Blog del Instituto Cervantes de Londres

El escritor español Manuel Vilas participó en la presentación de la primera traducción al inglés de su libro de poesía ‘Heaven’, en un evento en línea organizado por el Instituto Cervantes de Londres, como parte de su programa cultural de septiembre, en colaboración con la prestigiosa editorial Carcanet Press.

Ante el centenar de personas que se sumaron a la actividad, Vilas estuvo acompañado por el traductor de la obra, James Womack, y por el director del Instituto Cervantes de Londres, Ignacio Peyró, en un acto moderado por la poeta y traductora Juana Adcock.

Los poemas de Vilas cuentan historias en las que el hablante se mueve quijotescamente a través del mapa y entre romances. Su instinto por el ritmo le da al lector un firme sentido del lugar y el tono. Universales en sus inquietudes, abarcando el amor y el fin del amor, la vida y el fin de la vida, los poemas también son decididamente españoles en su forma de hablar, sin rodeos, con humor, siempre alerta a lo fantástico.

Peyró destacó la importancia de dar a conocer la literatura en español en todos sus ámbitos: “si la narrativa y la dramaturgia tienen un éxito notable en Reino Unido, hay que comunicar también el magnífico momento de nuestros poetas y ensayistas”.

Primera traducción al inglés de sus poemas

La editorial independiente británica Carcanet Press, que publica una lista completa y diversa de poesía moderna y clásica en inglés, apuesta ahora por la traducción de ‘Heaven’ (El cielo, 2000), un libro con poemas alimentados temáticamente por el alcohol, la muerte y el sexo, se embarcan en vuelos megalomaníacos de fantasía.

Vilas reconoce la importancia de esta publicación porque es su primer libro de poemas traducido al inglés: “Creo que en la mente de todo escritor está la idea de la traducción de tu obra al inglés, ya que es la lengua que hace de colinde universal”.

El escritor destacó la pasión literaria y el dominio de las dos lenguas de James Womack a la hora de traducir sus poemas, definiéndolo como el “temperamento más idóneo” que tiene que tener todo traductor.

Una traducción extremadamente compleja y una fuente inacabable de satisfacción

“Vilas ha apoyado el proyecto desde el principio, y se ha mostrado extremadamente colaborador”, reconoce Womack, si bien puntualiza que en lo que se refiere al aspecto técnico de la traducción, Vilas es un poeta que “parece muy asequible desde un plano superficial, pero cuando comienzas a ahondar de lleno en las estructuras que maneja, tanto en su uso del idioma como en su pensamiento y sus ideas, entonces empiezas a darte cuenta de lo compleja y sutil que resulta su forma de pensar”.

Womack apunta que fue una “traducción fue extremadamente compleja, pero también una fuente inacabable de satisfacción”. Traductor del ruso, lengua que empezó a estudiar a los catorce años, su amor por España fue inesperado: en 2002 conoció y se enamoró de una mujer de Cádiz, quien le introdujo al idioma y a la literatura española, la cual le resulta ahora igual de fascinante.

Womack subraya como cualquiera que esté ligado a una pequeña editorial siempre va a encontrarse a la merced de factores externos, como la actual pandemia sanitaria. De hecho, su esposa y él fueron los fundadores de una pequeña editorial en Madrid en 2008 y lanzar aquel proyecto en mitad de una crisis mundial económica tampoco fue sencillo.

Justo antes del confinamiento, Womack terminó una traducción de la que se siente muy orgulloso, una nueva versión de la La Colmena de Camilo José Cela. En la actualidad, está en proceso de revisión y será publicada por NYRB Classics en 2021.

Online conversation on the ocassion of the launch of ‘Heaven’, by Manuel Vilas, organized by Instituto Cervantes London, in collaboration with Carcanet Press.

Participants: writer Manuel Vilas, James Womack (translator of the book) and Juana Adcock (poet and translator)

Monday, September 14th at 7:00 pm. via Zoom. In English. Book your place here.

A collection of dark, funny Iberian poems about drinking, sex and death.

Manuel Vilas speaks in the voice of bitter experience, an experience which seems intent on sending him up. He is a novelist as well as a poet, and his poems tell stories as the speaker moves quixotically across the map and between romances. His instinct for rhythm gives the reader a firm sense of place and tone. Universal in their concerns, taking in love and the end of love, life and the end of life, the poems are also resolutely Spanish in how they speak – bluntly, humorously – always alert for the fantastic.

This is the first translation of Vilas’s two major collections Heaven (El cielo, 2000) and Heat (Calor, 2008) into English. Thematically fuelled with alcohol, death and sex, they go off into free-wheeling megalomaniacal flights of fantasy. The translator, James Womack, has won prizes for his versions of Vilas and of the Russian poet Mayakovsky.

James Womack was born in Cambridge in 1979. He studied Russian, English and translation at university, and received his doctorate, on W.H. Auden’s translations, in 2006. He lived in Madrid from 2008 to 2017, and now teaches Spanish and translation at Cambridge University. He is a freelance translator from Russian and Spanish, and helps run Calque Press, which concentrates on poetry, translation and the environment. His debut collection of poems, Misprint, was published by Carcanet in 2012, and On Trust: A Book of Lies came out in 2017.

Juana Adcock is a poet, translator and performer. Her Spanish-language poetry collection, Manca, explores the anatomy of violence in the Mexican drug war and was named by Reforma‘s distinguished critic Sergio González Rodríguez as one of the best books published in 2014. In 2016 she was named one of the ‘Ten New Voices from Europe’ by Literature Across Frontiers, and she has performed at numerous literary festivals internationally. Her English-language debut, Split (Blue Diode Press, 2019) was awarded the Poetry Book Society Choice.

Once you have booked your ticket, a link will be emailed to you on the day of the event. Please check your spam folder, and if you have not had the link by 3 p.m. on the day, please email prenlon@cervantes.es with your order confirmation number.

This event was originally scheduled for 20 March 2020 but regrettably had to be postponed due to Covid-19.

This podcast has been recorded in its place and will showcase the inspiring work and experiences of women in early modern Spain and the New World who challenged the norms and traditions of their times.

These women have not been fully recognised and, in the case of the writers, very few of their works translated into English.

The panel also discusses how Golden Age women have been represented and their works received, in the past and today.

This event is held in collaboration with the IMLR and Instituto Cervantes in London.

Participants:

Elena Carrera (QMUL): ‘Women’s Shame in Early Modern Spain and Spanish America’.

Catherine Maguire (QMUL): ‘Representing mothers and maternal hope in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spanish shrine books”.

Ana Maria Rodríguez (University of Iowa): ‘Wise and valiant: Ana Caro and Golden Age female writers’.

ENROLMENT for the following course is now open.

AVE: Spanish Online Course with Tutor Support

Duration: 20 week course Fee:125 pounds

Includes:

– Online interactive material

– Online individual tutorials

-Library card with access to all the library materials for 6 months

Levels available: A1.1 A1.2 , A2.1 A2.2 B1.1 B1.2, B1.3 B1.4

Enrolment: OpenStarting date: 23/04/12　 Please contact us on +44 20 7201 0750 or +44 20 7235 0353 (9.30 am to 7.00 pm weekdays – 9.30 am to 4.30 pm Saturdays, UK time)

Course description:

When the course is due to start students will receive a schedule with the online material to be covered throughout the course. A reminder of this work will be sent every week. Every other week the course tutor will also suggest a written task to practise the contents covered during that period. Students can assess their progress by checking the correct answers to the different activities and by doing the self-evaluation tests. In addition to this, the regularly suggested written tasks will be corrected by the tutor and sent back with comments and explanations.

With AVE there is unlimited 24/7 access to the online material for the duration of the course. Students do not need to go online at specific times. Students doing this option will need to work 2 to 3 hours per week The course is designed to give maximum flexibility, which means that every student can decide when it’s the best time for them to do their weekly work.

A certificate will be awarded to those students who complete the course successfully.

Level: To find out the right course for you please follow the instructions in the attachment and send a brief email to chusvence@cervantes.es with your name, surname and the course of your choice. Please remember you must enrol in one specific course (A1.1, A1.2, A2.1, A2.2, B1.1, B1.2, B1.3 or B1.4).

ENROLMENT Reference, Course 476: Please contact us on +44 20 7201 0750 or +44 20 7235 0353 (9.30 am to 7.00 pm weekdays – 9.30 am to 4.30 pm Saturdays, UK time). Please try again if you cannot get through, as our staff may be busy with face to face queries and enrolment. Please note that payment must be made by credit or debit card only and must be completed before the beginning of the course.

We hope this course is of interest to you and we look forward to having you as one of our students.

Kind regards,

Cactus’ Language Minis is a Spanish podcast series, developed to offer easy learning on the go. It consists of seven levels, each with 10 downloadable podcast lessons and PDF workbooks, which take you from beginner through to advanced level. The Language Minis series is designed to help you increase your understanding of the Spanish language and equip you with language skills for use in everyday situations.

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