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Selected Madam Mayo posts on literary translation
Now and then, as the Muse tickles my elbow, I translate Mexican literature into English. For me translation is a labor of love, an homage to the author’s work and his or her language and culture. I started translating Mexican poets back in the early 1990s when, having lived in Mexico City for some years, my Spanish had become reasonably fluent and my own poetry was beginning to see publication in US literary magazines. I realized, quickly, that shockingly little of even of the most stellar quality literature is translated, so there was no sense in my playing shy– nor for you, should you feel inclined to translate. (You can read more about how I got started and what I have published over the years here.) Now and then I post something here at Madam Mayo about one or more of the authors I translate (among them, Agustín Cadena, Rose Mary Salum, and Ignacio Solares). As a long-time member of the American Literary Translators Association (ALTA),* I’ve had occasion to participate on conference panels and I’ve posted some of those transcripts here as well. I’ve also interviewed a number of my fellow translators who work in Spanish, as well as some who translate other languages. They have some remarkable things to say.
*As of 2021, I am no longer a member of this organization.
Madam Mayo posts on translation:
Selected Cabeza de Vaca Books, Part I:
Notes on the Two Editions of Cabeza de Vaca’s La Relación
(Also Known as Account, Chronicle, Narrative, Castaways, Report & etc.)
and Selected English Translations
May 3, 2021
Ignacio Solares’ “The Orders” in Gargoyle Magazine #72
March 15, 2021
Catamaran Literary Reader and My Translation of
Mexican Writer Rose Mary Salum’s “The Aunt”
September 2, 2019
Q & A: W. Nick Hill on Sleight Work and Mucho Más
March 25, 2019
Q & A: Ellen Cassedy,
Translator of On the Landing by Yenta Mash,
Master Chronicler of Exile
February 25, 2019
Luis Felipe Lomelí Interviews Yours Truly About
Mexico: A Traveler’s Literary Companion & Etc.
December 10, 2018
Q & A: Roger Greenwald on Translating
Tarjei Vesaas’s Through Naked Branches
and on Writing and Translating in the Digital Revolution
October 29, 2018
Spotlight on Mexican Fiction: “The Apaches of Kiev”
by Agustín Cadena in Tupelo Quarterly and Much More
August 7, 2017
Catamaran Literary Reader and Tiferet:
Two Very Fine Literary Magazines
February 27, 2017
Biographers International Interview with C.M. Mayo:
Strange Spark of the Mexican Revolution
January 17, 2017
Ellen Cassedy and Yermiyahu Ahron Taub
on Translating Blume Lempel’s Oedipus in Brooklyn
from the Yiddish
January 2, 2017
Café San Martín: Reading Mexican Poet Agustín Cadena
at the Café Passé in Tucson, Arizona
December 14, 2015
Translating Contemporary Latin American Poets and Writers:
Embracing, Resisting, Escaping the Magnetic Pull of the Capital
November 11, 2015
Translating Across the Border
October 29, 2015
Q & A with Roger Greenwald,
Poet and Literary Translator of Gunnar Harding
July 1, 2015
Why Translate? The Case of the President of Mexico’s Secret Book
November 17, 2014
Many more posts to be listed soon.
Read about Mexico: A Traveler’s Literary Companion, my anthology of 24 Mexican writers on Mexico, many in translation for the first time and Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero’s Secret Book, Spiritist Manual.