Volume 27, Issues 3 & 4
FRONT COVER: Margarita Azurdia
The Fiancée, 1974
SCULPTURE
Open a newspaper or popular magazine and two wildly different versions of Latin America are apt to be lying there benignly side by side. The first tickles the senses—a travel agent’s ad or a frothy rum concoction, with a hint of paradise done up in palm fronds, an insinuation of endless sand, and one form or another of human beckoning. The imagination leaps to fill in the rest: butterflies the size of handkerchiefs and a carefree populace whose invisible average yearly income must be somewhat offset by the willingness of bananas to bend to the hand and coconuts to fall.
The second version is of course more ominous and involves tales of “unthinkable” human rights violations and dictators in sun glasses.
Contradictory as these two versions are, there is a sense in which—in the popular imagination—they complement each other. The exotic, botanical or sensual, needs somehow to be tamed. Imposing human order on a prairie is one thing; a surveyor can do it in a glance. A terrain inhabited by boa constrictors and guerrillas is something else again. Thus the justification for an iron hand . . . and the contradiction neatly disappears.
How do Latin Americans see us? More clearly than we see them? In a way they have more to go on. Innumerable Latin Americans, for instance, can describe seemingly every frame of every famous Hollywood movie, present and past, as far back as the forties. It is also true that Latin American newspapers print a great deal more news of North America—and of the rest of the world—than the reverse. To Latin Americans the world looms large. North America, by contrast, often sees only itself.
How should we view that vast, complicated land mass to the south, its cultures so different from ours? With this issue MR seeks to go beyond the heat and unlight of current policies toward Latin America by gathering what we feel is an exciting array of Latin American writing and art, along with commentary by North Americans who have first-hand experience of Latin America. If there is a thread that runs from beginning to end, it is the plurality of experiences that Latin American writers and artists express, and the primacy of personal vision that shapes their work. We will never have politics that works unless we contend sympathetically with the imaginations of others.
—PJ & EW
Table of Contents
The Story of the Green Falcon and the Marvelous Flute, Fiction by Daniel Moyano, Translated by H.E. Francis
Denouement; Love in the Ether; Concerted Effort, Poetry by Adélia Prado, Translated from the Portuguese by Ellen Watson
It Can Happen, Poetry by Vicente Huidobro, Translated by Sarah Arvio
Dedication to the Statue of Liberty, Non-Fiction by José Martí, Translated by Elinor Randall
Sayings; Agreed: It’s True That You Look Like May Britt, Poetry by Roque Dalton, Translated by Roberto Márquez
The Brain Drain, Non-Fiction by Augusto Monterroso, Translated by Edith Grossman
Alaindelon de la Patrie, Fiction by João Ubaldo Ribeiro, Translated by the author
From Sudden Death, Poetry by Etelvina Astrada, Translated by Zoe Anglesey
Ode to Numbers; Ode to Americas, Poetry by Pablo Neruda, Translated by Margaret Sayers Peden
A Little Fairy Tale, Fiction by Elena Poniatowska, Translated by Magda Bogin
Alice in Nightmareland, Poetry by Enrique Lihn, Translated by Mary Crow
When Republics Go Bananas, Non-Fiction by Penny Lernoux
Sculpture, Art by Margarita Azurdia, notes by Ellen Watson and Paul Jenkins
The Two Cultures of El Salvador, Non-Fiction by Claribel Alegría
Granny and the Golden Bridge, Fiction by Claribel Alegría, Translated by author and Darwin J. Flakoll
Visit to the Weimar; The Price of Bras, Poetry by Ernesto Cardenal, Translated by Ellen Watson and Jonathan Cohen
Taking a Stand, an exchange of letters between Mario Vargas Llosa and Mario Bendetti, Translated by Ellen Watson
This Country Is In a Dream; The Man Who Boxes, Poetry by Ana Istarú, Translated by Zoe Anglesey
A Nun’s Tale: Practicing Liberation Theology, Oral History by Daphne Patai
Five Drawings, Art by Leonel Góngora, with a note by Dario Ruiz Gómez
Little Girl, Fiction by Ivan Ângelo, Translated by Ellen Watson
I Want to Find Desperately I Look, Poetry by Bertalicia Peralta, Translated by Zoe Anglesey
Kostas Papaioannaou, Poetry by Octavio Paz, Translated by Eliot Weinberger
A Nicaraguan Journal, Non-Fiction by John Brentlinger
Dressed in Dynamite, Poetry by Gioconda Belli, Translated by Regina McCarthy
The Man in the Armchair, Fiction by Antonio Benítez-Rojo, Translated by James Maraniss
We Misfits Don’t Forget You, Marilyn; Film Short, Poetry by Jotamario, Translated by Ellen Watson
Ebb and Flow in Panama, Non-Fiction by Merrill Collett
It is Certain That We are Constructing a World, Poetry by Rosario Murillo, Translated by Zoe Anglesey
Uncertainty, Poetry by Bessy Reyna, Translated by Zoe Anglesey
The Other Face: Coversations in Latin America, Non-Fiction by Pat Aufderheide
Evocation of Carmen Miranda, Poetry by Luz Méndez de la Vega, Translated by Zoe Anglesey
SIX CUBAN PHOTOGRAPHERS, with a note by Johnetta Cole
Untitled, 1982, by Tito Alvarez
En la Plaza; El Campeón, Zafra; Homenaje al Niño Rivera su esposa y su tres; Del Ensayo “Hermanas”, by Mayito
Escuela al Campo, by Raúl Corrales
En el Liceo; Caibarien; La Estrella del Círculo Infantil, by Marucha
Rebecca de la Familia Buendía, by Abigail García
Provincia Granma, by José A. Figueroa
Into Another Sort of Jungle: The Last Voyage of the Matacos, Non-Fiction by Ariel Dorfman
From Amazonas, Land of Water, Poetry by Thiago de Mello, Translated by Charles Cutler
The Glass Box, Fiction by Rosario Ferré, Translated by the author and Kathy Taylor
Hopeful Letter to a General: A Fragment, Non-Fiction by Marcos Aguinas, Translated by David William Foster
Within and Without Walls, an excerpt from the novel Primavera con una Esquina Rota, Non-Fiction by Mario Benedetti, Translated by Hardie St. Martin
Contributors
Essayist and novelist MARCOS AGUINAS (Argentina) is currently Secretary of Culture in the Alfonsín government.
Author of ten books of poems, CLARIBEL ALEGRÍA (El Salvador, Nicaragua) first delivered this essay as a lecture at M.I.T. in April ’86; the story printed here is from Luisa in Reality Land, to be published by Curbstone Press in Spring ’87.
Originally a professional singer, TITO ALVAREZ (Cuba) currently heads the photography division of the Cuban Writers and Artists Union.
IVAN ÂNGELO (Brazil) is managing editor of a leading São Paulo newspaper, as well as the author of two short-story collections.
Poet and translator ZOE ANGLESEY is editing a bilingual anthology titled Ixok Amar·go: Central American Women’s Poetry for Peace, which Granite Press will publish in early 1987.
SARAH ARVIO, a poet and translator, lives and works in New York City.
Exiled during the military dictatorship, ETELVINA ASTRADA (Argentina) now lives in Madrid; these poems are from Muerte Arrebatada, 1981.
In addition to serving as Senior Editor of In These Times, PAT AUFDERHEIDE is a frequent contributor to The Progressive and The Village Voice.
MARGARITA AZURDIA (Guatemala) has been a painter, a sculptor and a poet.
Journalist GIOCONDA BELLI (Nicaragua) shared the Casa de las Americas poetry prize of 1978 with Claribel Alegría.
Poet, novelist, essayist, and playwright MARIO BENEDITTI (Uruguay) was represented by the long poem “Juan Angel’s Birthday” in MR’s 1974 Caliban issue; after years of exile he now divides his time between Madrid and Montevideo.
Winner of a Casa de las Americas prize in 1967 and a Pushcart short-story prize in 1975, ANTONIO BENÍTEZ-ROJO (Cuba) is the author of four volumes of stories, a novella, and a novel; he currently teaches at Amherst College.
MAGDA BOGIN is writer-in-residence at City College (CUNY) and a Kellogg Fellow (1986-89); her translation of Isabel Allende’s House of the Spirits appeared last year.
Professor of social philosophy at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, JOHN BRENTLINGER spent three months in Nicaragua in 1985-86.
As Minister of Culture since 1979, ERNESTO CARDENAL (Nicaragua) has encouraged poetry writing across vocational and class boundaries and has recommended rules of writing based on Pound’s preference for the concrete image.
JONATHAN COHEN‘s translation of Cardenal’s most recent volume of poems, From Managua, With Love, will be published in Spring ’87 by City Lights.
A consultant to the Center for Cuban Studies, JOHNNETTA COLE is professor of anthropology and director of the Inter-American Affairs Program at Hunter College.
Articles by MERRILL COLLETT, a free-lance journalist based in Venezuela, have appeared regularly on the pages of The Guardian, The Nation, and The Observer.
RAÚL CORRALES (Cuba) runs the photography section of the Office of Historical Affairs.
Poet and translator MARY CROW, recipient of an NEA poetry fellowship in 1984, edited the anthology Woman Who Has Sprouted Wings (Latin American Literary Review Press, 1984).
CHARLES CUTLER teaches courses on Brazilian and Luso-African cultures at Smith College and raises geese.
Poet and novelist ROQUE DALTON (El Salvador, 1933-75) was one of the founders of the People’s Revolutionary Party (ERP).
THIAGO DE MELLO (Brazil) wrote Mormaço na Floresta, from which this excerpt is taken, in 1981, after ten years in political exile.
The author of eighteen books in Spanish, ARIEL DORFMAN (Chile) spent the years 1973-83 in exile; he is currently completing a book on the subject, along with a play based on his novel Widows.
ROASARIO FERRÉ (Puerto Rico) has published several books of short stories, two novels, and one volume of poems, along with feminist criticism; she also translated into Spanish Lillian Hellman’s Scoundrel Time.
A photographer since the 1960s JOSÉ ALBERTO FIGUEROA (Cuba) has exhibited work widely, from Mexico to Japan, Venice, France, and the U.S.
DARWIN J. FLAKOLL is a journalist and the husband of Claribel Alegría.
DAVID WILLIAM FOSTER teaches at Arizona State University and is Associate Editor of the Latin American Research Review.
Widely published as a short-story writer himself, H. E. FRANCIS teaches at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.
ABIGAIL GARCÍA (Cuba) won first prize in Canada’s 1983 International University Student Photography Competition, as well as the Gold Medal and the Kodak and Canon prizes.
DARIO RUIZ GÓMEZ (Colombia) is a novelist and essayist.
Represented in major collections in Europe and Latin America, LEONEL GÓNGORA (Colombia) teaches studio art at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and works part of the year in Colombia.
EDITH GROSSMAN, critic and translator of Latin American literature, is the author of The Antipoetry of Nicanor Parra.
A contemporary of Neruda, VICENTE HUIDOBRO (Chile, 1893-1948) was the founder of “Creationism” (the first condition of the poet is to create, the second to create, and the third to create).
Winner of the National Actress Award in 1980, ANA ISATARÚ (Costa Rica) published her first book of poems at age fifteen.
JOTAMARIO (Colombia) was one of the original nadaistas, a group that challenged tradition on all fronts; his most recent book, Mi Reino por Este Mundo, won the Premio Nacional de Poesia in 1980.
Until recently Latin America correspondent to The Nation, PENNY LERNOUX is the author of In Banks We Trust and Cry of the People; this essay was presented as a speech at Assumption College in early 1986.
In addition to seventeen volumes of poetry, ENRIQUE LIHN (Chile) has published a number of novels and short stories; awarded a Guggenheim grant in 1976, he is currently writing plays.
JAMES E. MARANISS is Professor of Romance Languages at Amherst College.
Founding editor of Caliban: A Journal of New World Thought and Writing, ROBERTO MÁRQUEZ teaches at George Washington University.
A revolutionary when the island was under Spanish domination, JOSÉ MARTÍ (Cuba, 1853-95) was present at the unveiling of the Statue of Liberty in 1886; the U.S.-sponsored radio station that presently beams programming toward Cuba from Florida bears his name.
MARUCHA (Cuba) does research on the history of Cuban photography and is represented by photographs in collections at the Mexican Council of Photography and at the National Museum and José Martí National Library, both in Havana.
Filmmaker and photographer MAYITO (Cuba) has had ten one-man shows and has exhibited in over thirty national and international competitions.
REGINA MCCARTHY is an assistant editor at Burdett and Ginn; this is her first publication as a translator.
A prize-winning journalist and director of the cultural supplement La Hora, LUZ MÉNDEZ DE LA VEGA (Guatemala) has produced nine books of prose and criticism, as well as at least five volumes of poetry.
Essayist, novelist, and former diplomat AUGUSTO MONTERROSO (Guatemala) currently lives in Mexico; in 1972 he received that country’s Xavier Villaurrutia Prize for fiction.
DANIEL MOYANO (Argentina) won the international Juan Rulfo Award in 1985 for this story; a former journalist, he went into exile during the Videla regime and currently lives in Spain, where he writes and plays the viola.
Author of two books of poems, ROSARIO MURILLO (Nicaragua) is Secretary General of the Sandinista Association of Cultural Workers and is married to President Daniel Ortega.
PABLO NERUDA (Chile, 1904-73), recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971, represented the Socialist party as Senator during the Allende years; he died within weeks after the coup that deposed Allende.
DAPHNE PATAI is the author of The Orwell Mystique: A Study in Male Ideology and Myth and Ideology in Contemporary Brazilian Fiction; “A Nun’s Tale” is part of her forthcoming book titled Our Own Lives: Brazilian Women Speak.
Founder and editor of Latin America’s leading cultural magazine Vuelta, OCTAVIO PAZ (Mexico) is the author of many volumes of poetry and essays; his Collected Poems is soon to appear in English.
Translator of Carlos Fuentes’ work among many others’, MARGARET SAYERS PEDEN‘s translation of three volumes of Neruda’s odes will be published by the University of California Press in the fall of 1987.
BERTALICIA PERALTA (Panama) has degrees in education, journalism and public relations, and has written more than a dozen volumes of poetry.
ELENA PONIATOWSKA (Mexico) was born in Paris; her novels Here’s Looking at You, Jesus and Dear Diego, translated by Magda Bogin, were published this year by Pantheon.
Elder statesman of Brazilian letters Carlos Drummond de Andrade introduced ADÉLIA PRADO (Brazil) to her public in 1976, claiming “St. Francis is dictating verses to a woman in (the state of) Minas Gerais”; she now has four books of poems in print, along with three volumes of prose.
ELINOR RANDALL has been translating for twenty-five years; among her translations is the four-volume collection of the selected writings of José Martí, published by Monthly Review Press.
Currently guest editor of the Hispanic arts and literature magazine El Taller Literario, poet and short-story writer BESSY REYNA (Cuba, Panama) has also edited Poems of Hope and Sorrow, an anthology of Latin American political poetry.
JOÃO UBALDO RIBEIRO is at work translating his novel Viva o Povo Brasilero for Harper & Row; in his spare time he studies amoebas.
Translator of works by Neruda, Sáinz, and Donoso, HARDIE ST. MARTIN is the editor of Roots and Wings: Poetry from Spain 1900-1975.
KATHY TAYLOR studies Latin American literature and is active in the Sanctuary movement.
The latest novel by MARIO VARGAS LLOSA to be translated into English is The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta.
Poet and translator ELLEN WATSON has completed translations of six Brazilian novels; she received a 1984 NEA translation fellowship to translate the poetry of Adélia Prado.
ELIOT WEINBERGER‘s Selected Essays: Works on Paper has recently been published by New Directions; he has edited and/or translated numerous books by Paz, including the forthcoming Selected Poems.