For this week’s Translation Tuesday, treat yourself to this sparse and beguiling story of a young schoolgirl who escapes from home and encounters a strange little girl, Luz. Written by the Mexican writer Samanta Galán Villa and published in Monolito magazine in May 2021, this story—related through the perspective of an innocent child—appears deceptively simple, but conveys a deeper sense of the way a child’s gaze can defamiliarise her little world into something bizarre and oftentimes beautiful. Tricia Viveros explains, in her translator’s note, how she strives to preserve this duality and makes a case for reading this writer from Guanajuato who represents a counterpoint to the dominant ways Mexican literature is read.
“My English translation of ‘Luz’ aims to maintain Galán Villa’s artful economy of language as much as possible—a task that required some compromise as, for instance, it’s not possible to omit the first-person pronoun ‘I’ in English. Adopting an adequate level of rudimentary wording was also challenging. The Spanish original elicits a sense of irony by juxtaposing its childish diction and syntax with a sophisticated narrative structure. Writing that is too unrefined risks detracting from the text and inhibiting the plot’s development; by frequently using simple sentences and contractions, my translation seeks to convey the near-surrealistic irony of the original without diminishing the prose. Samanta Galán Villa is part of a growing number of emerging contemporary voices across underrepresented regions of Latin America. Hailing from the Mexican state of Guanajuato, her writing evidences a long-established literary tradition beyond that of more cosmopolitan, affluent centers like Mexico City.”
—Tricia Viveros
Mama slapped me. Her lower lip trembled. How could they possibly have punished me, after class was dismissed, she said, together with the disobedient children. I tried to explain that it wasn’t my fault, that someone had smeared my braids with paint and I’d defended myself.
She didn’t want to hear it. She said that she knew me. That I wasn’t going to eat chocolate cereal with the family later, that she’d only give me a glass of juice. Zip it and don’t talk back to me, brat. Go to your room, right now.
I went away, stomping on the floor. My chest blazed. From the second-story window, I saw the protruding bricks my brother climbed when he didn’t feel like staying trapped indoors. He’d often shown me how to descend: first the right foot, then the left, then you place your hand on the wall. Lower your right foot, and that’s where you’ll put your other hand.
I’d never tried it before, but I did not want to be inside the house any longer. On the last brick, I lost my footing and slipped. I felt like crying but I held it in. Mama was talking on the phone and noticed nothing.
I walked along the main road. Though it was already dinnertime, I wasn’t hungry. Straight ahead I would reach the city. To mama, it is better living in the outskirts because in the city center the cars are noisy. There are people everywhere and if you don’t know the street names, you’ll get lost. That was what I wanted.
I’m not sure how long I walked for until I came across a grocery store. At the entrance there was a little girl, wearing a wide blue dress. Her hair was so yellow it looked like vanilla. I went over to talk to her. She was alone. Maybe she was lost or had run away from home, like me.
Hi, what are you doing here? Where are your parents? The girl watched me without blinking. What pretty eyes. Green. She didn’t respond. Her mouth was open, but soundless. Her hands were at her sides. She had long black lashes and a small round nose.
The shopkeeper appeared. This little girl here is grounded. God disciplines all girls who misbehave. She has to stay that way until someone gives her a coin.
I reached into my pant pocket and found one. I placed it in her mouth and the girl poked out her tongue like a snake’s. She began to move her arms in circles, back and forth. She batted her eyelashes and said, my name is Luz. Her tone of voice was like the chirping of a small bird. She marched while singing the circle dance of San Miguel.
Slowly, she stiffened, until there was silence. I thought about how no one cared for the cold Luz could feel, or whether she was hungry or wanted to play with other children. The grocer was at the front counter by now, helping a lady who’d been shopping for bread. I waited to remove the hands until he rang up the sale, so that he wouldn’t hear the bones snapping as they detached. I ripped off her legs and head, too.
I took what I could and ran. I was a block ahead when the man’s shouts erupted. I didn’t stop until I reached the main road. Luz’s eyes were open. She was blinking and poking out her tongue. I was also happy. I grabbed one of her hands and interlaced my fingers with hers.
We came to a tree. We waited there until we drifted off to sleep.
Translated from the Spanish by Tricia Viveros
Samanta Galán Villa is a writer from Moroleón, Guanajuato. Her stories have appeared in various Spanish-language publications, including Monolito, Neotraba, Sputnik, Pez Banana, and the Oaxacan newspaper El Imparcial. At present, she is pursuing a certificate in creative writing at the Mexican Center for Writers, Literaria, and takes part in a short fiction workshop led by the writer Eugenio Partida.
Tricia Viveros is a translator and writer. She is a recent graduate of Yale University, where she studied comparative literature. Her translations have appeared in the Yale Journal of Literary Translation, and were co-awarded the Richard Maxwell Prize for Translation and Translation Studies in 2021.
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