The first “foreign world” terminology the reader encounters in the novel proper is a phrase in Esperanto: Ekfloros keston de Learo. In Esperanto, the word ekflori means “to bloom or flower” and thus suggests an opening, in this case the opening of a section narrated by a Learo (a.k.a. Lear). Kesto in Esperanto means a “box, chest, or coffer,” which might suggest a box such as those found in the archives, or in this case perhaps an archived document, as in an entry, report, or manuscript. The ending of the section is indicated by the Esperanto phrase Slosos keston de Learo. In Esperanto, the word slosi means, “to lock,” suggesting the closing or ending of the section. Each “chapter,” or section, opens and closes with the phrases Ekfloros keston de and Slosos keston de, followed by the Esperanto version of the narrator’s name.
There is another term that comes up several times in relation to some work that one of Lear’s companions in L’Atlàntide is doing with “quicks.” The word “quick” is recognizable as an English word, but it is also an Esperanto word, and in both languages it can mean “alive” or “living.” From the context, it would seem that the character is doing some type of experiments with live animal matter. Because this is a science-fiction world, the term “quicks” does not make any more logical sense in the original Spanish text than in English translation and the meaning of the word is left up to the interpretation of the reader in both languages.
The greatest challenge in translating the sections narrated by Hernando stems from the fact that his sections reflect not just one foreign world, but rather three. There is of course the early colonial world in which he lives, but there are also enough references to the Pre-Columbian world that it is very much present in the novel. Moreover, the early colonial world in which Hernando lives is inhabited and governed, by the religious of the Franciscan order on the one hand, and the colonial government on the other. Challenges also arose from the fact that Boullosa incorporates pieces of text taken from historical narratives and archival documents, the latter of which are characterized by both high formal and colloquial registers, a circuitous writing style, archaic language, and non-standardized spelling.
Throughout the sections narrated by Hernando, I have tried wherever possible to translate using language that coincides with the outside sources Boullosa uses so as to reflect the time in which he was living. In order to do this, I turned to the historical thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, especially when it came to finding the right idiomatic expression that would coincide best with the early sixteenth century. What was most interesting about attempting to use words, phrases, and expressions that would have been contemporary to Hernando’s time was discovering that so many of the phrases and expressions we use today actually date back to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. This reminds me of something Umberto Eco wrote in the “Postscript” to The Name of the Rose, where he mentions the feedback he received from readers and critics who complained that sometimes one character or another sounded too modern, and Eco writes that “in every one of these instances, and only in these instances, I was actually quoting fourteenth-century texts.” So, despite the fact that we know that languages change over time, perhaps some aspects evolve much more slowly than we think.
Traveling through space and time with Lear, Estela, and Hernando while I translated their lives was a remarkable journey. It was a thrill to jump back and forth among their realms—from L’Atlàntide in the post-apocalyptic future, to Mexico City of the 1990s, back into early colonial New Spain, and forward again into the future. Throughout the process I endeavored to balance my fidelity to the author and the original text while translating the stories of the novel in a way that is readable, if not entirely comfortable, for an English-language audience. My goal was to translate in a reasonably faithful and clear prose that does not domesticate Boullosa’s novel, but would allow the English-language reader to experience the foreign in Heavens on Earth and, moreover, to appreciate the foreignness on the many levels—language, culture, time periods, settings—present in the novel.
I would like to thank Carmen Boullosa, first and foremost, for giving me permission to translate this fascinating text; Charles Hatfield for introducing me to the novel; Lourdes Molina and Lilly Albritton for being there throughout; Rainer Schulte for being my mentor for more than a decade; Benjamin, always; George Henson for introducing me to Will Evans, and finally Will himself along with the staff at Deep Vellum for their commitment to publishing this novel for the English language readers.
SHELBY VINCENT
Dallas, TX, 2017
CARMEN BOULLOSA is one of Mexico’s leading novelists, poets, and playwrights. She has published over a dozen novels, two of which were designated the Best Novel Published in Mexico by the prestigious magazine Reforma—her second novel, Before, also won the renowned Xavier Villaurrutia Prize for Best Mexican Novel; and her novel La otra mano de Lepanto was selected as one of the Top 100 Novels Published in Spanish in the past 25 years. Her most recent novel, Texas: The Great Theft won the 2014 Typographical Era Translation Award, was shortlisted for the 2015 PEN Translation Award, and has been nominated for the 2015 International Dublin Literary Award. Boullosa has received numerous prizes and honors, including a Guggenheim fellowship. Also a poet, playwright, essayist, and cultural critic, Boullosa is a Distinguished Lecturer at City College of New York, and her books have been translated into Italian, Dutch, German, French, Portuguese, Chinese, and Russian.
SHELBY VINCENT is the managing editor of Translation Review and a lecturer and research associate at the University of Texas at Dallas, where she earned her PhD in the Humanities with a focus on literary translation studies. In her free time, she is a literary translator, and has contributed to the translation of Woman Street Artists of Latin America (Manic D Press), as well as translating Carmen Boullosa’s Heavens on Earth. She is currently translating another book by Carmen Boullosa, La virgin y el violin (The Virgin and the Violin).
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AVAILABLE NOW FROM DEEP VELLUM
MICHÈLE AUDIN · One Hundred Twenty-One Days
translated by Christiana Hills · FRANCE
CARMEN BOULLOSA · Texas: The Great Theft · Before · Heavens on Earth
translated by Samantha Schnee · Peter Bush · Shelby Vincent · MEXICO
LEILA S. CHUDORI · Home
translated by John H. McGlynn · INDONESIA
ANANDA DEVI · Eve Out of Her Ruins
translated by Jeffrey Zuckerman · MAURITIUS
ALISA GANIEVA · The Mountain and the Wall
translated by Carol Apollonio · RUSSIA
ANNE GARRÉTA · Sphinx · Not One Day
translated by Emma Ramadan · FRANCE
JÓN GNARR · The Indian · The Pirate · The Outlaw
translated by Lytton Smith· ICELAND
NOEMI JAFFE · What are the Blind Men Dreaming?
translated by Julia Sanches & Ellen Elias-Bursac · BRAZIL
CLAUDIA SALAZAR JIMÉNEZ · Blood of the Dawn
translated by Elizabeth Bryer · PERU
JOSEFINE KLOUGART · Of Darkness
translated by Martin Aitken · DENMARK
YANICK LAHENS · Moonbath
translated by Emily Gogolak · HAITI
JUNG YOUNG MOON · Vaseline Buddha
translated by Yewon Jung · SOUTH KOREA
FOUAD LAROUI · The Curious Case of Dassoukine’s Trousers
translated by Emma Ramadan · MOROCCO
LINA MERUANE · Seeing Red
translated by Megan McDowell · CHILE
FISTON MWANZA MUJILA · Tram 83
translated by Roland Glasser · DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO
ILJA LEONARD PFEIJFFER · La Superba
translated by Michele Hutchison · NETHERLANDS
FORTHCOMING FROM DEEP VELLUM
Eduardo Berti · The Imagined Land
translated by Charlotte Coombe · ARGENTINA
ALISA GANIEVA · Bride & Groom
translated by Carol Apollonio · RUSSIA
FOUAD LAROUI · The Tribulations of the Last Sjilmassi
translated by Emma Ramadan · MOROCCO
MARIA GABRIELA LLANSOL · The Geography of Rebels Trilogy: The Book of Communities; The Remaining Life; In the House of July & August
translated by Audrey Young · PORTUGAL
PABLO MARTÍN SÁNCHEZ · The Anarchist Who Shared My Name
translated by Jeff Diteman · SPAIN
BRICE MATTHIEUSSENT · Revenge of the Translator
translated by Emma Ramadan · FRANCE
SERGIO PITOL · Mephisto’s Waltz: Selected Short Stories
translated by George Henson · MEXICO
SERGIO PITOL · Carnival Triptych: The Love Parade; Taming the Divine Heron; Married Life
translated by George Henson · MEXICO
ÓFEIGUR SIGURÐSSON · Öræfi: The Wastel
and
translated by Lytton Smith · ICELAND
Heavens on Earth Page 34
