The Weather Inside the Text | An Interview with Yuri Herrera
Interviews
By Lisa Dillman
In 2009, my friend, translator Katherine Sliver, asked if I would be interested in translating an excerpt from Kingdom Cons by Mexican author Yuri Herrera, a novel she felt had a truly unique tone. It was ostensibly about drug wars, violence, and corruption (and art’s relationship to those things), but used no graphic language, contained no gratuitous descriptions, didn’t delight in explicitly depicting horrific acts, or aim to titillate readers. Instead, it was lyrical, almost fairy-tale like.
After reading the fragment to be published, I felt both elated and daunted. The prose was ethereal. And although immediately evocative—and really gorgeous—it was also intimidating. I had to read it again and again. There were a plethora of words I’d never heard before; there was slang I knew I was not entirely understanding; there were neologisms and phonetic spellings. I realized, too, that Herrera had in fact created multiple tones and moods, rather than one unified voice or style. Yet it all came off as effortless in its simplicity, its spareness. Luckily, I had been given the author’s email address, and after attempting a first draft, sent him a tentative note asking if he’d mind answering a few questions. His reply was so generous that a few questions soon became lots of questions, then many-many questions, and, by the time I’d finished the novel, a potentially absurd and likely overwhelming number of questions. About style, about regionalisms, about what lay behind certain scenes, about symbolism.
This pattern (obsessive questioning, patient answering) has continued now for over a decade. And, to my great fortune, it has resulted in a friendship as well. So I was happy to have the opportunity to ask Yuri more questions, but this time ones whose answers I’m not relying on to bring one of his books into English. Instead, my questions this time were aimed at marking the omnibus edition that And Other Stories has just published of his first three books, simply titled Three Novels.
LISA DILLMAN: As I type, Hurricane Ida is approaching coastal Louisiana, set to make landfall on Monday August 30: the 16th anniversary of Katrina. Living in New Orleans, how does the issue of weather play out in your life and the lives of those around you?
YURI HERRERA: When I am in Mexico, I rarely worry about the weather; in Pachuca it is, or used to be, very stable, and you can go through winter if you are minimally protected from the elements. But in New Orleans you check it constantly: how hot it will be in the summer, how strong the wind is coming. The hurricane season puts you in a totally different mind-frame. On the one hand, it is not a surprise, you expect it, it is part of normal life. On the other, every time you see there is a storm forming in the Gulf you live in a sort of low-key anxiety disguised as relaxation and resignation. And when the fall finally comes, it is like when in other places spring arrives: the long months of reclusiveness are over, but in the case of New Orleans it is the heat that keeps you inside.
LD: Do you think that frame of mind, that climate anxiety, makes its way into your writing in any way? Does it affect the substance or content of what you write somehow? And/Or, alternately, does it hinder—or stimulate—your daily practices and writing routines?
YH: New Orleans is unique. It’s a very creative city, it gives you space, but it can also distract you; it’s a city that’s constantly shifting, literally. New Orleans was built below sea level, so the ground is always moving. That has an effect, it does something. I am not really sure how, but it must have some effect, on the rhythm of the writing, on the humor with which you work. But I don’t think it completely determines the weather inside the text; that one is a product of very different influences, not only meteorological.
LD: I know that the book you’re working on currently is set in New Orleans. Could you tell us about it a bit?
YH: I have been researching the years that Benito Juárez spent as an exile in New Orleans, between 1853 and 1855. Juárez had been governor of Oaxaca before this, but he wasn’t the most important liberal at the time. Upon his return to Mexico from New Orleans, he became Minister of Justice, triggered the process that separated church and State, later became President, and as such he was the commander-in-chief of the army that defeated and expelled the French invaders.
Historians know about his time in this city, but almost nothing has been written about it. Maybe because of the lack of documents, maybe because it is seen as something secondary, a sort of parenthesis in the life of a notable man. But it is during this time that he got in touch with other exiled liberals and lived in this terrible and marvelous city, filled with art, joy, and horror (the site of the biggest slave market of its time), that the transformation of the country was planned. So I am using this parenthesis of silence to write a novel, imagining what such a place could have done to his mind and body, and also as a way to develop my own ideas regarding expatriation, racism, and solitude. And yes, weather plays a role in this story, because it plays a big role in the city, in the passing of time, in the mood of its citizens.
LD: You have said elsewhere that you have lists of words you avoid or decide not to use in your writing. Can you tell us any of the words on your list currently?
YH: I don’t think I am there yet. But I can talk about words that I actively do want to use. I have many words that I want to use in my novel about Juárez. One is susulto, which means to jump awake from being asleep. I had never heard that. Another is tlacuache, the Nahua word for “possum,” which I plan to use a lot. Then there are words like asendereado, which means something like “struggling with work and difficulties,” and escabrosear, which is to be afraid of something. And finally, one more is arrogante, which of course means “arrogant,” but, in this particular case, it does not describe a person but calligraphy, which is something that Juárez actually says in a letter. And I just thought that was so beautiful, to express it that way. There are lots of words that help me find a path in writing. Sometimes just for the joy of saying them. You forge a path around words you like.
As for the words not to use, often it depends on the clichés I want to avoid: historical clichés, ideological clichés. For instance, in Kingdom Cons there were several words I decided not to use: border, drugs, cartel, Mexico. Because I don’t want the words to do the job of the reader. I want the reader to face the cliché. In my current book, I might consider ideological clichés, like one cherished by people who claim that the existence of Creole culture is proof that New Orleans was not divided into black and white, which is a very woke way of denying racism. Of course New Orleans was, and is, much more diverse than the black/white divide describes, but white supremacy is about the rules that effectively divide wealth and power between whites and non-whites. So, maybe, “diversity” is a cliché worth staying away from.
LD: Agreed. And apropos of avoiding clichés, let me ask you a bit about the portrayal of place in your writing. A sense of place always strikes me as central to your work, despite the lack of toponyms appearing in it. For instance, in the three novels contained in the new omnibus (Kingdom Cons, Transmigration of Bodies, Signs Preceding the End of the World), I think the only time the word Mexico comes up is in one scene in Signs, when Makina is reflecting on Mexican cooking. No other places are named. And yet your books are all so evocative of place, without falling into recognizable or familiar descriptions. Are there specific things you do, thematically or stylistically, to create the feel for a location?
YH: I try to think of the place less in terms of what is expected by or from its name and more in what each character discovers in it. Places rename themselves in the specific experience every person has there. I try to pay attention to the ways in which basic things demand different kinds of attention: the light, the unspecific sounds around you, and especially, what that place allows you to do or forbids you to do. That tension is where the place becomes important for the story.
LD: That’s fascinating, I had never thought of it in those terms before, but reflecting on it now, I can certainly see examples of what places forbid you to do in all three novels. Could you say something about what you mean by what places allow you to do?
YH: Different things: what, physically, the place does for the story. Its hills, ponds, buildings, and history are the proper stage for the story you are trying to tell. But also: how the place turns into a sort of character itself; how it is not a passive scenario but an agent of the story, eliciting certain actions, reminding us that our individual stories are part of something bigger and not exclusively human.
LD: In addition to not naming places, your characters often lack “name-names” and instead have nicknames or titles or descriptions. (The Artist, Baby Girl, etc.) For me, it’s often hard to decide what to call them in English, how “close” the translation should be. I think my favorite name thus far is probably hamponcito relamido patrás, which in English was “slicked-back baby jack.” How hard is it for you to come up with their names? Do you have a process you go through for deciding on them?
YH: In general, it has to do either with some physical feature or a supposed role the character has to fulfill in the microcosm of the novel. Yet those things are not a definitive path for them but a point of tension, a word that might create certain expectations so that the story can contradict or nuance them. Sometimes it is just an intuition, sometimes it just sounds bold or suggestive, sometimes it is a statement. Each character earns their name in a different way. It is easy for names to come with a sort of baggage. I never want them to be placeholders and instead like to use them to defy expectations.
LD: I love the idea of a tension created by the expectations of a name leading to contradictions. So, in your upcoming novel, given that it is quite historically and geographically grounded, are you using historical names, fictional names, or both?
YH: Both, but even with the historical names I am not relying on the possibility that the reader knows them beforehand. What is supposed to happen is that the story resignifies the names, so that even if you have heard them before you will hear them in a different way. As for the “non-historical” names, I am choosing from names found in the newspaper of that time. Those are not chosen randomly, but with attention to what they might add to the story.
LD: You’ve always been unbelievably generous both to and about your translators, both in patiently answering endless questions and in the way you speak about translation, something I appreciate immensely. Karen Emmerich refers to translations as “iterations” and Lawrence Venuti talks about the need to move away from the prevailing “instrumentalist” view that sees translation as an unproblematic transfer of text rather than a transformation. What do you think about that idea, and what do you think has led you to view translation the way you do?
YH: Yes, I agree with the idea of translation as a transformation, as a palimpsest. It is a creative work that takes a blueprint and, based on that blueprint, offers readers a new object, one that tries to reproduce the effect of the “original,” but which has a new rhythm, a new sound, a new set of meanings. Translation is indeed a second life for any text. Translation is a way for the text to keep acquiring new meanings and ways of being in the world. If a text does not keep living, it’s just a rock.
LD: Regarding the idea of the palimpsest: your novels and stories often have echoes, sometimes quite clear and often playful, of earlier texts—by Shakespeare, Cervantes, Melville, other writers. Do you see that as inevitable, in the sense that all texts are palimpsests? Is there a parallel to translation there?
YH: Yes, the texts that have nurtured us are the milieu in which our stories come into existence. I do not believe that literature is only text, but a creative act that involves the textual materials—yes, the lexicon, the memory, the codes with which we write—and also the body that, as you say, translates all those words into something else, with all the fears, obsessions, hopes, and prejudices inhabiting that body.
LD: Finally, what are some of your favorite bookstores (in New Orleans, Mexico, or anywhere in the world)?
YH: It’s difficult to say. There’s always a new one and you can find very different things in each one. In New Orleans, I like Octavia Books and Garden District Bookshop. They have a nice combination of local authors and current literature from other places. Mexico City has scores of bookstores. Right now, I can think of La Murciélaga, a bookstore that specializes in old books. They keep updating their collection; it is like books keep being printed in the past and teletransported to their shelves.
Lisa Dillman lives in Decatur, Georgia, where she translates Spanish-language fiction and teaches at Emory University. Some of her translations include Signs Preceding the End of the World (winner of the 2016 Best Translated Book Award) and A Silent Fury by Yuri Herrera; The Touch System by Alejandra Costamagna, The Bitch by Pilar Quintana. She is currently working on new books by Yuri Herrera and Pilar Quintana.
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