Posts featuring Carlos Labbé

What’s New in Translation: July 2024

New publications from Chile and Iran!

This month, we introduce two extraordinary novels erecting vivid, immersive narratives upon the intricate sociopolitical histories of their respective nations. From Chile, Carlos Labbé builds an intricate match of class warfare and collective action against the backdrop of professional soccer; and from Iran, Ghazi Rabihavi tells the tragic story of two queer lovers as they navigate the repressions and tumults of pre- and post-Revolution Iran.  

the murmuration

The Murmuration by Carlos Labbé, translated from the Spanish by Will Vanderhyden, Open Letter, 2024

Review by Samantha Siefert, Marketing Manager

Carlos Labbé’s The Murmuration begins like a monologue from The Twilight Zone: a robust voice draws you aboard the night train from Temuco to Santiago, and a conspiracy of uncertainty and intrigue quickly follows. Cigarettes smolder, nail polish glistens, and a retired sports commentator’s hot cup of matico tea steams into the noir-film night. Suddenly, you find yourself hurtling through the darkness on Schrödinger’s train, where a director of the Chilean national soccer team may or may not be asleep in her first-class train car—or perhaps she is in the dining car, having a drink with the sports commentator. Furtive eyes dart about, noting every detail, but Labbé’s experimental style calls reality itself into question, letting linguistic artistry lead the way in an investigation of Chilean identity, representation, and collective memory. 

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Translation Tuesday: “A Brief Life” by Carlos Labbé

A young man's decidedly uncanny encounter at the beach

One summer I was at a beach in Mar del Plata with a group of young Argentine friends, around ten men and women, the majority attractive, at an age with more than enough time to spend hours arguing about unimportant matters as if they were the most profound things in the world. I remember that I was fresh out of University and had traveled to Argentina for the summer. My principal interlocutor, strangely, seemed older than I, although in reality he was quite young. He was bolder in the discussion, he seemed to know the names of many more books and authors, his hair was long, his voice husky, his face angular, his body athletic. He was drinking maté and his name was Julio. Everyone else was lying around on towels with dark sunglasses, bikinis, beers, CDs, and cigarettes. Every now and then one of them would enliven the discussion with a favorable comment for Julio or for me, with objections or laughter.

– No, loco, you’re wrong. Or, are telling me you want to write like Oliverio Girondo? Man, you’re bitter.

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