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by
REINA ROFFÉ
(ARGENTINA)
Translated
By
MARGARET STANTON
(Sweet Briar College, USA)
With an Introduction By
MÓNICA SZURMUK
Author of
MUJERES EN VIAJE
(Buenos Aires: Editorial Alfaragua) |
Cover Design by
Stan Duchêne ISBN:
978-9-403645-65-0
2021
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Work
published within the framework of ”Sur”
Translation Support Program of
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
International Trade and Worship of
the Argentine Republic.
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The novel
as well as the stories in Exotic Birds could be
considered what is called “transatlantic literature” because of
the spaces they encompass: Argentina—United States,
Madrid—Buenos Aires, and even Paris during the Nazi occupation.
And also because of the construction of a language impregnated
with the expressions of different shores. The protagonists of Exotic Birds can seem a bit “rare” or strange to those who
expect them to behave according to the standards established by
social, religious or political laws, which they do not respect
or obey; indeed they rebel against rebellion itself. They are
rare, above all, because they live like foreigners even in their
own country and in the bosom of their own families. Rare because
of the banishment unleashed by certain situations in which they
find themselves entangled. Rare because reality, that rarified
external world, derails them. Some of the protagonists are
victims of exclusion, others of exploitation by their parents or
their bosses. If there is a connecting thread that links one
story with another, it has to do with the idea of representing
distinct types of exile and displacement and the intimate
battles that break out in extreme states of defenselessness. The
women, all of them, are migratory birds: they “migrate”
unnoticed among their own people and through the lonely homes
devoid of family in their various exiles. They hide and they
erase their tracks while, at the same time, they wish to leave
traces of their existence, as precarious as it may be.
Reina Roffé’s The Reef (La rompiente, 1987) is
constructed like a spiral woven around two axes: a trip and a
truncated novel. In it the author captures the insecurities of a
time of terror, that of the Argentine military dictatorship, but
she avoids depicting brutal scenes and any reference to specific
times and places. This allows her to explore the possibilities
of an individual voice free of censorship, a voice that speaks
not only of political repression, but also, and especially,
about sexual repression and sexist discrimination in a
frightened, prejudiced society. The text, then, consists of the
hunt for an elusive, fragmented identity. And the hunter is an
ambiguous speaker who assembles the story narrated by the
protagonist with the bits and pieces of a life story in search
of itself. In 1986 The Reef received the International
Prize for the Short Novel, awarded by the city of San Francisco,
Argentina, to acknowledge the quality of the prose and the
experimental audacity of a work that initiated an original,
daring style of narrating subjectivity.
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Reina Roffé
was born in Buenos Aires, a city she has never abandoned,
although she currently resides in Madrid where she has published
a book of essays, Conversaciones americanas (American
Conversations; 2001) and a biography of the Mexican author Juan
Rulfo, Juan Rulfo: las mañas del zorro (Juan Rulfo: The
Craft of the Fox; 2003). Professionally, she is deeply involved
in the fields of literature, journalism and teaching. Her first
novel, Llamado al Puf (Called to Ugh), was published in
1973 and received Argentina’s Pondal Ríos Prize for best book by
a young author. The book-length study, Juan Rulfo:
autobiografía armada (Juan Rulfo: An Assembled
Autobiography), also appeared in 1973 and was re-edited by a
Spanish publisher in 1992.
Reina
Roffé’s
second novel, Monte de Venus (Mount Venus; 1976), was
banned under the censorship of the last Argentine military
dictatorship. In 1981 the author was granted a Fulbright
fellowship for writers and moved to the United States where she
published Espejo de escritores (Mirror of Writers; 1984),
a series of interviews with Latin American authors. Among her
novels, the following deserve special mention: La rompiente
(The Reef; 1987), El cielo dividido (The Divided Heaven;
1996) and El otro amor de Federico. Lorca en Buenos Aires
(The Other Love of Federico: Lorca in Buenos Aires; 2009). In
addition, she has published a volume of short stories, Aves
exóticas. Cinco cuentos con mujeres raras (Exotic Birds:
Five Stories with Rare Women; 2004). Among Roffe’s numerous
honors is the 1993 Antorchas Fellowship for Literature, an award
granted to outstanding figures in contemporary Argentine
society.
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ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR
Margaret Stanton
is Professor of Spanish and Director of the Latin American Studies
Program at Sweet Briar College in Virginia where she teaches courses on
language, literature and culture. She received her M.A. and her Ph.D. in
Spanish from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Her translations
are included in several anthologies of works by Spanish American women
writers including What is Secret: Stories by Chilean Women
(1995).
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ABOUT THE
INTRODUCTION WRITER
Monica
Szurmuk
is Professor
of Literature and
Cultural
Studies at the Instituto Mora
in Mexico City, Mexico.
She is the author of Mujeres en viaje (Buenos Aires: Alfaguara,
2000); Women in Argentina, Early Travel Narratives (Gainesville:
University Press of Florida, 2001),
available in Spanish as Miradas cruzadas: Narrativas de viaje de
mujeres en la Argentina 1850-1930; and
the coeditor with
Ileana Rodríguez of Memoria y ciudadanía
(Mexico:
Cuarto Propio and Instituto Mora, 2008). She
is also the coeditor with Robert McKee Irwin of the Diccionario de
estudios culturales latinoamericanos (México: Siglo XXI),
forthcoming in English
(Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2010).
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La Rompiente
CAN ALSO BE FOUND
IN ITALIAN
!
REINA ROFFÉ
L'ONDA
CHE SI INFRANGE
Translated
By
Giovanna Ferrando
With an Introduction
By
Luis Dapelo
(Alberobello:
Poiesis
Editrice, 2010)
ISBN: 978-88-6278-007-0 |
Exotic Birds:
Five Stories with Rare Women
CAN ALSO BE FOUND
IN ITALIAN
!
REINA ROFFÉ
UCCELLI
RARI ED ESOTICI
Cinque
racconti di donne straordinarie
Translated
By
Giovanna Ferrando
With an Introduction
By
Luis Dapelo
(Alberobello:
Poiesis
Editrice, 2010)
ISBN:
978-88-6278-010-0 |
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