POSTS

Botanical Garden

at the Botanical garden on Saturday I saw a cute guy and thought I could be walking next to him right now   no of course I couldn’t
because within me is an anti-matter that turns everything inside out
I wouldn’t have known what to talk about            wouldn’t have known what on earth I’m doing in this garden
well it’s so pretty here         the air is fresh           magnolias flowering            I should walk             I should take pictures
I should repeat that we’re alive despite everything and we can love probably
though these are all theories         this matter has no anti—
well I’m already used to riding downtown without hearing the air raid sirens
I’m used to hearing the stories Kherson refugees tell at the bus stop
I’m used to thinking this is my city             could this be my city            it’s real
it’s not a set constructed for the sake of war

в субботу увидела в Ботаническом красивого мальчика подумала что могла бы идти сейчас рядом с ним нет конечно же не могла бы
потому что внутри меня антиматерия всё выворачивающая наизнанку
я не знала бы о чем говорить не знала бы что я вообще делаю в этом Ботаническом
нет здесь просто красиво конечно и свежий воздух магнолии цветут нужно гулять нужно делать фото
нужно говорить что мы живы несмотря ни на что и можем любить наверно
только это теория всё нет у этой ткани изнанки
нет я уже привыкла ездить в центр не слыша сирены
привыкла слушать рассказы беженцев из Херсона на остановке
привыкла думать это мой город неужели это мой город он настоящий
не декорации построенные ради войны

*

in 2010 we walked about the Voloshin house museum in Koktebel,
thinking, how kind of him to pray for the sake of this side and of that side
well no we didn’t know whether we were this side or that side            in one hundred years people intermingled
gendarmes     factory workers        Russians       Ukrainians     Poles
things got so mixed up that I didn’t know whom I’d pray for if I had to choose one of the sides
yes in 2010 Crimea was ours but we didn’t think about whose Crimea was             moreover Koktebel
I cared more about my poems not getting praised
nobody was ever going to praise them at any workshop
then I cared about my poems not getting praised at a workshop
and now I care that a missile might land on our building
will I be able to ride to my destination or will everyone have to disembark and proceed to a bomb shelter
now having a special feature means having a bomb shelter and a generator
I want to take a tour of the Tereshchenko mansion      today it’s a medical library where my grandmother used to work
once upon a time she took me there        now I remember
there was no occasion        I guess just to show me off to her colleagues after she’d retired
now I want to take the tour             reviews say they have a bomb shelter

в 2010-м мы ходили по дому-музею Волошина,
и думали как хорошо он молился за тех и за этих
нет мы не знали те мы или эти за сто лет так всё перемешалось
жандармы рабочие завода русские украинцы поляки
так всё перемешалось что было бы непонятно за кого здесь молиться если выбирать одну из сторон
да в 2010-м Крым был наш но мы не думали чей там Крым тем более – Коктебель
меня больше волновало что мои стихи никогда не похвалят
ни на одном семинаре их не похвалят
тогда меня волновало что стихи не похвалят на семинаре
а сейчас волнует не попадет ли в наш дом ракета
смогу ли я доехать куда мне нужно или всех отправят в бомбоуежище
сейчас в виде бонуса бомбоубежище и генератор
я хочу пойти на экскурсию в особняк Терещенко где сейчас Медицинская библиотека в которой работала моя бабушка
когда-то один раз она привела меня туда я теперь помню
что и повода не было наверное просто показать бывшим сотрудникам после выхода на пенсию
теперь я хочу пойти туда на экскурсию пишут что бомбоубежище есть

*

suddenly I understand what Kundera’s expression “Life Is Elsewhere” means
yes you move from a wonderful city to a wonderful city but you think that if I die here I will never go home
you visit the world’s top museums you could never have hoped to set foot in          but life isn’t here life is where the war and horror are
life is where your soul has already died
well it was silly of me to quote from bushido that a samurai lives as though he were already dead
these had been only words            none of us knew what this actually meant
none of us knew what it means to visit Europe’s best museums
and not feel anything but death     probably
nothing else remains inside these museums
nothing remains inside these museums but the sense of death
as though you’re considering:       here’s an epitaph     there’s an angel
but nothing will remain except despair

я вдруг поняла что такое “жизнь не здесь” о которой писал Кундера
да ты живешь в разных прекрасных городах но думаешь что если я тут умру больше не попаду домой
смотришь самые лучшие музейные коллекции мира увидеть которые вживую нельзя было мечтать но жизнь не здесь жизнь там где война и ужас
жизнь там где твоя душа уже умерла
нет смешно было цитировать бусидо про то что самурай живет так словно уже умер
но это были слова никто из нас не знал что это на самом деле
никто из нас не знал что значит смотреть на лучшие музеи Европы
и ничего кроме смерти не чувствовать может быть
в этих музеях и нет ничего иного
в этих музеях и не осталось ничего кроме чувства смерти
словно думаешь вот эпитафия вот ангел
а кроме отчаянья не останется ничего

*

here the siren goes off first with the awful wailing then a male voice says “attention, dear citizens, the air raid siren has been turned on” and that all must proceed to a shelter
then again the awful wailing          what charming Friday vibes
well of course people don’t proceed to a shelter every time they hear this
who would bother going to a shelter three times a day and wait there for the all clear
people go on living their usual lives          this wailing becomes background
we’d read in a textbook “people can get used to anything”,
we didn’t know then what “anything” was            we didn’t know enough       didn’t have enough experience
so people got used to sugar being dispensed by vouchers
then they bought the Dendy video console and began shooting ducks and equate themselves with Mario        found happiness for a few years
people get used to the state of anxiety    some people got used to the stockpiled dead bodies at the theater
because if your psyche doesn’t accept the new normal you have to go and kill yourself
the wailing of the alarm has stopped        I don’t know where the heck the missiles are heading
everyone is actually convinced that the missiles are not heading for them

здесь так включается тревога сначала воет ужасно потом мужской голос говорит “увага, шановні громадяни, оголошена повітряна тривога” и о том, что нужно идти в укрытие
потом снова ужасно воет такой вот пятничный вайб
нет никто конечно не идет в укрытие каждый раз когда это услышит
никто не будет по три раза за день ходить в укрытие и ждать там до отбоя
люди живут своей обычной жизнью этот вой становится фоном
когда мы читали в учебнике “человек ко всему привыкает”,
мы не знали, что такое “всё” нам  не хватало информации и кругозора
ну привыкает к тому что сахар по талонам
потом купил приставку “Денди” начал стрелять уток и отождествлять себя с Марио стал счастлив на пару лет
человек привыкает к тревоге кто-то привык к складу мертвых тел в здании театра
потому что если психика не нормализует это надо пойти и утопиться
вой сирены умолк не знаю куда там летят ракеты
каждый на самом деле уверен что летят не в него

*

we are calling           counting the rings    why is nobody answering
then we hear             I’m at a bus stop it’s noisy here     we exhale      thank god
but while we were listening to the rings   my heart nearly exploded
even though it wasn’t hit by a Kinzhal missile
well     I didn’t go out tonight           I watched a movie and then fell asleep
I dreamed of living in the dorms preparing to defend my thesis
sometimes I woke up and heard the air raid sirens
then I fell back asleep and the dorm’s gatekeeper was asking me who I was
I said don’t you know that I live here
look     this ID proves that I live here
I dug in my purse and couldn’t find it amidst all the paperwork
then my adviser showed up           I said my question will sound silly but isn’t it better to ask than not to ask
how long should my thesis be
he started explaining about the font type and size but the siren went off again

мы звоним считаем гудки почему никто не отвечает
потом слышим я просто на остановке здесь шумно выдыхаем слава богу
но пока идут гудки сердце готово разорваться на части
даже если в него не попал никакой “Кинжал”
нет я не пошла никуда я смотрела в кино а потом уснула
мне снилось что я живу в общежитии собираюсь защищать диссертацию
иногда просыпалась и слышала сирены
потом опять засыпала вахтерша в общежитии спрашивала у меня кто я такая
я говорила ну как это я ведь здесь живу
вот ведь документ о том что я здесь живу
рылась в сумке и никак его найти не могла всё какие-то другие бумаги
потом пришел мой научный руководитель я сказала да мой вопрос прозвучит смешно но лучше ведь спросить чем не спросить
какого объема должна быть моя работа
он начал объяснять про шрифт и кегль но снова сирена

*

a year ago I thought this was the end
I simply said goodbye to my family and went to sleep effortlessly
everything else seemed to be happening to somebody else but it was fascinating
as though I’d remained at that point A     I have turned the page
if I do get crushed by a blown-out building
I hope we won’t ever give up         while we have the strength to live we have to fight
people kept telling me the fable about a frog that fell into a bowl of sour cream      so that’s how I’ve been floundering all my life            perhaps this is dumb
perhaps this is all nonsense          all that sour cream
a year ago I was ready to die and now I want to live but to live without fear
today at the store women were buying vodka juice cigarettes             they will be celebrating
they were buying sliced meats      buying tea     well everyone has PTSD    I can hear the strain in their voices    some are intentionally upbeat       others are about to have a fit         and now outside the air raid siren is wailing
this is how we celebrate international women’s day

год назад я думала что это конец
просто попрощалась с близкими и спокойно легла спать
всё остальное было уже не со мной но было интересно
словно я оставалась в той точке А сейчас перевернула страницу
если меня вдруг все-таки придавит разрушенным домом
я хочу чтобы мы не сдавались никогда пока есть силы жить надо бороться
мне всё говорили про эту лягушку и сметану так вот барахтаюсь всю жизнь может быть это глупо
может быть смысла в этом нет никакого вся эта сметана
год назад я приготовилась умереть а сейчас хочется жить только жить без страха
сегодня в кассе женщины брали водку сок сигареты будут отмечать праздник
брали нарезанную колбасу брали чай нет у всех птрс я слышу по голосу одни нарочито бодрятся другие сейчас сорвутся в истерику а сейчас за окном сирена
вот так отпраздновали день борьбы за наши права

*

many have binged “The Walking Dead” and wondered how they would behave in a post-apocalyptic reality
it’s actually strange that the world is almost the same as it has always been but nobody knows who’s alive    who’s a zombie that will bite you   what form PTSD will take this time           from what direction the next missile will come
yes a year ago people first of all emptied the shelves   in the show they did the same
later the groceries were restocked            but what’s happened to each one of us
we thought once COVID was over we’d finally travel abroad
but when the war started the pandemic wasn’t over yet           in Germany we traveled wearing masks
btw the masks were effective         we didn’t get any respiratory sicknesses
who have we become now             virus    war      before that a few economic crises and revolutions
and even before that           empty shelves at the stores           condensed milk instead of wages             rapidly depreciating vouchers
and I   rushing home to find out what happened in the latest episode of “Santa Barbara”
perhaps the apocalypse was always happening and we were preparing for the “post”
not knowing that we wouldn’t recognize ourselves

многие смотрели сериал “Walking Dead” и представляли как бы действовали в ситуации пост-апоклипсиса
на самом деле странно что мир практически такой как всегда но никто не знает кто жив кто зомби который тебя укусит никто не знает что за птрс сейчас накроет тебя с какой стороны прилетит
да год назад первым делом раскупили в магазинах продукты в сериале делали так же
но продукты потом вернулись а что произошло с каждым из нас
мы думали вирус закончится и мы поедем наконец за границу
а на самом деле война началась вирус даже не закончился в Германии мы ездили в масках
кстати маски оказались эффективны никакими орви не болели
кем мы стали теперь вирус война до того несколько экономических кризисов и революций
а еще раньше пустые полки в магазинах сгущенка вместо зарплаты стремительно обесценивающиеся купоны
и я спешащая домой узнать что там в новой серии “Санта-Барбары”
может быть апокалипсис был всегда а мы готовились к этому “после”
не догадываясь что больше не узнаем себя

 

Translator’s Note:

These poems are a part of a cycle that Bragina wrote in 2023, a year after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began. In February 2022, she lived in Kyiv. After several weeks of intense bombing, she and her parents decided to leave the country. She spent several months as a refugee in Eastern Europe before returning to Kyiv.

Many Ukrainian poets met Russia’s full scale invasion with an outpouring of verse. Many fell silent. As is common practice among Eastern European poets, Bragina published her work on Facebook, continuing the practice of a public, online diary that came into being in the late 1990s, with the advent of the Internet. A translator herself, from English and German, Bragina writes both in Ukrainian and in Russian. Long an admirer of her poetic persona, I was honored when she gave me permission to translate some of her Russian-language work. I’m deeply moved by the erudite yet down-to-earth diction of her poems, by its dark humor, and the way that she intertwines past, present, and future in her lines.

Bragina’s work has been translated to English multiple times, including by Elina Alter, Anna Krushelnitskaya, Mark Wingrave, Stephen Cole, Olga Livshin, Andrew Janco, Lev Fridman, Philip Nikolayev, and Josephine von Zitzewitz.

 

Olga Bragina is a poet, novelist, essayist, and translator. She was born in Kyiv in 1982 and graduated from the Kyiv National Linguistic University with a degree in translation. She has published five collections of poetry, a book of short stories, and two novels.

 

 

Olga Zilberbourg is a San Francisco-based writer and the author of LIKE WATER AND OTHER STORIES (WTAW Press) that includes short and flash fiction. Zilberbourg has published translations of Olga Bragina’s poems in World Literature Today, Cagibi, and Consequence Journal.

 

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I Know Nothing Indeed

I KNOW NOTHING INDEED
nothing more sad
more hateful
more frightful
more tearful in the world
than hearing love
throughout the day
repeated like Low Mass

It happened once
a woman came
a woman came to pass
whose arms were heavy with roses

 

Always You’ll Come

Always you’ll come
as you came
even though
I am
at the other end of the World
always you’ll come
as you came
to chase off the fever
of my burning forehead
with your hands
that flourish with jasmine
but how often clammy
with fright

……………………………………………………

Even though I am at the other end of the World
always you’ll come
across the line

 

There Is No Noon That Stays

THERE IS NO NOON THAT STAYS
and since it’s no longer twenty years old
my heart
nor the hard tooth
of the little old man

no noon that stays
I will open it
no noon that stays
I will open it
no noon that stays
I will open
no noon that stays
I will open the window
no noon that stays
I will open the window to the spring
no noon that stays
I will open the window to the spring that I will eternal
no noon that stays

 

Through the Window Half-Opened

THROUGH THE WINDOW HALF-OPENED
on my disdain for the world
a breeze rose
perfumed by stephanotis
while you drew to YOURSELF
the whole curtain

As
I see you
I will always re-see you
drawing to yourself
the poem’s whole curtain
where
God how beautiful you are
but slow to be nude

 

Hiccup

And although I’ve swallowed seven gulps of water
three to four times every twenty-four hours
my childhood returns to me
in a shuddering hiccup
my instinct
like the fuzz the thug

Disaster
speak to me of disaster
speak to me of it

My mother wanting from a son very good table manners

            Hands on the table
            bread is not cut
            bread is broken
            bread is not wasted
            bread of God
            bread of the sweat of your Father’s brow
            bread of bread

            A bone is eaten with measure and discretion
            a stomach ought to be sociable
            and every sociable stomach
            lets out burps
            a fork is not a tooth-pick
            no blowing your nose
            so it’s known
            so it’s seen by all the world
            and then you have rightly
            a well-raised nose
            don’t wipe off the seat

            And then and then
            and then in the name of the Father
                                    of the Son
                                    of the Holy Spirit
at the end of each meal

            And then and then
            and then disaster
speak to me of disaster
speak to me of it

My mother wanting from a son a reminder

            If you don’t know your history lesson
            you shall not go to Mass
            Sunday
            with your Sunday things

            This child will be the shame of our name
            this child will be our name of God

            Be quiet
            I’ve told you or not that you have to speak French
            the French of France
            the French of French
            the French French

Disaster
speak to me of disaster
speak to me of it

My Mother wanting from a son
son of his mother

            You didn’t greet the neighbor
            already your shoes are filthy
            and so I rebuke you there in the street
            on the grass or the Savannah
            in the shadow of the Monument to the Dead
            while you play
            while you frolic with So-and-so
            with So-and-so who isn’t baptized

Disaster
speak to me of disaster
speak to me of it

My Mother wanting from a son much do
            much re
            much mi
            much fa
            much sol
            much la
            much ti
            much do
            re-mi-fa
            sol-la-ti
                do

It came back to me that you didn’t go yet
to your vi-o-lin lesson
A banjo
you tell me a banjo
how do you say
a banjo
you really say
a banjo
No sir
            you know we don’t allow those in our house
no ban
no jo
no gui
no tar
the mulattos don’t do that
so leave that to the negros

 

Translator’s Note:

Damas was one of the key figures of the négritude (“blackness”) movement, alongside the Martiniquais poet Aimé Césaire (1913-2008) and the Senegalese poet and president Léopold Ségar Senghor (1906-2001).  (The Malagasy poet Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo (1901-1937) could be considered one of their forerunners.)  Négritude was a movement by French-speaking African authors to focus on the Black experience.  Sometimes this involved drawing on the cultural heritage of their own countries (as Senghor did, in particular); sometimes it involved delving into the “colonized personality” (in Frantz Fanon’s phrase) of Africans and the African diaspora; sometimes it involved recounting their contemporary experience. 

Though the movement was present in prose, its greatest power was in its poetry.  (Thus Sartre’s essay on the movement was entitled “Black Orpheus.”)  Damas’ poetry was metrically irregular and inspired by jazz, and it made use of everyday language (a contrast to Césaire’s frequent Surrealism).  His first collection, Pigments (1937), was so sharp in its discussion of the black experience that it was banned by France as a “threat to the security of the state.”  The poem “Hiccup” comes from Pigments; the remaining poems translated here come from his later collection Névralgies (Neuralgias) (1966).  Both are published by Présence Africaine, the publishing arm of a journal of the same name, for which Damas served as a contributing editor.

In my translations, I have replicated Damas’ line breaks and his indentation (particularly in “Hiccup”), as well as his practice of sometimes including the title, italicized, as the first line of his poems.  I hope I have captured something of his style, though my aim here has been faithfulness to the words rather than to the rhythm.

 

Léon-Gontran Damas (1912-1978) was born in Cayenne, French Guiana.  After initial studies in Martinique, he moved to Paris to study law, where he began to write essays and poems.  During World War II, he served in the French Army and took an active part in the French Resistance.  After the War, he continued his literary and political work, serving as the Guianese delegate to the French National Assembly and as a UNESCO delegate for the Society of African Culture.  He spent his final years teaching at Howard University in Washington, D.C., where he died.

 

B.P. Otto is a translator, poet, author, and homemaker; his original poetry has appeared in The Lyric, and his translations of poems by Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo appeared in a previous issue of ANMLY.

 

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from What the lightning brings

THE PAST HAS LEFT YOU BEHIND, YOU HAVE CONSECRATED YOURSELF
            to that past that fed you up

but you live holstered on the stone, the stone is
your horizon

on top of your shoulders, where the pain abdicates, and the
tears dig their grave,
            on that fragile wood, they overcrowd themselves
the days without time

you look at time running in the distance, towards the void
                        of its useless destruction.

 

EL PASADO TE HA DEJADO ATRÁS, TE HAS CONSAGRADO
            a ese pasado que te colma

pero vives enfundada en la piedra, la piedra es
tu horizonte

sobre tus hombros, donde el dolor abdica, y las
lagrimas cavan su tumba,
            sobre esa madera frágil, se hacinan
los días sin tiempo

miras el tiempo correr a lo lejos, hacia el vacío
                        de su inútil destrucción.

 

THERE, THAT THREAD OF SMOKE TILLING MY EAR
that clamor of my head flanked by the wind
or the life that resists its fatality
in the middle of a pure day
there’s fragile snow and absolute
searching its secret
a past that seems irreparable
a trail that deviates from the corn
where the herb numbs.

now we will not have but deserted sheds
dust settling within the shutters
silent debris over our nape.

 

AY, ESE HILO DE HUMO LABRANDO MI OÍDO
ese clamor de mi cabeza flanqueado por el viento
o la vida que se resiste a la fatalidad
en mitad de un día puro
hay allí nieve frágil y absoluta
buscando su secreto
un pasado que parece irreparable
un sendero que se desvía del maíz

donde la hierba se adormece.
ya no tendremos sino galpones desiertos
polvo aposentado en los postigos escombros silenciosos sobre nuestra nuca.

 

WHERE THE NIGHT RISES TO DELVE INTO THE CLARITY
            there too you lack the shadow

I warm my ear of the wind
            here
            in front of the ash of the stone
I fill my hands with that furious cold
I make its roots darker
           in the dense light

 

DONDE LA NOCHE SE ALZA PARA AHONDAR LA CLARIDAD
            allí también te falta la sombra

me acojo el oído del viento
            aquí
            frente a la ceniza de la piedra
lleno mis manos con ese frío furor
hago más oscuras sus raíces
           en la luz espesa​​

 

I LOOK AT THE HORIZON UNDERNEATH THE RADIANCE OF THE
                        battle
and in my anxiety I wait for the finale
            of the strife.
such is my luck, the one that debates against dilated powers
in the middle of enormous stones without smoke
in the pure abandonment, in the absence of all
humidity, as if I could hear the scream of my bones.

if someone were to ask me how to awaken hope
how to discover the herb without giving a single step back
how to silence so much memory and not redden before the
magnificence of the constellations, I would respond
that we still don’t feel the pain of that lost kingdom.

 

MIRO EL HORIZONTE BAJO EL RESPLANDOR DE LA 
                        batalla
y en mi ansiedad espero el fin
            de la contienda.
esta es mi suerte, la que se debate contra poderes dilatados
en medio de enormes piedras sin humo
en el desamparo puro, en la ausencia de toda
humedad, como si escuchara el grito de mis huesos.

si alguien me pregunta cómo despertar a la esperanza
cómo hallar la hierba sin dar un paso atrás
cómo silenciar tanto recuerdo y no enrojecer ante la
magnificencia de las constelaciones, yo respondería
que aún no sentimos el dolor de ese reino perdido.


 

I ONLY ENCOUNTER IN MY ROUTE THIS ENLARGED AIR.
I walk towards it with the docility of the mast that, by chance, talks to me
of the savage pains returned for the winter
eternal guest of some morning, the alive blood, the stone that falls from heaven.

All the air fades or talks while it walks or sprouts out
of the crust of a tree before it addresses us.

The sun gives us its back, takes care of our richness, it returns us
the metal and the wood to fortify our memory.
We have had dust and ash
some surge, some farewells and the promise of other landscapes
givers of shadow and light from some stone.

 

SÓLO ENCUENTRO EN MI RUTA ESTE AIRE AGRANDADO.
Camino hacia él con la docilidad del mástil que, acaso, me hable
De los dolores salvajes devueltos por el invierno
huésped eterno de alguna mañana, la sangre viva, la piedra que baja del cielo.

Todo el aire se desvanece o habla mientras camina o brota
de la corteza de un árbol antes de abordanos.

El sol nos da la espalda, cuida nuestra riqueza, nos devuelve
el metal y la madera para fortalecer nuestra memoria.
Hemos tenido polvo y ceniza
algún oleaje, algunas despedidas y la promesa de otros paisajes
dadores de sombra y luz desde alguna piedra.

 

NOW I DO NOT HAVE THAT PAIN THE STRENGTH OF THE ABYSS
the pain of the stone that lifts up to your chest
           what I do have is the umbral where the wind nourishes itself 
           with its páramo face
this lament that comes from the center of the earth.

 

YA NO TENGO ESE DOLOR LA FUERZA DEL ABISMO
el dolor de la piedra levantada hasta tu pecho
           tengo sí el umbral donde se nutre el viento
           con su rostro de páramo
este lamento que viene del centro de la tierra.

 

Translator’s Note:

The apparition that is leftover from lightning cradles these poems. A welcoming by chance to a search fueled by obsession, often blissfully painful. The illumination and engulfing nightfall from such a strike, done to or by the one that wields the pen, or both, spreads over a battlefield within the mind. Its origins: a cause and symptom of existence within darkness. Language, which strips noise and creates sound from wind, poses itself above the hardness of the stones, nuzzles itself into the emptiness that it encounters with an echo of persistence. That obsession reins in shadows as part of their arsenal. Esdras Parra always attuned her ear to welcome such a strike, to possibly hear her finale, what would be left afterward, or what was left to get there. Within that illumination, the flash emerges from and into her with a violent raze of her body and senses. Her manuscripts were written in a tight, loose script, almost unintelligible, mimicking her knowledge of her inevitable but intangible goodbye.

Lo que trae el relampago (What the Lightning Brings) is made up of two books that nourish themselves on each other: Cada noche su camino (Each Night its Own Path) and El extremado amor (The Extreme Love). They diffuse as each follows the sensorial progression of the light/shadow of the other. The books have a symbiotic relationship, insisting on their reflection; one represents the finale of a life, and the other the beginning of that echo. These works, written in the final years of her life, reflect deep ontological and existential contemplations, grappling with themes of death, love, and the self​​​​: “Why does the shadow not have as well its own echo”. These hyper-humanistic themes of solitude, existential search, and reflection demand a profound call for meaning within the imagery of a naturally abstract landscape. These poems give us a somber, imaginative third space during her auto-grieving. Through a navigation on this battlefield, the elemental pastoral wields the senses as her weapon. Parra invites us into her somber escape, constructing an introspective utopia to face and claim victory in armor and glory against her existence within transnecropolitics and extending her life into perennial preservation.

Despite Parra’s poems braiding universal themes and an affective state of wonder, she still very much exists and masters her cultural practice. Subjectivities of language and cultural presence are necessary in poetic creations. In THE PAST HAS LEFT YOU BEHIND, YOU HAVE CONSECRATED YOURSELF, Parra utters “a ese pasado que te colma”, using the word “colma” has specific cultural signifiers aside from the direct use of the word’s definition which means “filled up” or “heap”. And while in colloquial use it contains remnants of its formal definition, in slang it is used to describe the inconceivable or unthinkable. The closest translated rendition I believe would be “fed up”. It is a phrase that is used to describe something that is unfair due to how “filled up” you are.

Translating Parra’s poems is an intimate task through her entrapment, through wounds. Like stitches made of grass, she embraces the precarity of life by its teeth. Her landscapes form a whirlpool of time travel, and teleportation for a diaspora, of being a child in the wonders of the Andes mountains. She was born and spent her childhood in Mérida, where the Andes are at their oldest. Though at its lowest height in comparison to the rest of the mountain range, one can hear the calls of such ancient formations in the fog curtain. Being a child on such a mountain you are connected to some of the oldest lands at their last breaths. In this collection, Parra exhumes this relationship in conversation with her body at its last exhalations as a child does to a mountain. In NOW I DO NOT HAVE THAT PAIN THE STRENGTH OF THE ABYSS, she speaks about the “páramo”, which is a variety of alpine tundra ecosystems located in the Andes Mountain Range. The ecologist Zdravko Baruch broadly describes the páramo as “all high, tropical, montane vegetation above the continuous timberline”. Within the mountains, you see rounds of soft peaks and valleys lush in full green. Although one can’t see how high one is, you feel it. The cold is thin due to such heights, soft but enters your ears and whispers in shivers. Páramo can be translated to “moorland”. As a child myself of such lands, I believe it integral to honor the zone not just as a type of land but as one that deserves its own distinct title. This type of Venezuelan ecological subjectivity is instrumental in Parra’s pastoral elements, therefore I decided to keep the sonics of the original word intact.

Parra baptizes us into her hyper-naturalistic landscape and uses elemental and a sensorial arsenal to transverberate her introspective existentialism and the radical negativity that drives the gravitational force for her perennial futurity against her approaching terminality. She is the owner of a singular voice. Parra offers texts that insist on surviving. Plotted along an orbit of transubstantiation and nature, she wields a battlefield along an ontological trip constructed in fragmented, iridescent points and luminescent sharp edges. She utilizes this cyclical conversion through such a transitory stage of the edges of life to drive original questions within Venezuelan poetry.

 

Esdras Parra was a trans poet, writer, essayist, translator, and illustrator born on July 13, 1929 in Santa Cruz de Mora, Mérida, Venezuela, and passed away on November 18, 2004 in Caracas. She studied philosophy in Caracas at the Central University of Venezuela (UCV) and in Rome. Her professional career included being the literary director of Monte Ávila Editores, coordinating the literary paper of the El Nacional newspaper, and serving as the editor-in-chief of Revista Imagen. Parra’s literary journey began with three notable narrative books: El insurgente (1967), Por el norte el mar de las Antillas (1968), and Juego limpio (1968). However, she eventually focused exclusively on poetry and drawing. Her poetry works include Este suelo secreto (1995), which won the Bienal de Literatura Mariano Picón Salas, Antigüedad del frío (2000), and Aún no (2004), which was published shortly before her death. Lastly, these are poems from Parra’s posthumously published collection, Lo que trae el relampago (What The Lightning Brings, 2021), published in Caracas by Fundación La Poeteca in 2021. It gathers the two poetry collections she left unpublished: Cada noche su camino, written between 1996 and 1997, was carefully revised for a definitive final version; and El extremado amor, written between 2002 and 2003, which never had a conclusive draft as she was uprooted by illness and death.

Valeria Rodrigo is a lesbian writer and translator from Valencia, Venezuela. She is featured or forthcoming in Foglifter, Azahares, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and Columbia Review.

 

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Midday

for José María Arguedas

Everything is ready for the sacrifice.
The cow moos in the adobe temple.
Harsh red tear,
rubble in flames,
silence and the strong scent of sunflower,
of crowned roosters.

Not one leaf will fall,
only the species falls,
and the fruit falls, poisoned by the air.

There is no center,
all these faces in stone
are horrible flowers,
messy stars, without will.

Not one hour of peace in this immense day.
The light devours its portion so cruelly.

The sea is distant and alone,
the earth, impure and vast.

 

Letter

for N.

Open fruit unspoiled by the air,
undented blade, never blackened,
the blood flows towards you
and returns without danger,
without bridges,
thought rests within you.

Sundial,
noble hue,
the summer of my house,
for your sake the wolf is educated
and the rodent returned to its nest.

Sister,
your white face, closed
with no discernible history,
you, the very one, immobile,
pure ideal.

 

Eve Leaves

animal of salt
if you turn the head
on your body
you will become

            and you will have a name

and the word
slithering
will be your mark

 

Translator’s Note:

In addition to translating Spanish-language poetry, I am a poet myself. Blanca Varela’s poetry is surrealist and lyric rather than narrative, and I think that only a lyric poet could translate her work with any real authenticity. There’s no such thing as a 1:1 translation, but I believe a translation can come close to a kind of equivalency if it maintains this authenticity along with the integrity of the piece. I’ve done my best to do that here, with Varela’s poetry.

I first came across Varela’s work when I was studying at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru (La PUCP) in 2011. I purchased her final collection, Concierto animal (Animal Concert), from the university bookstore and was immediately captivated by her stark honesty and her uncanny manner of truth-telling. The stanza that first really got me was from her poem “esta mañana” (“this morning”): “this morning I am other / all night / the wind gave me wings / to fall”.

Over the last 14 years, I’ve acquainted myself with more and more of Varela’s work, and a few years ago I began translating some of her poems, just for my own enjoyment, when I realized that few English translations existed of her work. Varela, who is now well known in Peru and other parts of South America, initially had to be championed by a man: Octavio Paz. The idea of introducing more Latin American women writers to English-speaking audiences galvanized me and my translation work.

Varela’s work is a fascinating challenge for a translator. In many of her poems she uses no punctuation or capital letters, and the syntax can be tricky to unpack; however, I actually find those poems easier to work with. The main reason for this is that it gives me more leeway to play around with line breaks. This may not sound like a big deal but it makes the translating job much freer (if that makes any sense)! The other big challenge is simply that the imagery she uses is so unique, so precise and sharp, that it’s quite the creative process to try to “match” it as well as possible in another language.

If these pieces speak to you, please share them! Varela was a singular writer and deserves much wider acclaim than she currently enjoys.

 

Blanca Varela (1926-2009) was a surrealist poet born in Lima, Peru. With contemporary fellow Peruvian poets, she sparked a national poetry movement known as “la Generación del 50.” Her early work was championed by Octavio Paz, who wrote the introduction to Varela’s first volume of poetry, Ese puerto existe (That Port Exists, 1959). Varela has been honored with myriad awards, including the Octavio Paz Prize for poetry in 2001, the Federico García Lorca City of Granada International Poetry Prize in 2006, and Spain’s Queen Sofia Prize for Ibero-American Poetry in 2007. Despite this acclaim, she has not yet been translated extensively into English.

Liana Kapelke-Dale (she/her) is a queer and disabled poet, ATA-Certified Translator (Spanish to English), and mixed-media artist. Her translations of Peruvian poet Blanca Varela’s work have appeared or are forthcoming in The New England Review, Poet Lore, Contemporary Verse 2, december magazine, and The Los Angeles Review. Liana has authored a full-length collection of poetry, Seeking the Pink (Kelsay Books), as well as two poetry chapbooks. She holds a BA in Spanish Language and Literature and a Certificate in Latin American and Caribbean Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and a JD from the University of Wisconsin Law School.

 

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Nothing

These so-called ‘enemies’ were, at least to my mind,
simply different names for sensitivity and intellect.
—Akutagawa Ryūnosuke

Only a curtain of skin separates us from the other folk.
The ear of the dying, dry wax softened
to the rhythm of the old world.

The weaver-spider exits your ear.

She staples your eyelids.
Your eyes are erupting
(She keeps them in her pockets.)

Liquor joins us and the fever
under a sky
bluer for some than for others.

Kill a rooster and seal our friendship
with blood and aguardiente.

Everyone chasing chimera, flesh torn
from stars,
shut in closets with false bottoms.

Debate is a cliché one learns to master
copying and pasting.
I a m n o t i n t e r e s t e d.
What I’m doing is drawing up strategies to dynamite
the nuclear family.

This is my conclusion:
tenderness is more powerful than rage,
but only by force.

We will swallow a shooting star to attain
the composition of helium. Vanishing
won’t be necessary because we will strike
to paralyze birth.

 

Nada

Los pecados capitales son solo otros
nombres de la inteligencia y la sensibilidad.
—Akutagawa Ryunosuke

Solo una cortina de piel nos separa de lxs otrxs.
El oído del moribundo, cera seca reblandecida
al ritmo del viejo mundo.

La araña tejedora sale de tu oído.

Grapa tus párpados.
Tus ojos están en erupción
(Se los guarda en los bolsillos).

Nos une el licor y la fiebre
bajo un cielo
más azul para algunxs que para otrxs.

Mata un gallo y sella nuestra amistad
con sangre y aguardiente.

Todxs persiguiendo quimera, carne arrancada
de estrellas,
encerradxs en armarios con doble fondo.

Debatir es un cliché que se aprende a dominar
copiando y pegando.
N o m e i n t e r e s a.
Yo lo que estoy es trazando estrategias para dinamitar
la familia nuclear.

Esta es mi conclusión:
la ternura es más poderosa que la rabia,
pero solo a golpes.

Nos tragaremos una estrella fugaz para conseguir
la materialidad del helio. No hará falta
desvanecerse porque nuestra huelga será
paralizar el nacimiento.

 

Translator’s Note:

“Nothing,” or “Nada,” comes from Paloma Chen’s Invocación a las mayorías silenciosas (Letraversal, 2022). As a Chinese American translating a Chinese Spanish collection of poetry, I resonate closely with the commentary on translation and belonging. Chen plunges the reader into the ambiguous crevice between Spanish and Mandarin, aware of the gazes of both Chinese relatives and Spaniards encountered on the street. My process aims to reflect the perspective on translation embodied in the text, embracing a starting point of uncertainty to reconstruct the Chinese diaspora identity through the self-gaze.

I am drawn to “Nada” for its sense of trappedness, and with that, a lurking explosiveness. “Nada” reflects the collection’s demand to take hold of this explosive energy, to turn the sourness of unbelonging into a drive to redefine one’s reality. In translating this poem, I pay particular attention to the colliding threads of destruction and creation, following Chen’s vision of language as a point of genesis.

Spanish-speaking readers encounter “lxs otrxs,” a gender neutral and nonbinary way of writing “the others,” and pronounced in Chen’s recording as “les otres.” The use of the x is singular; perhaps its appearance is jarring, but does not feel surprising. These choices are consistent with Chen’s tendency to make poetry out of everyday language and everyday language into poetry: language is always evolving, and words that seem new and strange when they first receive mainstream attention can become the norm. With this in mind, I aim to highlight “lxs otrxs” without unduly alienating them. In the translation, I use “folks” as a word bearing a similar usage in US English. While “folks” has certainly become more normalized in US English than the x has been in Spanish, it nonetheless aims for a similar intentional inclusivity.

In this poem, violence is central, yet casual, simply par for the course. There are by turns tearing, killing, and shutting. When translating “debatir es un cliché que se aprende a dominar / copiando y pegando,” I stuck to “copying and pasting.” “Pegando,” however, can also mean “hitting” or “striking,” adding a layer of violence to the meaning of debate learned through unoriginal means. I chose copying and pasting to strengthen a tone of despised banality, sharply contrasted when the speaker declares the intent to explode the norm of the nuclear family.

All of this explosive potential boils down to a defined purpose, which emerges as though it were foresight. A resolute future tense puts power into the hands of the speaker, compounded by the use of a collective first person. In translating, it is this sense of purpose that becomes the most crucial, and to remember that this explosion ignites not for the sake of destruction, but for the creation of a life on self-defined terms.

 

Paloma Chen is a Spanish-Chinese journalist, poet, writer and researcher. She has published the poetry collection Invocación a las mayorías silenciosas (Letraversal) and the multilingual poetry app Shanshui Pixel Scenes 山水像素场景. Her poems have been included in anthologies like Matria poética: una antología de poetas migrantes (La Imprenta, 2023) and Última poesía crítica. Jóvenes poetas en tiempos de colapso (Lastura, 2023).

 

Julia Conner is a Chinese American educator, writer, and translator from the United States South. Her translations and interviews have appeared in Action Books Blog, Asymptote Blog, and Poetry Northwest.

 

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People

Sometimes
people assume
that I can only understand
things based on signs
and movements of hand gestures.
The hand in the mouth means food
the number of fingers signify
price or value, repetition.
The performance of the movement
or action shown
to be honest is insulting.
Though they are unaware
of their prejudice
I am consciously judging.
These sons of bitches
look like idiots.
I am smarter than them.
In the end, I still carry
the burden
of understanding.
After all they just want
to get a message across.

 

Ang Mga Tao

Minsan
ipinagpapalagay
na mauunawaan ko lamang
ang mga bagay sa senyas
at kumpas ng kamay.
Ang kamay sa bibig ay pagkain
ang bilang ng daliri ay bilang
presyo o halaga, pag-uulit.
Ang pag-arte sa ipinapakitang
kilos o paggawa sa totoo
ay nakakainsulto.
Di man sila malay
sa panghuhusga
malay akong nanghuhusga.
Parang tanga
ang mga putang ina.
Mas matalino pa ako sa kanila.
Magkagayon man
nasa akin ang bagahe
ng pag-unawa.
Nais lamang nilang
magtawid ng mensahe.

 

Translator’s Note:

Lean Borlongan explores disability poetics in the Philippine context, though he doesn’t actively use this label. His poetics lean heavily on the material realities of the country, one that is perpetually in political and economic crisis and alternately lacks the social safety nets for people with disabilities. Borlongan often writes about specific moments in his lived experience, especially affective ones that could be linked to his condition and people’s responses to it. The realization of difference could be immediate or can only be clearer when looking back. The poem ‘People’ belongs to another category, still written in terse and frank verse, where he condenses the sum total of moments, and again arrives at showing both frustration and making do. Because of his accessible language, one might overlook Borlongan’s carefully constructed imagery and tension. In translating, I have attempted to maintain this aura of plainness that actually exposes how deep ableism runs and is considered normal. The poem appears in his second collection, A Different Body (2019), which I have translated in full.

 

Lean Borlongan graduated from Polytechnic University of the Philippines with a BS in Food Technology and from UP Diliman with a MA in Filipino: Creative Writing. He has authored three poetry books, Sansaglit, sa ibang katawan, and Pasakalye. Pasakalye which was the recipient of the 40th National Book Award and was heralded as the best book in poetry in Filipino by the Manila Critics Circle. He is currently a PhD student in creative writing in Filipino at UP Diliman.

 

Eric Abalajon’s translations have appeared in Asymptote, Modern Poetry in Translation, Poetry Northwest, Exchanges: Journal of Literary Translation, and Tripwire: a journal of poetics. He lives near Iloilo City in the Philippines.

 

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from The Shadow of Hermaphroditus

Once a leaf falls, it can never reattach to the tree again. Leaves dry out, stolen away by the wind, only to die and decay. Covered by soil, only to become food for another tree. That is the law of the jungle. Hold on, did I say the jungle? Yes, that is the correct word, perfectly placed in the sentence, it is merely missing a suitable diacritical mark. It is the law of the jungle. I am nothing but a tiny leaf that prematurely fell off of an old perennial tree filled with solid branches and way more leaves than necessary. Will she feel the absence of a small leaf? A leaf experiencing the feeling of freedom, free from what stopped her from accompanying birds who settled and turned this tree into their home. Birds decide when to leave and when to stay. I wonder how many birds have settled on this tree, which has lived for over two centuries. A vast, huge tree planted in some forest. I believe no one cares to figure out how long it has been alive. I do not even care much about it.

Happiness engulfs the leaf at the first taste of freedom. Surrendering itself to the wind, flying off, dancing, somersaulting in the wind, flattening its palms and not closing them until they face upwards, spinning around itself like a ballet dancer not wanting to land on the ground, ever. Dreams of being a swan, embracing butterflies, giggling at the trickle of a raindrop down its back:

– Oh, you are heavier than I expected. You felt lighter when I was connected to branch fifty-four on the frontal left side. I was closer to the side whereas my sister was closer to the trunk. That made it easier for me to be freed when the wind blew over. I did not have an escape plan. I decided on a whim and went for it. Oh raindrop, do you know that I am grown enough to be free? Away from the aging tree that only seems to shake off its leaves once they dry out, birthing new fresh green leaves, small in size, dancing with every blow of the wind. I overheard people enjoying its shadows say how barren the tree is. If that is the case, then what are we for god’s sake? Aren’t we the children of this tree, ones it does not mind letting go of whenever it pleases, definitely not how we imagined it? Oh you raindrop, you are hindering my movement, can you fall so I can fly off once again?

The leaf sways its body until the raindrop falls. Flies again, day after day until its yellow features come about, losing its power, because of its lightness it begins flying faster. Coming across many trees as it flies away, no one recognizes her though. She almost embraces the sky, believing wholeheartedly that she will become a mother to all the leaves roaming around on this planet. Then weakness creeps in, falling, unable to fly anymore. Focusing its vision on the sky, with the wind blowing, but it’s heavier than to be able to ride the waves of the wind. Becoming too heavy to ride like a magic carpet that will take them to the promised heaven. She thinks of her mother, the enormous aging tree with thousands of branches, if not more. Where is she now? Oh how stupid of a question this is, she must be right where I left her. She should be the one asking where I am! Which land will be my cemetery; dying as a stranger, the homeland will not embrace her, she lost some of her parts, pale, neither green nor yellow, not even gray. It seems as though she became transparent, about to disintegrate, veins are clear as day, is she old enough to pass? Maybe, maybe she was one of those tender ones consumed by death, disintegrating at the sight of all those leaves who lived on the same tree. Those that, one day, fell with her. Are they alright or are they suffering as well, living their last moments somewhere else?

– Maybe, all I know is that the happiness that engulfs me when I fly is incomparable. Remembering its beauty, I do not regret it one bit. For freedom is not cheap and I willingly paid for it.

The leaf whispered to itself, succumbing to the last nap, becoming the mother of freedom, a mother who has no care in this world when it comes to who worships her.

That is me, my story. I was happy to be free upon falling from my tree… My mother told me how, unlike other babies, I did not cry upon birth. I was happy enough to refuse to cry. Doctors said I swallowed too much fluid the moment I was born, causing me to suffocate. Yes, really. My mother mentioned how blue I was, almost purple. None of their attempts worked, they could not get me to cry. It seemed as if crying was difficult for me, as it remains to date and always has been. Maybe it was because I was not touched by the devil, or the devil simply had not formed in front of me. One of the sheikhs whispered to my father when he took me there after doubting if I was a female. They leaned towards thinking that I was a boy whose organs failed to develop fully. As my father had mentioned in the story of my deadpan birth. The sheikh said:

– Do not fret, nothing is wrong with your daughter. No one was able to run from the knick of the devil other than Mary the daughter of Imran and her son Jesus, and your daughter.

My questioning father muttered:

– I still do not understand, is she a boy or a girl?

Perplexed, the sheikh said:

– What do you want me to say? She is most probably a girl, can’t you see her hair? Have you ever seen a boy with hair this long?

– Have you ever seen a girl with a mustache?!

As he was leaving, my father pondered the issue of my being an alien who the devil has not laid a hand on. He stopped and muttered:

– Do you think she is a prophet?

The sheikh went into a laughing fit, answering sarcastically:

– Do not dream too big, is Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) the last prophet with the False Messiah being part of your ancestry?

Laughing loudly, my father thought: Oh that fool, it is only he who is the false messiah. He does not even know how to pronounce ‘Al-Masikh Al-Dajal’ properly, confusing him with Jesus the son of Mary who is being resurrected, oh what a liar.

I spent a whole month in the NICU. During that time, my mother cared for my siblings back home. Was I spoiled? No. But some said I was attempting to be. I never drank my mother’s milk, as it dried up before my lips got the chance to latch on. She would visit me and look as if I was a stranger, looking at me through the glass panel of my incubator, filled with warmth, well-lit with its lamp that never turns off. Given my extreme sensitivity and inability to breathe without a machine, she was not allowed to touch me. Only a month after my birth was she able to fully embrace me. I did not cry when that happened either. I did not ask for her breast, I was content with formula milk that I fed on through a thin nasogastric tube inserted through my right nostril. I remained calm in my mother’s arms with her puzzled looks as if she was meeting me for the first time. I did not return that same look to her. I was used to changes in facial expressions, the only thing I could not comprehend was the hot liquid falling on my face like dew drops falling from the heart of a cloud straight onto my cheeks. Only because of their saltiness did I later figure out that these drops were in fact falling from my mother’s eyes. Later I realized that these were tears. The doctors concurred that I most probably would not be able to speak given that I did not scream even once, saying her throat might not work later on when she tried to speak. I did speak and I did laugh in the end, having conversations like no other. I was known for my exceptional wit, no one could escape my remarks charging at them. Everyone was focused on me, all eyes on me. It seems as if this will only be added to the list of my peculiar characteristics. My loud cackling that always ticked off my mother because it was not fitting for a girl, or my interest in activities that no girl dared to partake in – as my mother says – it did not begin or end with me climbing the outer walls of our house to reach our neighbors’ home. Moving through the walls from one house to another.

– Aren’t you scared of falling? My mother says.

– On the contrary, Mother, it’s fun and exciting. I can easily do it and jump around.

– It looks like I failed to raise you. I have to do it all over again, she said angrily.

I do not pay her much attention though, I continue on with my adventure. It is not as bad as my mother believes, as the taste of Badam in our fifth-floor neighbor’s yard was too delicious for me to share with anyone. Even though our neighbor, Khamees, was a drunkard with whom no one wanted to mess. Every time he saw me, he would utter:

– Oh Suad, it is my first time seeing Badam eating Badam!

With drool forming on my lips, I would answer:

– What do you mean?

I really did not understand what he was hinting at. All I could comprehend was that he might be asking me if I liked eating Badam. I nodded in approval. Sometimes when I encountered his wife, Auntie Sabiha, she would give me some fruits she picked earlier or ones that had fallen from the tree. She would then send me off home quickly before her husband woke up, which hurt me. It would irritate me because I prefer picking my fruit on my own. On so many occasions, I would brush her off to only go back again and pick some fruit without her seeing me. I do not understand her fear for me from her husband’s scathe. He has only ever been kind to me and he enjoyed eating Badam as well.

My mother’s chastising hits were too soft to pain me. My one-month hospital stay post-birth can be credited for her constant fear hanging over me. It looks like a good thing does come out of everything. Here I am, a monkey who is not afraid of anything and does everything. I still remember my childhood when I would play with my brothers and neighbors. Being very stubborn, never taking no for an answer when they tried to kick me out. I was an amazing scorer, leading my team to victory thanks to my left foot which sends the ball straight into the goal. The losing team complains and says they could never get beaten by a girl, disregarding my goals, and saying that our team is simply a bunch of girls for accepting me. Anger fills my teammates so they push me away, which only builds up frustration within me. I launch at them, leaving nail marks on their necks. No kid in our neighborhood escaped the wrath of my long nails. Those who did not experience it had a different experience with my bites. When fighting with someone, I do not stop until tears start streaming down their faces.

I was the only one who did not learn how to cry. I do not remember a single tear falling down my face as a child, not even when my father would hit me after all of my fights when my neighbors snitched on me. Not when he would ban me from having my favorite sweets, giving it to my siblings to enjoy in front of me just so he could shame me into tears and ask for forgiveness. I never did though. Something always stopped me. I do not know what it is, not even the essence of it, all I know is that I possess a feeling of strength that grows whenever I hold back the epitome of my sorrow and sadness. Whenever I would notice their confused looks, it would only make it fester within me. I was convinced that I was right, what was happening to me was abnormal. No one will be able to summon tears out of me. Was it fun? I think it surpassed that point and turned into pride. What I do not understand is why my mother would cry as my father hit me, she kept crying, wailing, saying he was cruel, trying with all of her might to push him away, but he didn’t budge:

– Do you think this pains her? Look at her! Not one tear fell from the eyes of this witch.

Yes, father, I was in pain. The strikes were painful and hurtful, I felt them in my blood. I felt the sting of the whip on my soft skin and body, your stick would dive in, planting itself within my heart. Sometimes, it felt like my heart was about to succumb, but I could not let it. Something is blocking my tears, how can I convince you that I simply cannot do it? It is out of my control. My lacrimal glands are as good as new, I have no health issues, that is what the optometrist told my mother after her worry increased with the lack of tears. The thing is, it was far off from the lacrimal glands, I never knew how to cry to begin with. I would sit with myself at times and try to force the tears out, to no avail. I try to act sad, no, I actually would feel sad. I forcefully close my eyes, rubbing them, lips quivering, allowing them to tremble and fall like a sad crescent. The tears never come, I never cry. Most of the time, I would open up my eyes and chuckle upon seeing myself in this state. I look like a fake clown, one that did not play its role properly.

I still remember when my mother accompanied me to the old lady living across our village, complaining about my lack of tears, the lady muttered:

– You should be thankful! Some women come in complaining about the non-stop wailing and crying of their children. You are the first one to complain of this, do you really want me to place an amulet that would make her scream and cry?

I was two years, five months, and four days old. My memory is insane, it is so great to the point that it surpassed the issue of my lack of crying, having a memory like no other, a memory that does not drop anything it comes across. Asking my mother about that specific day, she only asks one question:

– Who told you about her?

She cannot believe that I remembered it, thinking I was too young to remember such an incident. How do I convince her that no one told me? Convince her of the fact that I really do remember how she took me to the lady wearing a yellow dress dotted with filled and hollow black circles, not as dark as her eyes, for her eyes were grayish in color. She sat there with a hunched back, but when she stood up she did not lean on her stick. She had a full set of teeth as well. Her picture is as clear as day in my mind, what pains me in that memory is my mother’s disbelief in me and her constant scolding me for mentioning it:

– Do not lie, God will send you to hell!

She would retreat then mumble to herself: Who the hell told you though? No one other than me and that lady knew of that visit.

I have always been a level-headed girl, a beautiful child with long black hair and clear hazel eyes. Always played with my sisters. I was never an only girl with six brothers, I was one of seven girls, neither the oldest nor the youngest. I was lost somewhere in the middle, the fourth sister and the seventh daughter out of all thirteen of us. The center of the bunch, as my mother would say, the prettiest of my sisters and, of course, the prettiest amongst my brothers. I would start off the day by playing with my sisters then afterwards I usually played with my brothers in the afternoon. Starting the day by making dolls out of wooden slabs that would look like a cross without really understanding the meaning behind the cross at that point. We would sew clothes for the doll, dress it up, and practice our motherly roles that one day we would fulfill. I never doubted for a second that I would be a mother, with no little girl to sew clothes for, no little girl to dress up. When we take on the roles of mothers and fathers, I always would assume the role of a mother. I knew deep down that it was the prettiest role, the most suitable one for me. When I grew older, I began helping my mother out in cleaning the house and washing clothes, learning how to cook by the ripe age of twelve. I assisted my sisters in sewing the holes in our clothes with our pants having holes right in the center because of our wide steps, or those holes by the knees from our constant falling whilst running on the road or around the yard. Our clothes were undeniably long. My mother says it is because we grow an inch a day. We would tailor our clothes whenever we grew taller, undoing the sewing and properly sewing them back together. Working according to my mother’s plan. A big dress gets tailored to the young ones with a small build to fit them, saving the small clothes for my younger sibling, even if that child is yet to be born. My mother never believed in determining the number of children she would have, she simply believed that a woman is born to breed, and she must do so until God stops it. Otherwise, a curse will fall on her in this life and in the afterlife. This includes women losing all of their children and becoming infertile after choosing not to bear any more children. My mother believes that having a lot of children is merely protection for the parents, as the children will care for them once they grow old. It is the same as their belief that the large number means if she ever loses a child she will forget about the child and be overtaken by the ones already there given their large number. My mother has awry beliefs, but she loves us all even though there are thirteen of us. She gave birth to us and never complained about the long, tiring nights. She still would call every one of us “the light of my eye”.

 

Translator’s Note:

In The Shadow of Hermaphroditus, Badriyah Al-Badri addresses themes rarely explored in Arabic literature, making it both unique and challenging to translate. The novel stands as one of the first works in the Arab world to delve into the life of an intersex individual, providing readers with a fresh perspective. Al-Badri’s poetic writing brings depth to the struggles of her protagonist, Suad, who faces not only gender dysphoria but also the complexities of family dynamics, relationships, and identity. Suad’s life is shaped by silence and isolation, living as a bystander to her own existence, unaware that an outburst of truth will ultimately free her from the misery she has endured.

Al-Badri’s portrayal highlights Suad’s inner turmoil and the emotional and psychological battles faced by intersex individuals in a society that often seeks to hide or ignore them. The novel presents Suad’s experience without the need to categorize or define her, instead offering a compassionate exploration of her humanity. By shedding light on such a sensitive and underrepresented subject, Al-Badri challenges societal taboos and invites readers into a conversation about gender and identity.

The translation process of this book was quite interesting, as the author shifts from one perspective to another ever so smoothly, allowing you to dive deeper into the book without realizing it. This excerpt showcases what identity is, and tackles its various aspects through personalizing this tiny leaf, using it to project the novel’s scenes and outcomes that have yet to be unveiled. Essentially, I chose this excerpt because the author’s way of bringing the topic about, at the beginning of the novel, prepares you in a poetic way to delve into hard topics, ones that we must speak of nevertheless.

It is essential to raise awareness of issues faced by marginalized individuals around the world, foster empathy, and open up discussions about the often-overlooked struggles of those who live outside traditional gender norms. This is why translating this book is a necessity.

 

Badriyah Al-Badri is an Omani poet and novelist, known for her works across novels, poetry, children’s literature, and critical essays. Al-Badri has received numerous awards, including the Katara Prize for Prophets Poets, and her works have been longlisted for prestigious honors including Fombi for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (2024) and The Adventurous Smoothy for the Sheikh Zayed Book Award. Additionally, her novel The Shadow of Hermaphroditus won Oman’s Cultural Creativity Award. In 2024, her novel The Last Crossing was translated into English.

Nada Hodali is a Palestinian literary translator. Following her BA in English Language and Literature with a minor in Translation at Birzeit University, Hodali further continued her education and obtained a MA in Translation Studies from Durham University. Hodali’s translation works have been published in ArabLit Quarterly, FIKRA Magazine, with a forthcoming publication in TBA21. Hodali’s first full-length translation, Safaa and the Tent, by Safaa Odah is set to be published in 2025.

 

 BACK TO ISSUE

 BACK TO FOLIO

Petition (rough draft)

Dear comrade major Respected Maj Dear deeply respected Comrade Major Ráday, I’m writing you a letter instead of talking to you in person, because in person it’s not so easy, not so easy to be clear, not so easy to say things intelligibly. Because a hearin Because it would take a long time for me to get an appointment for a hearing through our hierarchically organized system, plus it’d be hard to express my feelings using army language, and impossible using the official terminology of our organization. Especially for me, because unfortunately I have a little stu stu And right now I’m confused, because I’ve always had a clean record, and you maj Comrade Major have always been satisfied with me and you even complimented me on multiple occasions. For example, for my qualifying results I have received 3 complimentary days off, and only 2 tenth of a point was missing for me to reach the rank of Excellent Soldier, and 2 tenth is almost nothing and 2 tenth is nothing. I also won the kilián milit the Gold Kilián Military Exercise Badge. My intention is not to brag, the only reason why I’m mentioning it is because I want to prove that I have always tried hard, so that there would be no complaints about me, and that’s exactly why it hurts me that there is a complaint now. In other words, Comrade Major, when you were the officer on duty you rightfully could have thought that I wanted to make a mockery of the situation when I said when I reported that there are problems with the schedule regarding the guard posts. But there was no intention of mockery on my part, I did not want to mock anyone, and definitely did not want to fuck your life up Comrade Major, as you so kindly expressed yourself Comrade Major. And now I’m turning to You with this petition to ask, to request, if there is a way, Comrade Major, if it’s possible, to please never again appoint me to be the sergeant of the guard. But this doesn’t mean that Do not think that or do not believe that with this request I’m trying to find a loophole to get myself out of my responsibility, or that this is an act of sabotage. Under no circumstances do I want to boycott guard duty. My request only aims at making sure that when it’s our turn next, my wish would be to be a guard, only a simple guard. SO NOT A SERGEANT OF THE GUARD. I hope that I think that my request won’t cause any difficulties, given that we have 4 non-commissioned officers in our company, and 3 of them are corporals: Sarlai, Tóth, Kustyán, and I’m the fourth one, a private first class, and since we get a turn 2 times or at most 3 times every month, there are enough corporals and each corporal will be a sergeant of the guard at most once, and I’m just a private first class anyway, and if you assign them to the position, then there won’t be any need for me. Perhaps certainly Comrade Major you’ll be surprised about my request or will think of it as strange, since non-commissioned officers are always in competition with each other to be the sergeant of the guard, because if one must be on duty then it’s much better to be a sergeant of the guard than to be standing outside at a guard post, though he has a lot of responsibilities on his shoulders, but still, he can sit in the office that belongs to the sergeant of the guard, where he has his own bed, while the guards’ sleeping quarters have 6 beds, hard as a rock, and only 6 people can be asleep at a time, given that another 6 are always on duty outside, and another 6 are on standby, sitting in the guardroom, so overall the number of the guards is 18, plus the 2 who lead the lines of guards, plus the sergeant of the guard, so a total of 21 people 21 persons 21 soldiers 21 men. And there is always a mixed group of guards, usually that’s the case, meaning the 21 men must come from two companies, like for example now it’s our and the gunners’ turn. And last time when we were placed together with the gunners, the sergeant of the guard was chosen from among them, Sergeant Vincze, and this time the sergeant of the guard was from among us, namely me. Because Comrade Major you appointed me. Needless to say I had to make the schedule for the guards, which is the right and the responsibility of the sergeant of the guard. And that’s what caused the hitch in the plan, which I told you about wanted to tell you about Comrade Major, but you were fucking mad at me you yelled at me, when this really is a hitch, and I wouldn’t even have thought how serious of a hitch it was, because until now I had only been a sergeant of the guard once, assigned as a last-minute replacement. Because Colonel Kustyán started to retch like a dog that ate too much at a wedding Because Colonel Kustyán had an upset stomach, and he ended up in the infirmary. But he already had made the schedule, so I didn’t have to. So this was the very first time I had to. There are 6 guard posts and 18 men and they need to be assigned to these posts. The guard posts need to be written down with enough space in front of them and behind them: 1) fuel depot: 2) ammunition depot: 3) firearm repair shop: 4) back fence: 5) front fence: 6) combat machine base: just like this, with colons. And then after each one you have to write 3 names and number them, meaning the 3 men who will be replacing each other in order, 2 hours on duty, 2 hours on standby, 2 hours rest, which means sleeping. In addition, guards need to be assigned to watch the guardroom, where people men guards need to be replaced every hour according to the rules. But since the headcount is 18, and there are 24 hours in 1 day, sadly 6 people will have a turn twice, ergo they’ll do double duty by the guardroom. Of course you have to be careful not to double-book anyone, because no one can be standing by the guardroom and outside at another post at the same time, because it’s impossible to be in 2 places at once. Besides, what makes scheduling more difficult is that those who are on a break who are sleeping they can’t be watching the guardroom, only those can who are on standby, that’s the rule, so that everyone can get enough rest, because a tired guard is no good guard, as they say as we say as you say Comrade Major. It’s not easy to figure all this out, it’s like moving pieces around on a chessboard to make sure that everything works out perfectly. And so I ripped a piece of paper into smaller pieces, and each piece of paper became a guard, meaning that I wrote their names on them. Then all I had to do was push the pieces of paper around on the table, and it all made sense, this method prevented any mistakes, and by dinnertime I was done with the schedule. After that I just had to look it over for the sake of clarity, which is really important, so there wouldn’t be a ruckus or a screw-up. Then I went to sleep, which is irrelevant. I woke up, and I thought it was morning and the alarm was going off. Someone was poking my arm to wake up. This someone was Kóci otherwise known as Private Pali Rákóci. He asked me what the hell was this. What is what, I said, surprised, not understanding what was going on. Private Rákóci then began to mimic me, mock me, said that I stuttered, but it was due to my sleepiness, and yes I did stutter when I was a small child, but it already went away, and it only comes back when I’m tired or upset. By then I could see in the dark that next to my bed stood Lajos, Köcsög, and Kishanák, also Soós, Csik and Hanák, all of them conscripts, fellow conscripts. Fellas, what the f Well, what is it, I asked, wanting to know why they woke me up an hour and a half past our curfew actually an hour and forty-five minutes past our curfew, when I was already asleep, since we had guard duty the next day, and a tired guard is no good guard, and this goes for the sergeant of the guard too, and not even the sergeant of the guard is an exception. They all talked, interrupted each other, said this wasn’t fair, and that I needed to make corrections, and they cursed my mother and swore. It was beginning to dawn on me that they had a beef with me because of the schedule. I suspected this when Kóci, a.k.a. Private Rákóci, shoved a piece of paper in my face and waved it back and forth. I took it away from him, so that he wouldn’t crumble it up, because then I would have to start all over again, and no one wants to do that in the middle of the night. I was beginning to suspect that they were not happy with their shifts. But that was not up for discussion, because this is the army and not a brothel, and it is the sergeant of the guard’s job to do the schedule, and the guards have to obey the order, and a schedule is an order, and the sergeant of the guard, regardless of his rank, is the guards’ superior, which is evident from his title. However, we’re all from the same village, and I’ve known these men since childhood, we’ve been friends forever, and we always stick together and help each other. We always share all the food we receive in the care packages from back home, we offer each other a few bites. Another example of sharing is when Köcsög hooked up with a prostit a woman in the city when he was on a short leave then Kishanák also Anyway the four of us are friends, though this doesn’t matter when we’re on duty, but if someone is raising a ruckus, then we must find out what the hell is wrong with him, especially if that person is a childhood friend. Slowly others around us woke up to the noise, and they were throwing boots and pillows at us and told us to shut up. This was understandable, because they wanted to sleep, especially those who had guard duty the next day, because a tired guard is etc. So I climbed down from the top bunk where I sleep, above Private Rákóci, and therefore we share a locker, which explains why he could have seen the schedule, because I put it in the locker, on top of my folded uniform, so that in the morning it would be easy to grab. But Kóci got to it first. We then went over to one of the classrooms, and I asked what his what their problem was with the schedule. The one I carefully put together and worked on for a long time. In that case, you’re a total jerk, they said. You can all go to hell, damn it, who’s the jerk and why are you calling me a jerk What’s the problem, I asked, as Lajos was separating us. Private Kóci’s nose was bleeding a little, so we told him to tilt his head back. He kept going berserk even with his head tilted back, and insisted that I was a jerk, what’s more, a rotten jerk, because I assigned them to be on guard by the back fence. And that it was the worst guard post, because it’s the one furthest from the guardroom, and that adds extra time to the two-hour shift, because it takes a while for the next shift to arrive, and out of the whole gang they get the short end of the stick, because then they’ll have to do a double shift by the guardroom too, because they’ll be the ones starting there, and then they’ll have another turn later, given how the 18 men fit into a 24-hour schedule. I told them this wasn’t intentional, it just turned out to be this way, and it never occurred to me that this would be a problem. Then Kishanák said that’s exactly the problem. So even Kishanák was throwing a fit, though he was not assigned to the back fence, but to the fuel depot, so I told him that he had no reason to be upset whatsoever, he only had to be by the guardroom once, so he needed to shut the f he needed to stay quiet. But he didn’t stay quiet, and Lajos thought that Kishanák was right about the fuel depot, it wasn’t the best place either, because it had a large area surrounding it, and there wasn’t even an actual guard post there, so if it rained that meant you got bronchitis right away. And then Köcsög chimed in too and told me that I was seriously fucking with my friends by assigning them to the worst posts, and it was really mean and they didn’t expect that from me. By then they were so upset that all four of them talked at the same time. I showed them the pieces of paper, this wasn’t my fault, there are six guard posts and 18 pieces of paper, plus the guardroom, not to mention those who are on standby, so it wasn’t easy to make everything work out well, but fine, I’ll rewrite the damn schedule just to make them happy. That’s the least you could do for us, said Kóci, his head still tilted back. That made me mad, why was he being such a jerk, when I could just totally refuse to rewrite the schedule, this is the army, not a brothel, and I was willing to do it only for the sake of our friendship and so on. He told me not to heckle them, which was a totally maddening thing to say, who do they think they are, I was so polite to them, and that’s how they behave, accusing me of heckling them, who the hell is heckling them, it’s not me that’s for sure, they can go f They are idiots, and when Private Köcsög pinned me to the ground my nose started to bleed too, and they told me to tilt me head back, you idiots, don’t you think I already know that you’re supposed to tilt your head back So then, just to show them who they were dealing with, I started to assign them to different posts, fine with me, but truth be told it was a lot of extra work, especially at night, especially with my nose bleeding. And I kept moving around the pieces of paper until everything got rearranged, and that took a long time, but in the end I was able to assign Privates Rákóci and Soós to the ammunition depot for first and second shifts, and Privates Csik and Hanák to the combat machine base, also first and second shifts, this way all four of them will have to be by the guardroom for only one hour, and from there the ammunition depot is the closest guard post, and the combat machine base isn’t too far either, it’s the third closest. Here you go, I showed them, now you can all go to hell, you can all go to sleep, because a tired guard is etc., and I still have to look everything over, you can all kiss my ass good night. But they didn’t go to sleep at all, and instead they came to me with a new request, which was beyond rude. That they want to be assigned to the firearm repair shop. Because that’s the best guard post, and they want to go there. They want to. Just like that. First of all, I told them that it was impossible, because only 3 guards could be assigned to one post, and there were 4 of them. No problem, they said, I should assign 3 of them to the firearm repair shop, and 1 to the ammunition depot. What can you say to that? They wanted that setup because the firearm repair shop, the number 3 post is only a night post, so unlike the other guard post, a guard is only needed there from 8 at night till 8 in the morning, which is a total of 12 hours, and therefore each guard has to stand there only half the time as elsewhere, meaning 2 hours 2 times. This is very advantageous. And that’s why they wanted to be at the firearm repair shop, because being there is kind of like a half shift, and during the day they could hang out in the guardroom. And the ultimate and rudest request was that they wanted me to make the schedule from now on so that they would have to watch the guardroom only once. So basically they were looking for the easier solution, the easiest solution there was. But I objected. Because that would be me doing favors for them. Just because they were my friends, why should they do half as much as the others, how would that look, I asked. But they said I shouldn’t question anything, when I had the nerve to give the asshole gunners the post next to the firearm repair shop. Have you lost your mind? they asked furiously, saying that this was really mean to our company too, this and that, and they kept scolding me. I decided to remain calm no matter what, so I quietly told them that I paid no attention to who was a gunner and who wasn’t, the only thing I cared about was that the shifts worked out evenly, the guardroom watch, the standbys, and the rest periods, so that everything would be in order. In that case, we don’t give a shit about you, they said, how terrible that you’re not willing to do any favors for your friends, then our friendship isn’t worth anything. Don’t even joke about that, I said, because our friendship is a serious matter, and I’ve always respected it. Fine, they said, then assign us to be by the firearm repair shop, otherwise there will be no friendship. Then there is no friendship, I said, having seen that they’ve completely lost their minds. You idiots, nothing is good enough for you, I rearranged everything just for you, which was a lot of work, screw it all, I’m not going to do you any favors, so that I could be accused of cheating the system for the sake of my friends. There is no cheating, they said as they attacked me, somebody had to be assigned to the firearm repair shop, and if you don’t assign that post to us then you’ll assign it someone else, and if you don’t favor us then you’ll favor someone else, and if someone is going to get lucky then why should the asshole gunners be the ones and not us. It’s really interesting, they said, that when the sergeant of the guard is from among the gunmen, then he always sends our men to the back fence, so basically to the shittiest posts, and that’s a fact. Because everyone favors their own, one hand washes the other, that’s how it goes. And they yapped and jabbered, so nothing could be discussed with all that noise. But nothing had to be discussed, said Private Rákóci, all I had to do was put their names down. And then I didn’t know what to do. It was already eleven thirty, so very late. I hesitated. Because truth be told, I don’t like injustice. In my family my father only beat us children, me and my four siblings, if we lied or if someone took someone else’s things. And we always shared our food fairly among us. And everything else too. Because that’s the way to do it. When back in school we learned that during the French Revolution there was LIBERTY EQUALITY FRATERNITY, I liked it so much that I wrote it on the wall in our house. And my dear mother got very upset, because the interior walls had been freshly painted, though that is irrelevant. And ever since then this has been my motto. Plus equal pay for equal work, because when I was working for a bricklayers’ brigade, and the foreman didn’t want to pay me for the days when there was no work, because I was a newbie, the others stood up for me. For justice. Because that’s more important than anything and it must be respected. But the same goes for friendships. Like when Kóci saved me from a fishpond where I was drowning. That’s why I didn’t die back then. And that autumn I helped build their house every Sunday with Lajos and Köcsög and Kishanák. Because we always knew that we had to stick together. And when some kids from the last row of houses in our village wanted to beat up Köcsög because of a girl named Borcsa, we protected him. Because we knew that it wasn’t fair, because Borcsa was a slut and a bad woman. Or when they wanted to throw the lame Singer out of the pub, we didn’t allow it, because it was unfair that he couldn’t drink there just because he is a Swabian and is handicapped. And later that night we had a nice little talk with the bartender behind the pub about how things should be and then we kic Because we always But right now Currently I was at a loss. The arguing continued, during which my 4 friends my 4 fellow comrades spoke against me, attacked me, and I was completely confused. Because once again they claimed that if I don’t assign them to the post next to the firearm repair shop, then I’m going to fuck with them ruin it for them. Because then they’ll get the short end of the stick, whether or not their friend is in charge. And at the same time others will benefit from their loss. And that’s not fair, said my friends. But it was all a bit murky. Because when the president of the state agricultural corporation in our village appointed his lover to be the leader of the fishermen’s brigade, then we were all up in arms that it was unfair and a deception. And this is the same situation now if I assign my friends to be at the good guard posts, even though friends are not the same as lovers, but still. I became discoura I became disheartened. Kóci and the others were relentless, saying that everyone was doing it this way. So that means everyone is a crook. This is not cheating the system, replied Kishanák, because today it’s my turn, tomorrow it’s yours. Sooner or later everyone will get a turn. What goes around comes around. But my father always said that if someone jumped into a water well, we shouldn’t jump in after him, meaning if someone does something stupid, it doesn’t mean that we also If someone cheats the system, that doesn’t give me the right to cheat too, because the most important thing is justice. But Kóci is my They are my frien So this makes no sense to me whatsoever. I have to think about it. But while I was thinking, Kóci and the others left me behind, they were mad, they slammed the classroom door really hard, and that woke others up on the other side of the wall, and then I heard boots being thrown against the wall, that’s where they threw them, rightfully so, because they couldn’t sleep, and as we know, a tired guard is etc. So I found myself left alone, with the schedule in my hands, to be exact, without the schedule, because Köcsög tore up the original one, and he and the others threw the strips of paper all over the room, so I had to start everything from square one. And by then it was 1:45 a.m., and I didn’t have another piece of paper, and going into the room where everyone was sleeping was dangerous, it was best to wait until everyone fell back asleep, or they’d throw things at me, so I waited. Suddenly it was morning, and I woke up with my head on a table, my whole body hurt, and there was no new schedule. The morning bugle call had already sounded, we had to go wash up, and get dressed. Kóci and the others didn’t even acknowledge my hello, they turned their heads the other way, what idiots, what should I do now, what should be next. I thought about going over to the gunners to talk to them. I wanted to tell them that I will assign my friends to the firearm repair shop, but not because I wanted to show favor toward them, but for the sake of justice, and because the gunners always do the same thing for their friends too. The gunners can surely understand this no matter what big assholes they are. But what happens to those priva to those men What happens to those who don’t have any friends, what will happen to them, then they’ll simply be always screwed they’ll always be unlucky. For example Private Fenyvesi is a nice guy too, but he’s just like my godfather, he’s on bad terms with everyone, kind of an introvert, so he must always get the worst of everything the worst of the worst, and that’s really unfair, regardless of what Kóci says. Maybe we should draw lots to decide the order, we should pull names out of a hat, let fate decide. But if I draw lots, it would be in vain if, for example, the gunmen didn’t draw lots, then everything would be out of order again, and that would be unfair, even though I drew lots, but the others always favor their friends their buddies their comrades, you scratch my back I scratch your back. Which means that this system wouldn’t work either. Finally I thought I decided that I would seek your advice Comrade Major, because Comrade Major you always say that you’re a strict man but a fair man, which is true, and therefore by now Comrade Major you must understand why I asked permission to report to you when you Comrade Major ordered us to be at ease during the changing of the guard, but it was definitely a mistake that I didn’t come to you sooner, but there was never any time, and without a guard schedule it is not wise to go the guardroom, so that moment right there was my last chance. And that’s why I asked for permission to report to you, Comrade Major, then I corrected myself and said that I wanted to ask your permission to ask a question, to seek your advice, which surprised you which made you mad, you yelled at me, told me do not ask questions now, private, you’re on duty not in summer school, which made the other guards laugh. But I had to continue because of the schedule, and I started to tell you the problem, what the hitch was, but Comrade Major you didn’t hear me out, because by then of course I was stuttering, so you yelled at me, you distinctly ordered me not to take you for a fool, otherwise you’d slap me across the face so hard that my testicles would fall off, and that any hitches I have I should take up with my f-ing mother. I wanted to further explain, but I couldn’t stop stuttering, the guards were laughing and Comrade Major you were really upset, told me not to fuck your life up, and if I didn’t shut up, you’d have me thrown in jail, and we privates are wrong if we think we rule the world, and this is the army not a brothel, and you Comrade Major are a good man, but only until we make you lose your patience. And you said you were disappointed in me because you thought I was more serious than that, and how could I spew stupidity in front of you when it wasn’t even April 1st. What hurt me the most Comrade Major was that you thought that you assumed that when all I wanted was to be fair to everyone strict but fair but then there was so much commotion in the guardroom that I just randomly assigned the guards and everyone grumbled and the whole thing turned into a shitshow and therefore I’m asking you to please never again appoint me to be the sergeant of the guard because now I’m totally confused and there is a big lump in my throat from trying to hold back my tears because kóci spit at my feet when a fellow guard was taking him to the front fence guard post even though we’ve been inseparable since childhood and I will make sure that they will each have guardroom duty only once, 1 shift for lajos, 1 for köcsög, and 1 for kishanák, 1 and only 1 shift

 

Translator’s Note:

“Petition (rough draft)” is a recalcitrant and darkly amusing short story written by renowned Hungarian author Miklós Vámos. Its dense plot propels readers into the epicenter of one of the most intimidating places: the army, more specifically, the Hungarian army of the seventies. The title includes the words “rough draft,” because that’s the joke on which the nontraditional writing style hinges, as readers will realize the moment they start reading. The story is written as if it were an actual rough draft of a letter that a private is writing to his major.

Buoyed by a sharp sense of humor and authenticity, the plot is inspired by real-life events, and it shines a light on a grueling collective experience unfamiliar to most of us nowadays. The narrative depicts the multilayered, complicated, and emotionally charged connections among soldiers during their time spent together. Once young men were conscripted into the Hungarian army, they became members of a community where they had to live together in tight quarters, endure rigorous training, and navigate the everyday unpredictability of a harsh environment that did not pamper or cater to its members. Mandatory military training existed in Hungary (and many other Warsaw Pact countries) for decades and, per the author’s admission, the time he had to spend in training as a private—right before he started his first year at the prestigious Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest in the early eighties—was one of the darkest periods of his life.

It is the author’s desire to show what it felt like to be under the thumb of an authoritarian organization that not only thrived on constantly intimidating its so-called family members, but it also tested and provoked the strength of lifelong friendships, as it is painfully evident in this seemingly simple story that carries a lot of weight. Eastern European army officers in charge of military training during the Cold War years (and beyond) were feared authoritarian figures, whose shadows haunted their inferiors for years on end. Writing this story during the time when Hungary was still a communist country was a bold move; its ferocious honesty and genuine tone could have gotten Vámos in a lot of trouble. Yet, it somehow managed to go under the radar, and even got published in a literary magazine shortly after it was written. Since then, it has been published numerous times as part of a collection of short stories still in bookstores today.

Rendering the tangled up thoughts of this small-town young private into English was truly a unique experience. He is nervous and struggles to put his thoughts on paper because he has no previous experience writing a letter like this. He tries his best to come up with the proper words to address an irksome issue with his major, but his thoughts spread out into many directions, yielding a writing style that is unsteady but really funny. I made sure to keep to the same abrupt halts that are present in the original in order to mimic his burgeoning thoughts. I enjoyed surrendering myself to the respectful but unsophisticated tone of a narrator who often stops and restarts mid-sentence (sometimes even mid-word) while recounting personal anecdotes to make his case in hopes of bettering part of a rigid tiered system. Finding the right rhythm was a delightful task not only because it was somewhat challenging, but also because despite the tense premise of the story, it was immensely entertaining and had me laugh out loud numerous times. Last but not least, it is important to mention that the young private has a stutter that comes out when he’s nervous or tired; while it is only subtly present in the letter, it is always present in his mind and is also mentioned a few times throughout the letter when he recalls difficult moments. 

 

Miklós Vámos is a Hungarian writer who has had over forty books published, many of them in multiple languages. His most successful book is The Book of Fathers, which has been translated into nearly thirty languages, including English. Vámos’s ancestors on his father’s side were Jews who perished in the Holocaust. Fortunately, his father, a member of a penitentiary march battalion, survived. In an effort to save himself from his chaotic heritage, he turned to writing novels. His selected writings have appeared in various publications, including Asymptote, the Forward, Hungarian Literature Online, The New York Times, and Tablet.

Ági Bori originally hails from Hungary, and she has lived in the United States for more than thirty years. In addition to translating between Hungarian and English, her favorite avocation is reading Russian short stories in the original. Her translations and writings are available or forthcoming in 3:AM, Apofenie, Asymptote, The Baffler, B O D Y, the Forward, Hopscotch Translation, Hungarian Literature Online, Litro Magazine, Maudlin House, The Rumpus, Tablet, Trafika Europe, Turkoslavia, and elsewhere. She is a translation editor at the Los Angeles Review.

 

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