Two years ago I wrote a post about Maurycy Minkowski, a Polish-Jewish artist whose life came to a tragic end shortly after arriving in Buenos Aires. Earlier this month I finally had a chance to see some actual paintings by Minkowski at the Jewish Museum at Libertad 769.
This is not a very good photograph. As I was taking it I could feel the presence of the guy coming up behind me to tell me not to take photos. Anyway, I just love this painting, the expressiveness of the faces.
Seems like everybody is talking about Barracas these days. Robert is busy mapping points of interest in Barracas and yesterday I was joined on a walk around Barracas by a couple of fellow expats: Tom and Henry.
And this morning I open up La Nacion and find that the cover story of the real estate section is about Barracas. The article kept tossing around the figure of US$1,400/square meter. For a couple of years I’ve been thinking that Barracas would be a good neighborhood for buying an apartment. I guess a lot more people are thinking that too.
Sometimes I wonder why I keep reading any newspaper. Of course, the realty section always has been about advertisement. But La Nacion couldn’t help pass up the opportunity to include that Antonio Banderas and Melanie Griffith as well as Courtney Love might have brought property in Barracas. La Nacion actually wrote “Se dice que Antonio Banderas….”. Who says?
From my archives, a few more posts about Barracas. I particularly like this photo.
TO BE TRANSLATED OR NOT TO BE (pdf) is a new report on the “international situation of literary translation” produced by International PEN and the Institut Ramon LLull (Barcelona). [I first saw mention of this report at the Literary Salon and PEN America]
The report starts with a wonderful and short forward by Paul Auster:
“Translators are the shadow heroes of literature, the often forgotten instruments that make it possible for different cultures to talk to one another, who have enabled us to understand that we all, from every part of the world, live in one world.”
I’ve not yet read the complete, sixty-plus page report. It’s late and I want to go to bed but there are some aspects I wanted to highlight. Early in the report is a section titled English as an Invasive Species. That’s a catchy line that should get the attention of anyone who can read that sentence. The report presents a good discussion on the state of literary translation…a rather depressing read for those of us who care about language and world literature.
Why care about language? The report (p21) says it quite well: “each language embodies a human community’s unique perception and experience of the world, all of it lost forever when the language is lost.”
I was surprised and heartened to see that Argentina was included as one of six countries closely examined for its practices in literary translations. (An aside: my friends from Barcelona will be proud to see that Catalonia also was selected as one of those countries. Well, the report was authored by institute in Barcelona and the report even goes so far as to state that Catalonia is a “nation without a state”). Okay, back to Argentina.
The study, written by Gabriela Adamo, starts by linking the rise of publishing in Buenos Aires (as well as Mexico City) with the relocation of Spain’s best publishers to Latin America during the Franco dictatorship. Many major American, English, and French writers were translated first in Latin America, before becoming available in Spain…Faulkner, Henry James, Virginia Woolf.
Then came the ruin of local publishing in Latin America by military dictatorships and economic crises and the shift back to Spain. Essentially, Spanish-language publishing in the world today is controlled by large publishing companies based in Spain.
For works to be translated into English, eyes often turn to publishers and critics in Spain to identify potential authors and titles: “It is not surprising, then, to note how desperate Latin-American writers are to see their works published in Spain, which they regard as the only real gateway into the international world… …a great number of people in the international publishing world still see [Latin America] as the big backyard of Spain.”
I knew that book designers are horribly paid and poorly treated by Argentine publishers, but evidently the same is true for the people who actually translate the literature into Spanish.
As far as Argentine writers being translated into other languages, it’s most likely to be French, Portuguese (Brazil), German, or Italian. Getting translated into English is very difficult. This is a publishing problem. Personally, I’m continually astounded at the quantity and range of writing I’m coming across by Argentine and other Latin American writers.
The report indicates that the problem is largely due to the lack of foreign rights departments among Latin American publishers, but that there are a couple of initiatives aimed at promoting Argentine writers to foreign publishers. In another post, I’m going to have some further thoughts on this topic.
The case study ends with the assertion that there are many promising younger writers in Argentina, along with this suggestion: “The best way to confirm this is to walk around the always abundant Buenos Aires bookshops.”
There’s an exciting new community newspaper for the San Telmo neighborhood: El Sol de San Telmo
The first issue came out this month and can be found at various places around San Telmo. Additionally, several of the articles can be found at the El Sol de San Telmo blog.
Usually, I don’t have high regards for the free newspapers and booklets that I see distributed around here since the content is mostly glossy advertisements. But, I really enjoyed reading El Sol de San Telmo since it actually has a number of quality articles. The paper is clearly concerned about the barrio and is not just a vehicle for ads.
The cover story of the current issue is a good examination of the issues involving the bus traffic through the historic district. The paper is co-sponsoring a discussion tomorrow night on this very same topic and that should be very interesting. More information for those interested in attending.
El Sol de San Telmo is edited by Marcelo Ballvé. On an unrelated topic Marcelo recently had a wonderful article on the NACLAnews site: Remembering Che and the Guevaras.
One of my favorite writers that I’ve started to read during these past couple of years living in Buenos Aires is not an Argentine but an Englishman who spent some time here: Graham Greene.
He’s a huge name and I should have read him years ago but somehow never got around to it.
“In a way what one forgets becomes the unrecognised memory of the future.” That’s Graham Greene talking to Alex Hamilton during a 1971 interview recently reprinted in the Guardian.
The novel that Greene was composing at that time was The Honorary Consul, which is set not in Buenos Aires as one might expect but along the frontier with Paraguay. In the Guardian interview, Greene talks a little about the origin of the book in a chance encounter: “Recently I was in a town in North Argentina where I didn’t know a soul. I came down from my hotel room for a quiet dinner by myself and a mysterious figure came and said he had an invitation for me to camp outside the city.”
And for those interested, here are my impressions of The Honorary Consul.
Grown weary of those cliché articles about traveling to South American cities, the stylized descriptions of snazzy hotels and restaurants imitating trends elsewhere? A highly regarded publication out of Virginia, though much under read compared to its glitzy New York counterparts, offers another perspective on the texture of life in South America through an issue devoted entirely to South America in the 21st Century.
The Virginia Quarterly Review consistently publishes some of the best writings around. True to its subheading of being a journal of literature and discussion, this special issue presents both fiction and non-fiction as well as poetry. Note that this special issue is available entirely on the Web and includes six additional online articles not included in the print edition.
This issue, however, does not seek to explicate the first half millennium of the continent’s modern existence, but rather to assess its place now and look toward the future. The essays cover a broad spectrum of topics”“from the scrap cardboard collectors of Buenos Aires to the drug wars and political corruption of Colombia, from the soy farms of the Brazilian Amazon to the riot-seized streets of Caracas, from the boys of Suriname who dream of becoming European soccer stars to the transsexuals of Lima who dream of life on the streets of Paris. In selecting work for this issue, we chose the pieces that compelled our interest and rewarded our repeated readings; in the process, we’ve tried to gather the multiplicity of experiences and voices and histories that comprise this part of the world. Not a complete picture, of course”“such a thing couldn’t be assembled, not in three hundred, or three thousand pages”“but the beginnings of one. We wanted to challenge anachronistic, outdated notions about the continent, offer some insight into the complexity of its nations and peoples who live there.
Co-edited by the Peruvian-born writer Daniel Alarcón, the issue includes some articles originally appearing in etiqueta negra, a wonderfully designed publication out of Peru; those who read Spanish should certainly explore the writings in etiqueta negra, too.
Readers of this blog may be particularly interested in two articles involving Argentina: Aicuña Is Not an Albino Town and The White Train.
Toño Angulo Daneri, along with photographer Paola de Grenet, traveled to a remote village of three hundred people in La Rioja known for its high rate of albinism. But what they find is something much more revealing, a factor that characterizes many small communities throughout the continent:
Trade, communication, globalization, and other facets of the modern world pose frightening hazards to a village that wants only to be left alone. Aicuña, as I have found it, with boys riding donkeys through the dust, with its lone taxi and its communal telephone, will not survive this century unscathed.
Everyone residing in Buenos Aires or have visited the Argentine capital should be familiar with the struggles of another group of people, the cartoneros. J. Malcolm Garcia takes a ride on The White Train and, along the way, takes a few timely jabs at Macri: “Macri, whose family has a city sanitation contract, has vowed to find “a definitive solution to the problem of the cartoneros.””
Does Macri want to create a more efficient and humane system for the cartoneros or is he instead protecting the interests of companies with sanitation contracts”“companies such as his own? So far, no cartonero”“or anyone else for that matter”“has demanded answers to this and a much larger question: Is it Macri’s hope to eliminate the cartoneros all together?…
There is one factual error to the article when it refers to Macri’s campaign posters: “He smiles beside his smiling wife and promises va a estar bueno buenos aires.” The unmarried Macri was next to his vice-mayoral candidate Gabriela Michetti. Update: See comment below from the VQR editor explaining how this error came about and that it will be corrected in the online edition.
Included with the article is an excellent documentary The Ghost Train by Gabrielle Weiss that I encourage everyone to view. Even if you live here in Buenos Aires and see the cartoneros out on the streets every night, this little film provides a glimpse into their lives.
There is much more to this issue of VQR, including a segment on cartoonist Liniers as well as a selection from the late Roberto Bolaño’s Nazi Literature in the Americas. Those interested in Bolaño or literary translation might want to read this interview with Chris Andrews, who also has translated Argentine writer César Aira.
…another in the city that fades away series…
A couple of years ago this building was the headquarters for one of the leftist political groups. I forget exactly which one. Eventually the political movement moved out and some people were living here. But last week I noticed that the doors and windows on the ground level had been completely bricked over. I’m not sure about the status of the upper level.
At the end of 2006 Buenos Aires, City of Faded Elegance was accepted into the 9rules blogging network. I felt very honored to be accepted into the 9rules network, which was known for quality content.
Recently, 9rules changed the membership requirements to make participation in the 9rules members-only forum or the 9rules social networking feature mandatory for 9rules members.
I took a walk around the barrio yesterday to think about this requirement and decided to no longer be a part of 9rules. I’ve never been one to participate much in online forums or in social networking. I simply rather put that time and energy into writing posts for this blog.
I wish 9rules the very best success in the future.
Yesterday I wrote about the protest in front of the building right next door to where I live. Today we swing over to other side of my building. Today is it a parking lot though historic aerial photos of the barrio reveals that an apartment building was on that spot until some point in the 1970s. Considering the rest of the structures on this side of the block, I assume that it was also a rather nice place.
Indeed, if you look closely at the photo you can still see a small bit of the old facade up to the right of the entrance to the parking lot.
Until last year more of the facade was visible, along with a very intriguing mural once painted on that wall. But last year the owners of the parking lot, in their collective wisdom, decided to repaint the wall and tear down the other section of the facade. I always had intended to take a photograph but was shocked one morning when I came outside and saw that the wall had been painted and the facade further destroyed. Fortunately, on the city’s mapping site, I found this photo from 1997.
Personally, I thought it looked better in 1997 than today. I liked the mural. Actually, I wouldn’t mind if elodio graced this boring, white wall on the 500 block of Caseros with his street art.
It’s too bad that the modern parking lot has no style. Look at the garages of the past:
At least, they blend into the neighborhood, contributing some sense of style.
I write this post to the sounds of drums just outside my apartment building on Av Caseros. (It’s not the first time that I’ve been awaken to the sound of drums in the morning). The residents and friends of the building right next door are protesting the high rents and eviction from their homes.
The protest was organized by the Asamblea de San Telmo (part of the larger Asambleas del Pueblo), an organization that often puts up signs around San Telmo describing the living conditions of the neighborhood’s working class residents and the harsh treatment by some landlords.
According to a piece of paper posted to the front of this building, residents were paying $900 pesos a month rent for a 12 square meter apartment. That’s a lot of money for such a small space. Also, the landlords of the various hotels in San Telmo and Barracas that cater to immigrants are referred to as a mafia, even threatening violence against some residents.
These types of practices are really deplorable. For the past couple of years I’ve seen the people who live in this building. They’re obviously not the typical residents of Av Caseros, (journalist Luis Majul lives on this block) and apartments in neighboring buildings are selling for a lot of money. But I’ve never experienced any problems from the people who live in this building.
Are they treated fairly? Their rent ($900 pesos) is the same as what one would pay for a nice apartment in the neighborhood but, I assume, that residents of these hotels do not have the garantías needed to rent a real apartment. Where is affordable rental housing for the working class residents of Buenos Aires? Where is the current housing for the masses? Those are not rhetorical questions. I really don’t know but seemingly there must be housing problems for this class of city residents or otherwise they would not be living in these hotels. And who is behind this mafia controlling the immigrant hotels and taken buildings?
Despite my concerns for the plight of the working class, I certainly understand why the owner of this building wants the residents to leave. It could be a really nice building and is sandwiched between two very nice apartment buildings. With renovation the owner stands to make a lot of money from the apartments. While I’ve not been on the interior, the building actually seems to be in better shape than a lot of similar buildings.
And I assume that the building is historically protected and cannot be demolished for a modern tower. (But, I’m not sure since this side of Av Caseros is actually Barracas and not San Telmo). I don’t want to enter this building in my city that fades away series.
So, I hope that these people can find a decent place to live and that this historic building will be saved, renovated, and find a new set of tenants.
The protesters decided to move from the front of the building and block the intersection of Bolivar and Caseros, a fairly busy corner. The buses had to turn around but otherwise no one really seemed to have noticed this morning’s demonstration on Caseros. The police arrived, stood by quietly, and redirected traffic….just another Thursday morning in Buenos Aires.
Update, January 2008: Nothing has changed. The tenants are still living in this house. No more protesting but the banners still hang wearily from the windows.