Malinche saved her people from total destruction because she gave Cortes the chance to negotiate (sometimes) with words instead of swords — not that he was afraid to use those.
You can find the review here
Malinche by Laura Esquivel
Malinche, the Amerindian slave who accompanied Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés through his invasion of Mexico, serving as both his translator and lover, has long been reviled by the Mexicans. In a country where the "feminine" is divided very clearly along the virgin-whore polarity, the much revered Virgen de Guadalupe is often starkly juxtaposed against the traitorous Malinche, who, in giving herself to Cortés, not only facilitated the Spanish conquest of Mesoamerica, but also helped to found the new mestizo or mixed-blood race through the son she had with the conquistador.
The psychological dimensions of this rejection in a country where more than 90 per cent of the people are mestizos have been extensively and fascinatingly explored by Mexican writer and Nobel Laureate Octavio Paz. Malinche herself, though, remains an enigma. Little is known about her, and that little does not allow us any insight into her motivations. Now, Paz's compatriot, Laura Esquivel, best known for her popular novel Like Water for Chocolate, has attempted to bring this controversial figure to life in a new novel, Malinche.
You can find the review here
The psychological dimensions of this rejection in a country where more than 90 per cent of the people are mestizos have been extensively and fascinatingly explored by Mexican writer and Nobel Laureate Octavio Paz. Malinche herself, though, remains an enigma. Little is known about her, and that little does not allow us any insight into her motivations. Now, Paz's compatriot, Laura Esquivel, best known for her popular novel Like Water for Chocolate, has attempted to bring this controversial figure to life in a new novel, Malinche.
You can find the review here
Cuban Author Wins Italian Poetry Award
The prestigious Camaiore de Poesia international poetry award for 2006 was given to the Cuban writer Miguel Barnet for his book Il poeta nell’isola (The poet in the island), published last year by Campanotto.
You can find the article here
You can find the article here
The Eagle's Throne by Carlos Fuentes
The year is 2020. Condoleezza Rice is president of the United States, and neighboring Mexico is grappling with internal political tensions and external pressures to revise the strongholds of current Mexican President Lorenzo Terán.
After Terán demands the removal of U.S. troops from Colombia and insists on keeping the price of Mexican oil high, the United States cuts off Mexico's satellite communications system, leaving Mexico with no phones, e-mail, or faxes. Terán's downfall is inevitable, and Carlos Fuentes' new novel, The Eagle's Throne, paints an epistolary portrait of the ensuing scramble for political power.
Named for the presidential seat itself, The Eagle's Throne is a political thriller of sorts, toying with our preconceived notions of how we communicate, who's in charge, and how much power an individual truly has when standing up against sometimes-long-established political machinery.
You can find the review here
After Terán demands the removal of U.S. troops from Colombia and insists on keeping the price of Mexican oil high, the United States cuts off Mexico's satellite communications system, leaving Mexico with no phones, e-mail, or faxes. Terán's downfall is inevitable, and Carlos Fuentes' new novel, The Eagle's Throne, paints an epistolary portrait of the ensuing scramble for political power.
Named for the presidential seat itself, The Eagle's Throne is a political thriller of sorts, toying with our preconceived notions of how we communicate, who's in charge, and how much power an individual truly has when standing up against sometimes-long-established political machinery.
You can find the review here
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