by Sarah Booker
Key to this fluidity is the function of language, the connection between language and gender being central to the novel. The Iliac Crest begins with an epigraph from Steve McCaffery’s book Panopticon reflecting on the power of language: “The textual intention presupposes readers who know the language conspiracy in operation,” signaling the way words acquire meaning as they come into contact with one another, creating a network of symbols. The continuous search for words, most notably in the narrator’s futile attempts to recall the name of the protruding bone in Amparo Dávila’s hip, immediately draws the reader’s attention to the significance of language; it is no coincidence that the word for the one bone most effectively used to distinguish a skeleton’s sex is absent for most of the novel.
The fact that this novel’s original language is Spanish is essential to understanding Rivera Garza’s larger linguistic project of gender subversion. This is perhaps most clearly visible in the narrator’s conversations with Amparo Dávila, the True One, who insists on using feminine parts of speech to refer to the narrator: saying, “querida” (“dear”) and asking, “Qué la trae por acá?” (“What brings you here, miss?”). In other instances, however, the narrator uses masculine forms of adjectives in reference to himself, as when he says, “Estoy seguro de que fue . . .” (“I’m sure it was . . .”). The narrator explicitly identifies himself as male, saying, “Soy un hombre al que se malentiende con frecuencia” (“I am a man who is frequently misunderstood”), but this occurs several chapters in, leaving the reader in a kind of suspense as they embark upon the novel. The Iliac Crest thus requires the reader’s active participation to decode its often ambiguous language. The lack of clear-cut gender identifiers when it comes to the narrator, for example, is Rivera Garza’s explicit challenge to the reader to question any assumptions or interpretations formed.
While the novel masterfully plays with the ambiguities of gender, it also recognizes the very real consequences gender can have on the ways that men and women are treated and experience the world. Rivera Garza wrote The Iliac Crest within the context of the outbreak of femicides at the beginning of the twentieth century, and the novel is a direct reaction to the disappearance of female bodies and silencing of female voices. As such, the novel’s focus on Amparo Dávila is not incidental; in the rewriting of this character and the incorporation of her writing, Rivera Garza gives her a new life. Born in 1928 in Zacatecas, Mexico, and writing primarily in the 1950s through the 1970s, Dávila is known for writing fantasy and horror stories dealing with issues of insanity and death. Much in line with her contemporaries Julio Cortázar and Juan Rulfo, Dávila obscures the distinction between reality and dreams, distinctly through a gendered lens. Dávila’s inclusion in The Iliac Crest is an attempt to shine light onto the marginalized voices of Mexican literature and resurrect those who have been long forgotten or perhaps disappeared. As a welcome result, there has been a recent resurgence of interest in Dávila’s work.
Besides Dávila’s more obvious appearance in the novel as a character, or several, there are also various thematic and textual references to her work. Motifs from Dávila’s stories are mirrored in The Iliac Crest, as can be seen in the eyeless elderly woman who echoes a character in Dávila’s story “Griselda.” Dávila’s words themselves are also incorporated into the narrative. Lines from “Árboles petrificados” (“Petrified Trees”) or “El patio cuadrado” (“The Square Patio”) appear as italicized blocks of text. These citations are the words of the margin, visually offset like a disruptive otherworldly voice. These intertextual references transport the reader through time and introduce additional voices to the narrative, further destabilizing the many boundaries at work in the novel.
Such intertextual references come with their unique translation challenges. The Spanish term retroceder, which I’ve translated as “to turn back,” comes directly from Dávila’s writings and plays a particularly prominent role in the story “El patio cuadrado,” which documents several characters’ experiences witnessing death. Retroceder speaks to both temporal and spatial movements backward. It communicates the idea of reversing the course of something and moving through time, suggesting a new understanding of the past. For this reason, I settled on the term “turn back” as it allows for multiple interpretations: the physical turning of the body, the turning back of time, and the evocation of memory. While we lose the succinct elegance of the Spanish term retroceder in translation, “turn back” allows for a delightful amount of ambiguity and wordplay as it appears throughout the novel.
A final key reference should be noted to Mexico and its specific history. The North-South divide and the dynamics of border crossings are clear allusions in the novel, but another, perhaps more subtle, reference is to the historical figure Juan Escutia. Escutia was one of the six Niños Héroes (boy heroes) who died defending Mexico against US military invasion at the Battle of Chapultepec in 1847. It is said that, attempting to keep the Mexican flag from falling into enemy hands, Escutia wrapped himself in the flag and jumped from the tower of Chapultepec Castle to his death.
First published in Mexico in 2002, The Iliac Crest—with its linguistic games, gender subversions, border crossings, and historical revisions—is just as significant today, in its English rendition, as it was fifteen years ago. Literature is at its most successful when it challenges the reader with new perspectives through difficult writing. It is crucial that these readings inspire us to question our assumptions about the world around us and our ways of engaging with society. Rivera Garza’s subversion of conventional gender binaries and attention to the disappeared do just that, and are essential at a time when gender equality and international borders are at the center of public debate. The Iliac Crest is a slim novel that has a lot to share with the world, and it is my hope that its long-overdue debut in English will give it a well-deserved afterlife in a new cultural context.
This translation would not have been possible without many people whom I’d like to thank. Oswaldo Estrada first introduced me to Rivera Garza’s work and encouraged me to translate this novel. I am endlessly appreciative for his inspiration, encouragement, and knowledge. Lauren Rosemary Hook has been an unbelievably patient, professional, and enthusiastic editor, and I so appreciate the love and insight she has put into this project. For reading drafts, talking through problems, and offering unlimited support, I would like to thank Bob Noffsinger, Jessica Booker, Alejandra Márquez, and Kate Good. Finally, I am incredibly grateful for Cristina Rivera Garza’s support, feedback, and enthusiasm as she generously responded to all my questions and worked through puzzles with me. It has been an absolute honor to work on this project.
—SARAH BOOKER
Carrboro, North Carolina, 2017
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CRISTINA RIVERA GARZA is an award-winning writer, poet, translator, and critic. The recipient of the Roger Caillois Award and the Anna Seghers Prize, she is the only author who has won the Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Prize twice. She is currently Distinguished Professor in Hispanic Studies at the University of Houston.
SARAH BOOKER is a Spanish-to-English translator and PhD student at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She is currently a visiting lecturer at the University of Seville.
ELENA PONIATOWSKA is a prolific author and journalist who focuses on social and human rights issues. Her work is read around the world and has won numerous literary awards, such as the prestigious Miguel de Cervantes Prize.
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