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PEN World Voices: New Directions in Spanish-Language Literature report

by literary saloon on April 30, 2008

The panel on New Directions in Spanish-Language Literature consisted of three novelists: Bolivian Juan de Recacoechea, Spaniard Andrés Ibáñez, and Colombian Juan Gabriel Vásquez, and was moderated by a fourth, Instituto Cervantes-director Eduardo Lago.

Several of the authors have spent a considerable amount of time in New York and Lago, who has been here the longest (some two decades), began by noting that despite a strong Spanish presence in the US there still is a shocking lack of knowledge and awareness of Spanish-language literature here. Reviewers and readers, he complained, expect a certain pattern from Spanish and Latin American fiction—but expectations of a particular style or kind of fiction seem to be an issue in Spain and Latin America, too. Colombian author Juan Gabriel Vásquez noted that for decades Colombian authors found it almost impossible to get around the overwhelming figure of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. No country, he suggested, has had such a dominant literary figure, and the effect was in many respects stifling, as readers came to expect everything to follow in that same magical realism-mode.

Gabriel Vásquez said the situation has improved, but that the Garcia Marquez-question still comes up for all Colombian authors. He said it took him eight years after he left the country to be able to write about Colombia—and that he chose an ‘American method’ for his own writing, leaning on American authors, from Faulkner to a bit Pynchon. (His fiction apparently concerns itself largely with Colombian history (though not (yet) recent history); one title has been translated into English, The Informers.)

Juan de Recacoechea added that the Gabriel Garcia Marquez-shadow loomed large in all the Spanish-speaking countries (while expressing a preference for Mutis himself ...)—and eventually Borges and Cervantes were also cited as near-overwhelming figures that Spanish literature has had difficulty moving past.

De Recacoechea noted that despite a great deal of variety in the literatures of the Spanish-speaking countries there was only a limited literary exchange: in Bolivia, he said, only prize-winning novels were readily found in bookstores, and the others later noted that this has been one of the problems throughout Latin America.

De Recacoechea also harped on the idea of specific expectations: in the US he found Spanish literature was expected to be, among other things, "dirty, gay, sensationalistic " and imitation-pulp-fiction, while in Bolivia much of it concerned itself with the local issues; his American Visa (see the Akashic publicity page) was, he said, the first crime-novel in Bolivia, a genre previously not exploited by local authors (but which has apparently now caught on).

Andrés Ibáñez’s writing seems the least focused on ‘national’ issues (making it perhaps harder to pigeonhole—which might explain why of the three authors he hasn’t yet had a book translated into English ...), though he focused a great deal on the transformation of Spain in the post-Franco era, which has made for entirely new conditions—but for him many of the connotations (right down to the sound of the name of the nation, ‘España’) still were too strong, explaining why retreated into what was largely unknown until then, a more fantastical literature.

While speaking mainly about their own writing, there was enough variety here to give a decent overview of the broader picture of contemporary Spanish-language writing (and publishing). Of particular interest also was the (limited) discussion of the translation situation—with Lago getting rolling at the end, complaining how some authors who are translated (and get some review coverage) still are relatively unknown (he mentioned: Javier Cercas (see, for example, our reviews of The Speed of Light and Soldiers of Salamis), Antonio Muñoz Molina (Lago’s predecessor as director of the NY Instituto Cervantes; see our review of In her Absence), and Javier Marías (see, for example, our review of his Dark Back of Time).

Lago complained bitterly about how American publishers go about publishing (and considering) translations, noting that the fact that no one in the major houses seems to be able to read these works in the original is a major hurdle and problem. He spoke from experience, noting that his own novel has been translated into eleven languages—but not English.

The problem with his novel is that it "is very literary", his agent tells him .... And he was not thrilled about those Spanish titles that have been successful—such as Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s The Shadow of the Wind.

(Lago also mentioned what a great loss it was that New York city’s two major Spanish-language bookstores had recently closed; the books may still be available elsewhere, but the loss of these meeting places and cultural centers goes much further and is, he said, irresponsible.)

Overall it was a fairly interesting discussion, giving some sense of the breadth of current Spanish-language writing (and publishing). But, of course, there’s a lot more to it…

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