Looking forward to class this week as I had a hard time placing these stories in the context of Pop Culture in Latin America.
Reading translated fiction always makes me wish I was fluent in the original language the text was written in. These stories in particular possess super animated, descriptive & imaginative language, and it’s interesting in English. I bet it’s even better in Spanish.
I was reading up on Asturias and he seems like a pretty interesting guy. He is an artist who felt it was very important to represent indigenous Guatemala and is credited with having done this accurately and well. That’s pretty sweet.
The stories are very beautiful.
I didn’t get a chance to read the second reading yet. I will update this post when I do!
You bring up a good point about considering the original language that stories are written in. One website I read online said that Arguedas liked to write in Quechua in an attempt to keep the language present in popular culture. When he had to translate his writing in Spanish, he tried to do so in a way that altered the Spanish so that it would reflect the nuances of Quechuan writing. I’m sure even more subtleties of Quechuan style must have been lost in translation from Spanish to English. All of this seems to strengthen the validity of the notion that the best way to understand a culture or a people is to speak the language.
I feel like Spanish is such a beautiful language in itself, I definitely agree that the stories may be even more poetic when read in their native tongue.