Críticas Magazine

Adriana V. Lopez

The Power Six, Rewind, Fast Forward
January 24, 2008

Okay, I’ll admit, I’m still a little obsessed with last year’s books, but slipping slowly into my must reads of the new year. And given this is my very first Críticas blog I’d like to state what I intend to write here before mentioning one book title. Each week I’d like to offer you a bit of the past, mixed with the now and what’s to come within the wide realm of Latin arts and culture, domestic and international. I’ll throw you some ideas from the zeitgeist that you can peruse through, giggle at, agree with, disagree with, nonetheless, information you can store away for thought.
     So allow me to begin by mentioning what I’d like to call “The Power Six”--- the six mighty books written by a Latino, Spanish, or Latin American writer that graced the prestigious “Best of 2007” book lists such as The New York Times’ and The Washington Post’s.  It doesn’t’ happen like this for us every year, folks.
     Let’s begin with Book 1: Translator on the rise and former PW staffer, Natasha Wimmer must have smiled big when her translation of the veneered Chilean novelist Roberto Bolaño’s novel The Savage Detectives (Farrar, Straus & Giroux ) made the Times’s Top Ten of 2007. We’re smiling big with her.
     Books 2, 3, and 4: Edith Grossman, the grand dame of translation, also had a good year with three of her translations hitting both lists: Mario Vargas Llosa’s Bad Girl (FSG), Mayra Montero’s Dancing to Almendra (FSG) and Carmen Laforet’s Nada (RandomHouse), which is nothing short of brilliant. Grossman is currently translating Carlos Fuentes’ Todas las familia felices (All The Happy Families, Alfaguara) and will begin work on Santiago Roncagliolo’s Abril rojo (Red April, Alfaguara) this year.
     Books 5 and 6:  It’s also nice to see two good friends with new books in the same year both celebrated on the Times’ list: A round of applause for Junot Díaz’ The Wonderful Life of Oscar Wao (Penguin) and Fransico Goldman's The Art of the Political Murder: Who Killed the Bishop? (Grove). It seems like just yesterday Junot was staying with Francisco in Mexico thinking about writing his first novel.
     Looking at 2008 there’ll be a lot of rising new talent to keep on eye out for. In this blog and in my fellow bloggers’ columns, we want to keep you abreast to things that may have not caught your eye. It’s hard to weed through the new release lists searching for Latino surnames, so let me do that for you with my sharpened trimmers. For starters, check out the debut novel, When the Ground Turns in Its Sleep (Riverhead) by  Sylvia Sellers-García this month or Benjamin Saenz’s latest novel, Names on a Map (HarperCollins) in February.

Posted by Adriana V. Lopez on January 24, 2008 | Comments (2)