Sophie Hughes (editor-at-large, Mexico): The grim truth is that most auto-fiction written by contemporary writers who have grown up and live in Mexico is likely to disturb international readers who haven’t themselves experienced endemic violence at a local level. But Julián Herbert’s Tomb Song (a remembered and fictionalized account of his childhood spent drifting through Mexico with his prostitute mother), excerpted in our 2014 Latin American special feature, possesses a warmth, wicked sense of humour and acuity which rightly upends the reductive association of narcolit with purely harrowing-lit.
“By means of prose that mixes highly localized slang, allusions to twentieth-century Mexican poetry, overheard snatches of reggaeton, American-style sales jargon, and references to Baudelaire,” writes Annie McDermott in her translator’s note, “Herbert takes the reader on a tour of his country’s identity crisis, which is also his family’s and his own.” The rest of McDermott’s note, which helpfully contextualizes both the story and the language it employs, is worth reading in its entirety, for she presents us with some of the challenges she faced when translating this “multifaceted prose” and reveals, in the process, her own sensitivity and careful eye for nuance.
It is a delight to have the opportunity to introduce—and turn away from the narcolit that one might label as Mexico’s both necessary and deleterious brand—a new name to the Asymptote blog: Laia Jufresa. Given the freshness and standout quality of her debut novel, Umami (Literatura Random House, 2015) and book of short stories, El esquinista, (Tierra Adentro, 2015) I’m sure it won’t be her last appearance here. Until we’re lucky enough to feature her work in our journal, however, you’ll be able to find her in the pages of Pushkin Press’ Mexico20 anthology, which is part of a joint project by the Hay Festival, the British Council and Conaculta dedicated to celebrating new voices in Mexican literature. There you’ll be able to read for yourself Jufresa’s contortionist’s skills of revealing, from one sentence to the next, the tragic as funny and the funny as tragic; of turning a nowhere—an imagined setting— into an everywhere; of reminding us in her visionary and sometimes exquisitely poignant stories how surreal real life can be.
So that we can continue beyond January 2015 and introduce Laia Jufresa and other Mexican writers in our pages one day, please consider joining 199 donors in support of our Indiegogo campaign now! Thank you so much!