University Press Blog

Synergy at Its Best: A Look into the Coauthorship of Translations

Jenna Phillips — Wed, 10 Nov 2021 13:30:00 +0000

The following is a guest post by Brittany R. Johnson, Grants Coordinator at Vanderbilt University Press.

For this year’s University Press Week 2021 blog tour, Vanderbilt UP is spotlighting the synergistic relationship between author and translator. In light of the years-old conversation and recent Publishers Weekly article on the views of putting author and translator names on book covers, Vanderbilt UP reached out to our writers to ask about the collaborative authorship of the translation process.

The Vanderbilt UP catalog includes translations of nonfiction, novels, and short stories—most recently speculative fiction. Today’s post features perspectives from poet Robin Myers (translator of 2020 MacArthur Fellow Cristina Rivera Garza’s The Restless Dead), Francisco García González and Bradley J. Nelson (the duo responsible for the forthcoming When a Robot Decides to Die and Other Stories), and Rodrigo Camargo de Godoi (author of Francisco de Paula Brito: A Black Publisher in Imperial Brazil). Read on as they share insight on the importance of ongoing communication throughout the translation process, the significance of placing the author and translator’s names on covers, and the necessity of acknowledging translators as authors.

“A record company would never intentionally omit Yo-Yo Ma’s name from a record of Bach cello suites…”
—Robin Myers

Robin Myers—who is the translator of multiple book-length publications and a 2019 winner of the Words Without Borders Poems in Translation Contest—describes why the author and translator are equally involved in the mission:

“Putting both the translator’s name on the cover alongside the author’s isn’t a courtesy; it’s a clear way to communicate the basic fact that the translator has chosen, to paraphrase Jennifer Croft in The Guardian, every single word of the book in its new context, and that the author and the translator are inextricable from each other. A record company would never intentionally omit Yo-Yo Ma’s name from a record of Bach cello suites, nor would they fear that attaching Nina Simone’s name to her cover of “Here Comes the Son” might detract attention (or sales!) from the Beatles. Translation, like performing music, is a practice of interpretive creation. The failure to credit translators as artists, working in collaboration with other artists, does nothing to benefit authors, publishers, or readers; all it manages to do is keep translation in a state of opacity and unease. Placing both author and translator names on book covers is a way to acknowledge the collaborative nature of all authorship. It costs publishers nothing, and it sheds light on the processes and relationships that make literature an ongoing, ever-changing conversation.”

“… recognizing the translator on the cover is necessary both as an indication and reminder to the reader that they are in fact reading a translation, and a recognition that every translation is itself the result of a creative literary process.”
—Bradley J. Nelson

Like Myers, Bradley J. Nelson, professor of Spanish at Concordia University and a former National Endowment for the Humanities fellow, expresses the innate creativity of translation. He discusses how each translation of a work captures a different essence of the original:

“I have taught Don Quixote in English four times in the last ten years, and I have used a different translation every time. And every course has been different, due in part to differences in the translations. Moreover, since I often have native Spanish and English speakers, not to mention many students whose first language is neither Spanish or English, the problematics of translation remain a very productive point of discussion throughout the semester. Of course, this is enriched even more by the structure of the Quixote, which is presented as a translation into Spanish from Arabic, which opens the novel onto the ethnic, cultural, linguistic, and religious diversity of early modern Spain, all of which makes both the Quixote and the phenomenon of translation a very modern crucible for analyzing both the bridges constructed by translation and the barriers that remain, since there is no such thing as a transparent translation. For these reasons, and many others, foregrounding the editorial fact and process of translation by recognizing the translator on the cover is necessary both as an indication and reminder to the reader that they are in fact reading a translation, and a recognition that every translation is itself the result of a creative literary process.

In the case of the Quixote, every new translation is in dialogue not just with Cervantes but with all previous translations as well as differing editions in Spanish. I insist on basing my intervention here on Don Quixote because the history of the novel’s translations parallels the history of the novel’s continuing editorial studies and debates. In both cases, these histories reveal the evolution (for lack of a better word) of the relationship between translator and author, and reader and work. The point I am trying to make is that, on the one hand, literary translation is a creative endeavor in itself, and, on the other, each translation is a snapshot, a perspectival angle on the meaning of the original literary work.”

Nelson and Francisco García González—writer, editor, and 1999 winner of Cuba’s Hemingway Short Story Prize—agree that translation is an enlightening experience for all involved.

“If the translator can work side by side with the author, the translation certainly gains in accuracy and rigor, since the translator is seldom a native-level reader of the original work. Even in my case, as a professor for over twenty years of Hispanic literature, the many significant gaps in my comprehension of contemporary Cuban lexicon, idioms, historical context, etc., made my collaboration with García González absolutely necessary. I sometimes cringe at the howlers of several first drafts. When a Robot Decides to Die was a collaborative work in every sense of the word,” states Nelson.

“During the translation process of When a Robot Decides to Die, Brad Nelson and I were in constant feedback. It was an adventure of mutual learning.”
—Francisco García González

For García González, the process is a means for reflection:

“Working with the translators has been very enriching for me. My experience with Mary G. Berg, and Brad Nelson, has been like a second rewriting of my stories. Through their meticulous work they´ve helped me reflect on my narrative from different cultural perspectives. The act of translating a story from one language to another has also been compared to giving the texts a second life, one with a new language, different contexts, and subjected to the scrutiny of other readers.

During the translation process of When a Robot Decides to Die, Brad Nelson and I were in constant feedback. It was an adventure of mutual learning. For Brad it was a journey from the Spanish Golden Age to real and maddening re-invented Cuba. While for me, it was an open door, a bridge built to another type of reader very alien to the worlds of Cervantes and the infinitely nonsensical Cuba.

From these points of view, I share the idea that translators and authors should share covers. Covers and other complicities such as sitting in a bar to chat about our families, the current state of the world, and of course, science fiction. I think that is a vital part of the translation process, one which is not perceived but is present in every word and sentence.”

Rodrigo Camargo de Godoi, too, cites the process as an informative one. He is a professor of Brazilian history at the University of Campinas in São Paulo, Brazil. Godoi’s Francisco de Paula Brito: A Black Publisher in Imperial Brazil is translated by H. Sabrina Gledhill, scholar of Latin American studies and translator of more than 40 books.

“During the translation of my book, I worked close to Sabrina. So the communication between us was very important, and, besides solving questions on the manuscript, I learned a lot from seeing the solutions she proposed for the English version of my book. I believe that it is a collaborative work, and it is very important that the author and translator names are placed together on covers.”

The appearance of the author and translator names on covers also adds to the acknowledgment of translation as a skill that can be applied in various careers.

Nelson notes, “In the case of professors and, especially, graduate students who take on literary translations, recognizing translators on book covers helps make the case that translation is a worthwhile academic endeavor when students are searching for career opportunities, inside or outside of the academy, and when professors are submitting dossiers for promotion and tenure.”

When a Robot Decides to Die and Other Stories publishes on November 15, 2021. For more translation reads, check out these recently published or forthcoming Vanderbilt UP books:

The Restless Dead: Necrowriting and Disappropriation (October 2020) | by Cristina Rivera Garza | Translated by Robin Myers

Francisco de Paula Brito: A Black Publisher in Imperial Brazil (December 2020) | by Rodrigo Camargo de Godoi | Translated by H. Sabrina Gledhill

Jaguars’ Tomb (February 2021) | by Angélica Gorodischer | Translated by Amalia Gladhart

Natural Consequences: A Novel (November 2021) | by Elia Barceló | Translated by Yolanda Molina-Gavilán and Andrea Bell

Author Conversations: Mastodons to Mississippians

Jenna Phillips — Fri, 08 Oct 2021 15:49:48 +0000

The 33rd annual Southern Festival of Books is this weekend, and Vanderbilt UP is celebrating our recent regional history books during the lead-up to the festival. One of those recent books is Mastodons to Mississippians: Adventures in Nashville’s Deep Past, written by archaeologist Aaron Deter-Wolf and anthropologist Tanya M. Peres.

This past week, another Vanderbilt UP author, Michael Ray Taylor—whose book Hidden Nature: Wild Southern Caves (2020) was recently named a finalist for the 2021 Reed Environmental Writing Award by the Southern Environmental Law Center—spoke with Deter-Wolf and Peres about their work and about writing Mastodons to Mississippians. Keep reading below for their interesting discussion.

About Mastodons to Mississippians: Some history texts written for schoolchildren and the public have led us to believe that the first Euro-Americans arrived in Nashville to find a pristine landscape inhabited only by the buffalo and boundless nature, entirely untouched by human hands. However, during the period between about AD 1000 and 1425, a thriving Native American culture known to archaeologists as the Middle Cumberland Mississippian built the first urban landscape in what would become Nashville. Theirs is one of the stories of the city’s deep past, a history that includes mastodons, saber-toothed cats, and millennia of Native American settlement along the Cumberland River.

Michael Ray Taylor: In Mastodons to Mississippians, you mention numerous examples of local myths and legends surrounding Nashville’s archaeological past. What are some of the strangest you encountered while writing this book?
Aaron Deter-Wolf and Tanya M. Peres: Fantastical pseudo-archaeological stories of things like lost giants and ancient aliens used to be spread mainly in print, but today we contend with the 24/7 accessibility of the internet, social media, and on-demand “edutainment” programs. We both receive calls and emails every month from members of the public who are fascinated by archaeology and have some pretty creative visions of the past. Over the years these have included limestone slabs carved with secret microscopic images that can only be revealed under green light, a hidden race of Sasquatch-human hybrids building stone piles in the woods, and a parade of dinosaur eggs and “penis stones.” Those stories aside, it’s great that people are interested in the deep past, and we hope we’re able to help them understand it better!

The infamous “Grand Monster,” the First American Bank Smilodon, and other archaeological treasures you describe were first discovered when contemporary excavations intersected hidden limestone caves. How does Nashville’s limestone foundation contribute to preservation of its past?

Sketch of William Shumate’s “grand Monster Tennessean.” When exhibited in Nashville in December 1845, the mastodon remains were mounted upright beside an articulated human skeleton for scale. James X. Corgan and Emmanuel Breitburg, Tennessee’s Prehistoric Vertebrates, Tennessee Division of Geology Bulletin 84 (Nashville: State of Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, 1996), figure 1. [From Mastodons to Mississippians, p. 2]

Much of the Nashville basin has neutral soils, thanks in part to the limestone bedrock, and in certain locations archaeological artifacts like human and animal bones are very well preserved. During the Mississippian period, people were often buried in “stone box graves”—basically, rough coffins made from tabular limestone slabs. Those boxes protected the skeletal remains and artifacts they contained, but also drew the attention of looters and collectors beginning in the 19th century. An untold number of stone box graves in the Nashville area were robbed over the last century, or removed ahead of development as the city expanded.

Many archaeological sites have been destroyed by modern construction, and you mention the likely loss of currently unknown sites in the River North and East Bank development areas. What can be done to increase proper excavation and protection of sites like these in a rapidly growing city?
Unfortunately, most archaeological sites in Tennessee aren’t protected under state or local laws unless a development is subject to environmental or cultural resource permitting. This means that while individual graves of any age are protected by state cemetery statutes, developers are not required to look for, or avoid, any other part of an archaeological site. There are some cities that go further and include archaeology in their regulatory or permitting processes. For example, St. Augustine, Florida, has an archaeological preservation ordinance, a city archaeologist, and an active public archaeology network, all of which work to balance development and archaeological needs. It’s also critical for businesses and developers to partner with archaeologists and take a proactive approach toward heritage preservation and archaeological stewardship.

Aaron Deter-Wolf is a prehistoric archaeologist for the Tennessee Division of Archaeology. Tanya M. Peres is an associate professor of anthropology at Florida State University.

Michael Ray Taylor is a professor of communication and the chair of the Communication and Theatre Department at Henderson State University in Arkansas. He is the author of several books, including Hidden Nature, Cave Passages, Dark Life, and Caves, as well as articles in Sports Illustrated, the New York Times, Houston Chronicle, Wired, Audubon, Reader’s Digest, Outside, and many other print and digital publications.

UP Week 2020 Blog Tour: Active Voices

Jenna Phillips — Fri, 13 Nov 2020 22:34:13 +0000

The University Press Week 2020 blog tour is wrapping up today with posts all about active voices.

RaiseUP: Read an Excerpt from Hearing Happiness by Jaipreet Virdi | University of Chicago Press

Our Student Impact at Notre Dame Press | University of Notre Dame Press

The Value of University Press Publishing from Friends of Notre Dame Press | University of Notre Dame Press

Raise UP: Valerie Mason-John, Social Justice Poet | University of Alberta Press

Activist Archaeology: A Reading List | University Press of Florida

Dan Harrison, Author of Live at Jackson Station, on #RaiseUP | University of South Carolina Press

Actively Engaging with Social Challenges as a University Press | Bristol University Press

Enter the Ghost: Haunted Media Ecologies | Amsterdam University Press

Raise UP: Rae André | University of Toronto Press

Progressing a Field through Collective Thinking and Scholarship | University of Toronto Press Journals

#ActiveVoices: Q&A on African American Arts | Bucknell University Press

Policy to Practice: New Book Series | Vanderbilt University Press

#ReadUP: Reckoning with Mental Illness | University of Minnesota Press

Celebrating University Press Week—Thoughts on Racism in America: A Reader | Harvard University Press

Resisters in the 2020 Election and Beyond | Columbia University Press

Active Voices: Manchester Book Tour | Manchester University Press

We hope you’ve enjoyed this year’s UP Week blog tour! Be sure to subscribe to or bookmark the blogs from this past week to #ReadUP throughout the year.

Policy to Practice: New Book Series

Jenna Phillips — Fri, 13 Nov 2020 14:00:59 +0000

Next Monday marks the official launch of our new book series Policy to Practice: Ethnographic Perspectives on Global Health Systems, with the release of the series’ two inaugural volumes—Delivering Health: Midwifery and Development in Mexico by Lydia Z. Dixon and For the Public Good: Women, Health, and Equity in Rural India by Patricia Antoniello.

The Policy to Practice series illustrates and provides critical perspectives on how global health policy becomes practice. It’s an opportunity for anthropologists to communicate with people in global public health policy, policymaking, and systems. The series provides a venue for relevant work from a variety of disciplines, including anthropology, sociology, history, political science, and critical public health.

Leading the launch of the series, Lydia Z. Dixon’s Delivering Health uncovers the ways in which maternal health outcomes in Mexico have been shaped by broader historical, political, and social factors in the country, through the perspectives of those who are at the front lines fighting for change: midwives. Patricia Antoniello’s For the Public Good details the role of the Comprehensive Rural Health Project (CRHP), a groundbreaking, internationally recognized primary health care model that uses local solutions to solve intractable global health problems. Emphasizing equity and community participation, this grassroots approach recruits local women to be educated as village-based health workers.

Policy to Practice is edited by Svea Closser, associate professor of international health at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health; Emily Mendenhall, Provost’s Distinguished Associate Professor in the Science, Technology, and International Affairs Program in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University; Judith Justice, associate professor of health policy and medical anthropology at UC San Francisco; and Peter J. Brown, professor of anthropology, professor of global health, and senior academic advisor to the Global Health Institute at Emory University.

For more information about the Policy to Practice series, check out the series page on our website.

UP Week 2020 Blog Tour: Scientific Voices

Jenna Phillips — Thu, 12 Nov 2020 22:45:44 +0000

The University Press Week blog tour continues with posts all about today’s theme: Scientific Voices.

#RaisingUP Scientific Voices with NEXUS Series | University of Alabama Press

Raising Up the Science Behind the Human-Animal Bond | Purdue University Press

Six Impossible Things | Princeton University Press

The Relevance of Science Communication in the Era of COVID | Bristol University Press

Science and Critical Thinking | Indiana University Press

Science Writing in a Time of Crisis | University of Toronto Press

Scientific Trust in the Era of COVID-19 | University of Toronto Press Journals

Stories from the Natural World: New Book Trailer for Between the Rocks and the Stars | Vanderbilt University Press

6 Things to Consider Before Applying to PhD Programs | Columbia University Press

Rebuilding Ecological Resilience | Oregon State University Press

When Statistics Won’t Suffice: How University Presses Can Act to Support Women in Science | Johns Hopkins University Press

Enjoy! We’ll be back tomorrow with a post about our new Policy to Practice book series, as well as a recap of posts focusing on the theme of Active Voices.

Stories from the Natural World: New Book Trailer for Between the Rocks and the Stars

Jenna Phillips — Thu, 12 Nov 2020 13:59:50 +0000

As a part of the University Press Week 2020 blog tour, Vanderbilt UP is excited to unveil a new book trailer for Between the Rocks and the Stars: Narratives in Natural History.

Between the Rocks and the Stars dives deep into the relationships that shape the natural world. Author Stephen Daubert offers accessible stories from the wild, taking readers where they cannot go—out into space, back in time, deep under the ocean, down to microscopic scales, and out onto the geologic overview. Daubert, a retired career scientist at UC Davis, demonstrates the power of telling scientific stories in a way that conveys how engaging, beautiful, and necessary they are.

This new book trailer brings to life an excerpt from Chapter 9 of Between the Rocks and the Stars, “Sunfish.” We hope you enjoy it. You can learn more about Between the Rocks and the Stars at our website.

Video transcript:

The morning was placid enough, but the juveniles in the raft of gulls were still growing agitated. Stippled in their grays and browns, they were calling back and forth.

They were all sitting in the sun, rolling with the swells on the open ocean. But with their heads held high, they could not easily see what was going on below. The juveniles felt like sitting ducks, vulnerable to attack from beneath. And now the water was brightening all around—something had seen them there on the surface and was rising up from underneath.

Soon the yearling birds leapt squawking into the sky and headed for the horizon. The adults were not as flustered. They had not seen the torpedo shapes of the predators that threaten floating birds. Something was definitely coming up toward them, but it was coming gradually.

As the water continued to brighten, they all finally kicked into the air. One by one, they banked into wide, circling turns. They cried out to each other, looking down from above on what was coming up from below.

The top of the rising pillar was a circle at least ten feet in diameter. The water sighed and ran off as the disk broke the surface. The parting waves revealed a huge, broad fish. The birds watched, keeping their distance above, calling back and forth, now and then. But the fish did not move. It just floated there as if it was dead—staring blankly up at the sun, inviting them to touch down.

So the inquisitive gulls descended. The birds were reminded of the firm ground of an island, though the nearest shore was miles away. One of the gulls off to the side put down its feet to slow its flight. Nothing happened.

The living island was a sunfish. After the example of their leader, the other gulls touched down. Walking around was like foraging across a beach. And the animal life to be found here was more accessible and more diverse than on most exposed reefs or sand bars.

And, to the birds’ excitement, all of these things were edible, and there for the taking. With the appearance of this sunfish, a promising day of foraging had presented itself out of the deep blue.

Between the Rocks and the Stars: Narratives in Natural History
Written by Stephen Daubert
Available from your favorite bookseller
Excerpt from Chapter 9: Sunfish
Read by Zachary Gresham
Music by Zachary Gresham
Animation by M Kelley of Studiomnivorous
Editing by Stephen Zerne

UP Week 2020 Blog Tour: Local Voices

Jenna Phillips — Wed, 11 Nov 2020 23:31:30 +0000

The University Press Week blog tour continues with posts all about today’s theme: Local Voices.

University Press Week: Local Voices | Temple University Press

Women’s Voices: Expanding the Audubon Park Narrative | Fordham University Press

#RaiseUP: Local Voices | Syracuse University Press

Raising Up Local Voices with A People’s Guides to Boston and San Francisco | University of California Press

Manchester: Something Rich and Strange | Manchester University Press

Amplifying Local Voices with Local Partners | University Press of Kansas

#UPWeek: A Q&A with Kathryn Yahner, Editor of Keystone Books | Penn State University Press

Local Voices, Scrap Metal Heaps, and the Fate of World War II | University of Nebraska Press

ASCSA Publications Participates in University Press Week 2020 | American School of Classical Studies at Athens

Shared Voices | University Press of Mississippi

Local Voices: Another Story Bookshop | University of Toronto Press

Accidental Wilderness: Toronto’s Tommy Thompson Park | University of Toronto Press

Beyond the Colonial Cartographic Frame: The Imperative to Decolonize the Map | University of Toronto Press Journals

Celebrating UP Week with Tom Kapsidelis, Author of After Virginia Tech | University of Virginia Press

University Press Week 2020: Recommended Reading | Eurospan

Enjoy! We’ll be back tomorrow with a brand-new book trailer for Between the Rocks and the Stars: Narratives in Natural History, as well as a recap of posts focusing on the theme of Scientific Voices.

UP Week 2020 Blog Tour: Creative Voices

Jenna Phillips — Wed, 11 Nov 2020 00:05:45 +0000

The University Press Week blog tour continues with posts all about today’s theme: Creative Voices.

Raising Up Creative Voices: Yxta Maya Murray | Northwestern University Press

Raising Up Creative Voices—University Press Week 2020 | University of Michigan Press

The Value of University Press Publishing from Our Notre Dame Press Colleagues | University of Notre Dame Press

University Press Week 2020: Creative Voices | Athabasca University Press

Writing Fiction as Scholarly Praxis | Bristol University Press

Creating Light in Dark Times | University of Toronto Press

To Be Witnessed | University of Toronto Press Journals

Curators of Creative Error | Bucknell University Press

It’s All in the Design: The Design behind It’s All Good (Unless It’s Not) | University of British Columbia Press

Enjoy! We’ll be back tomorrow with a recap of posts focusing on the theme of Local Voices.

UP Week 2020 Blog Tour: New Voices

Jenna Phillips — Mon, 09 Nov 2020 23:20:24 +0000

Happy University Press Week! The UP Week 2020 blog tour will be happening throughout this week, and we hope you’ll follow along for each day’s new posts. Here’s more from AUPresses on this yearly tradition:

Each year, we take a tour of the blogs in our larger community, with a series that daily addresses different aspects of the week’s theme. This year we celebrate the ways in which university presses help Raise UP a variety of voices and ideas.

Kick off the UP Week blog tour with posts all about today’s theme: New Voices

Meet the Press, Acquisitions Edition: Interview with Alison Syring | University of Illinois Press

#UPWeek: An Interview with Senior Acquisitions Editor Hilary Claggett | Georgetown University Press

Raising Up the Work of First-Time Authors | Duke University Press

#RaiseUP New Voices | University of Wisconsin Press

Perspectives on Publishing and Raising Voices from the Newest Member Of WLU Press | Wilfrid Laurier University Press

The Magic of Making Books | NYU Press

UP Week Day 1: New Voices | University of Toronto Press

Raising Up Cultural Emblems and Public Art | University of Toronto Press Journals

“We Have Drank from the Same Canteen”: Veteran Company A, the Civil War, and Reconciliation in Kansas City | University of Missouri Press

Amplifying Voices from Sierra Leone | Bucknell University Press

Looking Out from Anishinaabe Territory | University of Manitoba Press

Introducing ACP’s Internship Program and Community Page | Amherst College Press

Enjoy! We’ll be back tomorrow with a recap of posts focusing on the theme of Creative Voices.

Author Cristina Rivera Garza Named a 2020 MacArthur Fellow

Jenna Phillips — Wed, 07 Oct 2020 16:33:24 +0000

Cristina Rivera Garza, author of the new Vanderbilt University Press book The Restless Dead: Necrowriting and Disappropriation, has been named a 2020 MacArthur Fellow by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

The MacArthur Foundation awards its fellowships—known colloquially as “Genius grants”—annually to individuals for “extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits.” Winners represent the leading minds in a diverse range of fields, including literature, social justice, science, and art.

From the MacArthur Foundation:

“Cristina Rivera Garza is a fiction writer interrogating culturally constructed notions of language, memory, and gender from a transnational perspective. Born in Mexico and a resident of the United States for over two decades, Rivera Garza is a prolific and multifaceted author of fiction, essays, and scholarship, including nearly twenty works in Spanish.”

Rivera Garza’s The Restless Dead is the first English edition available of her book Los muertos indóciles, translated by Robin Myers. It theorizes the act of writing in the face of various contemporary challenges, such as the question of individual versus collective authorship, the issue of writing in an era of death and violence, and the act of writing in relation to new technological platforms. For more information about The Restless Dead, visit the book’s page on our website.

The Restless Dead is the inaugural volume in Vanderbilt UP’s Critical Mexican Studies series, the first English-language, humanities-based academic monograph series devoted to the study of Mexico. Edited by Ignacio M. Sánchez Prado (Washington University in St. Louis), the Critical Mexican Studies series focuses on innovative works in the humanities that question the many received ideas that shape the field of Mexican studies.

In response to the MacArthur fellowship news, CMS series editor Ignacio M. Sánchez Prado said:

“Cristina Rivera Garza is one of the most powerful and consequential writers in contemporary literature. As her reader and friend, I am overjoyed with the news of her becoming a MacArthur Fellow. As editor of the Critical Mexican Studies series, it was my priority to bring her timely and lucid theoretical and critical work into English. As the inaugural volume of the series, in the skillful translation by Robin Myers, The Restless Dead brings to the United States her powerful writing on the relationship between literature, gender, violence and community. I join Vanderbilt University Press in warmly congratulating Cristina, and in the enthusiasm of finally bringing this most important book to our readers.”

For more information about the Critical Mexican Studies book series, visit our series page.

For a complete list of the 2020 MacArthur Fellows, visit the MacArthur Foundation website.