On September 10, 2011 City of Asylum/Pittsburgh will celebrate its seventh annual Jazz/Poetry event in Pittsburgh’s Northside.

The featured jazz musicians this year are Oliver Lake and guest trio Tarbaby, who recently, as part of a jazz festival featuring 55 other groups in New York, “played the set to go home remembering,” according to the New York Times’s reviewer Ben Ratliff.

Last year, the Jazz/Poetry event featured music from Oliver Lake’s Big Band improvising behind the spoken words of writers Yusef Komunyakaa, Maryia Martysevich, Hinemoana Baker, Khet Mar, and Horacio Castellanos Moya.

Video editing and production by Glen Wood

As part of that event Sampsonia Way interviewed each of the members of Oliver Lake’s Big Band to get a glimpse of the personalities of the musicians that backed 2010′s readers.

Yoichi Uzeki, born in Tokyo in 1976, first took classical piano lessons at age four after his mother signed him up for them. Although Uzeki admitted in an interview with Rockyoumentally in 2009: “I was not really a serious student at all…I didn’t practice much.”

Uzeki started playing jazz when he went to college at Hosei University in Tokyo. By his early 20′s he was part of the acclaimed Japanese big band, the Waseda University High Society Orchestra, winning several awards with the group in 1998 and 1999.

In 2001 he went to Temple University to study jazz performance and recorded his original composition “Not a Love Song” with the Temple University Jazz band a year later. In 2005 Uzeki moved to New York to study jazz at Queens College CUNY. Since 2006 he has played piano with Oliver Lake’s Big Band.

In this interview Uzeki talks about his involvement with Oliver Lake’s Big Band, naming his original compositions, and sparking the imaginations of his listeners.

Photo: www.bahrainrights.org

“I know what awaited me in the event that I wasn’t killed—the same thing that happened to publisher Karim Fakhrawi and blogger Zakariya Al-Asheeri, who were in custody for a matter of days before their families were given their corpses along with pieces of paper from the government stating nonsensical reasons for their deaths.” That’s how Bahraini writer Ali al-Jallawi explains why he feels lucky to end up living in exile and not in prison after leaving his native Bahrain in April, 2011.

In February of this year, pro-democracy protests began in Bahrain. Before he was forced to flee the country Ali al-Jallawi participated in the demonstrations and sit-ins . He recited poems at the Pearl Roundabout and helped local media and the international press understand the events by giving interviews at the sit-in –which, he says, was dispersed when demonstrators were fired upon by security forces.

Bahraini journalists, academics, novelists, poets, and bloggers have been targets of a state-mandated repression that has increased since the latter half of 2010. Al-Jallawi, author of 6 books, is no exception.

Answering Sampsonia Way’s questions via email from Germany, Ali al-Jallawi explains his history of arrests, the struggles of being in exile, and the changes he would like to see in his country.

Since the nationwide protests began in February, what violence have you witnessed?

People have been killed; people have been kidnapped from the street, from checkpoints, from their places of work or from their homes. People who belong to political groups have been arrested, as well as people who have no political affiliation.

There have been arbitrary trials, that do not follow humanitarian standards. Thousands have been fired from their jobs simply for their political views. Personal property, houses, and cars have been damaged, and sometimes confiscated. Shiite places of worship have been demolished. The editors of a newspaper, Al Wasat, were removed and changed.

People have been defamed by government media (TV, radio, and newspapers). There have been cases of rape, torture, and death both inside and outside prisons. All this and more happened in a period of no more than a month after the announcement of a State of National Security in Bahrain. I was not the only witness; the media has reported far more than I have mentioned here.

Why were you arrested in the nineties?

In 1993 I was arrested when I was 17 years old for reading a poem. I spent six months in prison. I was arrested a second time in 1995, and spent three years in prison. I wrote about this period in my memoir, God After Ten O’Clock, which was published recently.

And what happened this year? Why does the government see you as an enemy ?

This year I participated in the demonstrations and sit-ins for democracy, justice, and freedom. This time I was not arrested, but I was at risk because I was one of many people demanding freedom and dignity. I said that we wanted to elect our Prime Minister, that we should not have the same unelected Prime Minister in Bahrain for nearly 40 years, and that people who have stolen from the Bahraini people should pay for that. There is an entire island called Jidda which was a prison before; nowadays it is the property of the Prime Minister. The whole of the Financial Harbour development – an area of four football pitches – is the property of the Prime Minister. He paid the equivalent of $3 for it.

I’m neither a hero nor a fighter, I’m just a person with an opinion, and what the government in Bahrain is doing is state terrorism. I just participated in the sit-ins and demonstrations condemning injustice and demanding freedom. I recited poems at the Pearl Roundabout and helped the media and the international press understand what was happening by giving interviews at the sit-in (which was dispersed when demonstrators were fired upon, killing some). In the end, even if I knew what the result would be – I knew that violence was the only language the regime used – I was still ready to express my opinion and condemn oppression and demand freedom.

So after being in jail twice you opted for exile…

In prison you are contained, your speech and your movements are prevented, you are kept under the whips of torture and robbed of your human rights. In prison you have to get permission to go to the bathroom, to see a doctor, or to see your son. I

In exile you can still express your opinion and demand freedom, democracy, and justice. You can put pressure on the repressive state as part of the opposition, and expose those of its apparatuses which have committed genocidal crimes and crimes against humanity. In exile you have the freedom to write, the freedom to move, the freedom of knowledge. You can be a human being without asking for the state’s permission.

Therefore exile is better than prison in Bahrain, as far as I am concerned. I was imprisoned twice in Bahrain and I know what awaited me in the event that I wasn’t killed—the same thing that happened to publisher Karim Fakhrawi and blogger Zakariya Al-Asheeri, who were in custody for a matter of days before their families were given their corpses along with pieces of paper from the government stating nonsensical reasons for their deaths.

What troubles have you encountered while in exile?

I feel as though I fled Bahrain because I was wanted, only to find I felt wanted in other states. I fled from the possibility of prison in Bahrain, to a prison in Britain, then a camp for asylum seekers in Germany. Exile means going into the unknown; you don’t know where you will live, what you will do, how you will live your life, or who your neighbors will be. Exile is the slow murder of your memories. On the other hand it is a door opening onto something new. The only problem is that your country of exile becomes your homeland because you no longer have a country that you belong to. Instead you have your bag, and train stations or airports are your home. Every state you enter considers you somehow guilty because you were in prison before, because you are Arab, because you have dark skin, because you are a second-class human— perhaps because your passport is not European.

Ideally, what changes would you like to see in Bahrain?

It should not be the case that 12 out of 14 government ministers are from the Al Khalifa family, and that the Prime Minister is in the same position for forty years without being elected. People should not be killed in the street and in prison because of their political opinions and for asking for their human rights. The Shiites of Bahrain should not be discriminated against or prevented from working in many government jobs. Newspapers should not be closed, and journalists and writers should not be killed simply for mentioning facts about what is happening on the ground. It should not be the case that virtually the entire coastline of Bahrain is private property, or that most of the country’s land be forcibly registered in the name of members of the ruling family. We should have a parliament with full powers. We should not go to bed at night worrying whether security forces will come to arrest us. There should be a separation between religion and state, and a separation between the judiciary and other branches of government. This can be summarized by saying we need a civil state based on law, equality, and justice, nothing more or less. These are simply demands by which you feel you are a human being whose humanity has not been taken away.

DVB Reporter Hla Hla Win, Photo: DVB

Thanks to the efforts of brave Burmese video journalists, images of violence from the Saffron Revolution in September 2007–during which Burmese troops arrested more than 200 monks, and killed at least 13 people, including Japanese photo-journalist Kenji Nagai–have been seen all around the world.

Since then, Burmese security forces have made an enemy of anyone who sends photos or video of the current conditions in Burma to foreign news outlets. Around 20 journalists and bloggers have been arrested and at least 13 are still in prison. According to a statement released by the Oslo-based Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), these journalists may have been tortured during interrogation.

Last December two DVB video journalists were arrested and sentenced up to 13 years in prison. They joined 15 other DVB reporters who have also been detained.

The following video shows the story of Hla Hla Win, a 26 year-old DVB reporter in prison with a 27 year sentence for interviewing a monk during the Saffron Revolution’s failed peaceful uprising. After her arrest, Hla Hla Win went on a hunger strike for several days and was hospitalized because of her rapidly deteriorating health.

A senior representative of the DVB told Reporters Without Borders that the sentence imposed on Hla Hla Win was “unjust” because all she did was “gather information about the situation in Burma, nothing more.”

Video: DVB TV

Read media groups’ call for release of imprisoned Burmese journalists

On May 3rd South Korean author Kyung-sook Shin read at an event sponsored by City of Asylum/Pittsburgh and PEN/America. Below is a video of her reading from her novel Please Look after Mom in its original Korean.

Later the excerpt was read in English by Nancy Krygowski: Watch the video here.

Thanks to Seung-hwan Shin for English-Korean translation.

신경숙은 베스트셀러 “엄마를 부탁해”의 작가다. 소설 “엄마를 부탁해”는 한국에서 170만부 이상의 판매를 기록했고, 얼마전 출간된 영문본은 한 달여만에 뉴욕타임즈의 베스트셀러 목록 상위 20위에 들기도 했다. 신경숙은 “엄마를 부탁해”를 포함 7편의 장편소설을 내놓았고, 또한 그 외에 5권의 단편 소설집과 두권의 산문집을 펴냈다. 그녀의 저작은 5개국어로 번역되어 있다.

2011 년 5월 3일 촬영된 이 동영상은, City of Asylum/Pittsburgh과 PEN/America의 후원으로 열린 작품낭독 행사에 초대된 소설가 신경숙이 자신의 저작 “엄마를 부탁해” 일부를 모국어로 낭독하는 모습을 담고 있다. 이 행사에는 신경숙과 함께 소설가 허브 르 텔리어(Hervé Le Tellier)와 데이빗 베즈모즈기스(David Bezmozgis)도 초청되었다.

Sampsonia Way가 마련한 소설가 신경숙과 인터뷰는 여기에서 읽을 수 있다.

Coatza Digital

The decapitated head of Yolanda Ordaz de la Cruz, a reporter for the Mexican daily Notiver who covered police stories in Mexico’s Gulf Coast state of Veracruz, was found Tuesday morning. Ordaz de la Cruz had been missing since Sunday.

Magda Zayas, a spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s office, told the Committee to Protect Journalists that a note found with the body seems to connect Ordaz’s murder to the killing of the widely known columnist Miguel Angel López Velasco, his wife, and son, a photographer for Velasco’s newspaper, on June 20. The note was signed “Carranza,” and said: “Friends can also betray you.”

The Associated Press reported that Veracruz state investigators have identified former traffic police officer Juan Carlos Carranza Saavedra as the main suspect in the López murder.

On the other hand, the Los Angeles Times reported that the state authorities denied in a statement on Tuesday that Ordaz was killed for her “journalistic work,” hinting that the motive behind her death was “links to organized crime.”

The state authorities did not elaborate in their statements, but Notiver, the newspaper where Ordaz worked, published an editorial Wednesday adamantly denying the possibility that she had links to a criminal gang and demanding that the attorney general of the Gulf coast state of Veracruz resign.

Carlos Lauría, CPJ’s senior program coordinator for the Americas, stated that “Yolanda Ordaz’s murder is part of a troubling lethal trend that has made Veracruz an extremely dangerous place to be a journalist.”

The Los Angeles Times points out that Veracruz is a critical drug- and human-trafficking route along the Gulf of Mexico that is presumed to be controlled by the violent Zetas cartel.

Ordaz is the third journalist to be killed in Veracruz state this year and is among more than 70 killed since 2000, according to press rights groups and media tallies.

An international report released in June by the Committee to Protect Journalists said that “anti-press violence continued to climb in Mexico, where authorities appear powerless in bringing killers to justice.”

Kyung-sook Shin is the author of the best-selling novel Please Look After Mom. Ranked in the top twenty on the New York Times best-seller list only a month after its English-language release, the novel has also sold over 1.7 million copies in its native South Korea. Shin has written six other novels, five short story collections, and two works of non-fiction. Her work has been translated into five languages.

In this video, recorded on May 3rd, 2011 poet Nancy Krygowski reads the English translation of Please Look After Mom as part of a reading sponsored by City of Asylum/Pittsburgh and PEN/America. The reading also featured authors Hervé Le Tellier and David Bezmozgis.

Krygowski’s book of poems, Velocity, won the 2006 Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize from the University of Pittsburgh Press. She’s received grants from the PA Council on the Arts and from the Pittsburgh Foundation, plus residencies at the Jentel Foundation and The Kimmel Nelson Harding Center for the Arts. She works as an adult literacy instructor.

Related Articles

Read an excerpt from Velocity.

Read Sampsonia Way’s interview with Kyung-sook Shin.

Watch Hervé Le Tellier read from Enough About Love.

Watch David Bezmogis read from The Free World.

Read an interview with Hervé Le Tellier.

Read an interview with David Bezmogis.

Horacio Castellanos Moya nació en 1957 en Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Criado en El Salvador, ha vivido desde 1979 en varias ciudades de América y Europa, en particular en la Ciudad de México, donde ejerció el periodismo durante doce años. De 2004 a 2006 residió en Frankfurt, Alemania, como escritor invitado por la Feria Internacional del Libro de esa ciudad. Ha impartido clases en la Universidad de Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, y en otras universidades estadounidenses, y ha sido investigador invitado en la Universidad de Tokio.

Castellanos Moya es autor de diez novelas, de las que siete han aparecido en Tusquets Editores, han sido traducidas a varios idiomas y han alcanzado un destacado éxito de crítica internacional. Sus relatos se reunieron en el volumen Con la congoja de la pasada tormenta. En 2009, la versión en lengua inglesa de su novela Insensatez mereció el XXVIII Northern California Book Award.

La sirvienta y el luchador, quizá su novela más trepidante, entrelaza las historias de varios personajes cuyas relaciones forman un microcosmos borboteante de humanidad en medio de la barbarie más inimaginable. Además, La sirvienta y el luchador culmina un ciclo de novelas (Donde no estén ustedes, Desmoronamiento y Tirana memoria), que puede leerse también como una particular saga donde se revela, en todas sus ramificaciones, la historia de una familia y la de todo un país.

Para el lector de habla hispana, Sampsonia Way presenta un fragmento de la última novela del autor en español: La sirvienta y el luchador.

Para comprar La Sirvienta y el Luchador presione aquí.

Para comprar Tyrant Memory presione aqui

El miércoles 27 de julio Horacio Castellanos Moya leerá fragmentos de su novela Tyrant Memory (Tirana Memoria), traducida al inglés por Katherine Silver y publicada en junio por New Directions Press. En la reseña publicada en el New York Times, Sheila Glaser resalta que la aguda ironía de Castellanos Moya ilustra el ritmo de vida en una ciudad provinciana de Latino América y agrega que ésta es la novela más ambiciosa del autor hasta la fecha.

Hora: 7:00 pm. Lugar: 318 Sampsonia Way

Para reservar por favor llamar al 412-321-2190 o escribir a lauramustiocoap@gmail.com

Mapa

El miércoles 27 de julio Horacio Castellanos Moya leerá fragmentos de su novela Tyrant Memory (Tirana Memoria), traducida al inglés por Katherine Silver y publicada en junio por New Directions Press. En la reseña publicada en el New York Times, Sheila Glaser resalta que la aguda ironía de Castellanos Moya ilustra el ritmo de vida en una ciudad provinciana de Latino América y agrega que ésta es la novela más ambiciosa del autor hasta la fecha.

Para reservar por favor llamar al 412-321-2190 o escribir a lauramustiocoap@gmail.com

Hora: 7:00 pm

Lugar: 318 Sampsonia Way

Mapa

UK-based Tamil rapper SujeethG‘s lyrics deliver stinging commentary on societal evils, and his pulsating anger stands up against all forms of oppression. His raps echo the valorous beats of centuries-old Tamil war epics even as they seamlessly switch to Eelam Tamil street slang, as heard on the streets of Tooting. A prolific artist, SujeethG has released more than 60 songs, including four albums: Singles (2005), Adi Mel Adi (2007), Anayaathu (2010), and Raavannan (2011). He has also written and directed a short-film Paavam (Sin, 2010) reflecting the difficulties of the Tamil Diaspora.

In this interview with Meena Kandasamy, SujeethG speaks about his work, the importance of protest music in a revolutionary struggle, and rap’s ability to transform the meaning of the material it appropriates.

You work with all genres of music, but you seem to identify yourself primarily as a rapper. Why?

I heard rap music only after I came to London, and it captivated me. I started rapping in Tamil when I realized that it was a great medium to reach out to the second generation of the Tamil Diaspora. I had been a columnist, writing essays and social commentary, but I wanted to connect with the youth who were at the forefront of our struggle.

Rap held a stronger appeal for me than any other form of music. It energizes the listeners because it has a certain spontaneity, and it is almost like a form of speech. I think of rap as a solid medium to express social concerns and voice out against all forms of oppression. Rap has been heavily appropriated by corporate media, but I want my music to move beyond the standard formula of drugs, guns, gangsters, and girls.

It sounds nice and radical to say that rap lends itself as a tool to protest oppression. Have you used it that way?

I don’t think anyone can escape politics, certainly not someone from my generation or background. So when I realized my talent for rapping, I wanted to make an impact on the Tamil-speaking people who number about 80 million worldwide. So, since 2006, I have released more than a dozen songs as singles about the oppression against Tamil people in Sri Lanka. My intention was to raise awareness among young Tamils in the Diaspora about the sufferings undergone by our people and the need for resistance and solidarity. Later, these songs were compiled as Anayaathu. This album was released on May 18th, 2010 to mark Mullivaikkal Remembrance Day in memory of the hundreds of thousands of Tamil people who had perished in Sri Lanka the previous year. All proceeds from the sale of my album went to charity.

How have Tamils received you as a rapper?

Young Tamils from diverse backgrounds are my fans. Honestly, in 2005, the first comment from middle-aged viewers of a Tamil television channel was: “Why is he shouting like a black man?” My song “Viduthalai” (Freedom), released in 2006, had a strong message against oppression. When that was released, the elder generation started to accept my work. They saw me as a powerful voice of protest. I have earned their respect, but I am not sure if many of them appreciate rap or listen to it repeatedly.

Sri Lanka has established a reputation for curtailing media freedom. As a Tamil from that war-torn island now living in London, can you comment on the absence of freedom of expression in Sri Lanka?

It is dangerous to be a creative artist in Sri Lanka because it is a hidden dictatorship. That is why writers, artists, journalists, and filmmakers are fleeing the place. This is not a new thing because alternative opinion has never had any space in Sri Lanka. Forget writing a revolutionary article; if a Tamil schoolboy is caught looking for the politics page in the newspaper, he would be in trouble. This has been the situation for several decades. You can be a leftist, but you will be asked to compromise with the right-wing forces if you want to stay active in politics. The only positive outcome of writers and journalists in exile is that we have the chance to present the true face of Sri Lanka before the international community.

Tamils in Sri Lanka today cannot take the risk of using art for revolution. And yet, we need a culture of resistance in order to carry our struggle. Art affords a choice, allows people to speak out. Within Sri Lanka, music cannot be used publicly for resistance in the present context.

In their early days, the Liberation Tigers made use of art to a great extent —and more particularly, music— to make an impact on the Tamil people. The same strategy continues to be used in the Diaspora. I often hear from fans and friends of how my songs are played at protest marches and Tamil demonstrations everywhere, whether it is in Geneva or Toronto. I am happy to contribute to the upsurge and resurgence of Tamil people. What is happening in Sri Lanka is a planned and systematic elimination of Tamils from the island. Not only are Tamils being killed, but their cultural symbols are also being destroyed. Because of the near-total lack of freedom of expression in Sri Lanka, the safety of staying in a foreign land gives me the responsibility of speaking about the suffering of my people. Let the world open its eyes and look at us.

Photo: © SujeethG

With the much-touted “end of terrorism” on the island, do you think Tamils in Sri Lanka face a better future?

Though they were seen as terrorists by the world, the Tigers were the only resistance to Sinhalese oppression. Today there is no one to speak up for the Tamils. At present, we are a silenced minority in the island.

Now Sri Lanka projects itself to the outside world as a tourist destination devoid of terrorism. They are selling the myth that there is peace for everybody but nothing can be farther from the truth. The root of the problem lies in the absence of equal treatment. Unless that problem is sorted out, I wonder whether lasting peace can ever come to the island. Even the Sinhalese soldiers who died in the civil war were only victims of a poverty draft. They had no knowledge of the struggle, they only believed in the propaganda that Tamils were immigrants from India.

One must realize that the Tamil revolutionary struggle is not against the Sinhalese people. It is against the chauvinistic ruling Sinhala classes who deny rights to Tamils. The formation of an independent homeland would not in anyway distress the Sinhala people, but the supremacist thinking and hegemonic Mahavamsa mindset that sees Tamils as second-class people is prevalent among Sinhalese politicians in Sri Lanka. That is why they don’t want to give equal rights to the Tamils.

You seem to clash head-on with myths. You blame the Mahavamsa for the Sinhalese mindset. Likewise, when people normally look at Raavannan as a defeated hero from the epic Ramayana, you name your latest album after this controversial character. Why?

There’s no denying the fact that people keep going back to myths all the time. The hegemonic mindset cultivated by epics like the Mahavamsa –which portrays the Sinhalese as the native inhabitants of Sri Lanka and the Tamils as latter-day immigrants from India– is responsible for the situation prevailing in Sri Lanka today. The Sinhalese believe that the island belongs only to them, and that we are foreigners staking a false claim.

Likewise, the Ramayana is a part of the Tamil syllabus, and unknown to ourselves, we are made to read a religious text that portrays us as horrible people. I look at the Ramayana as a myth that was written to push a certain supremacist Aryan agenda. As a man from Lankapuri (present-day Sri Lanka is referred by this name in the Ramayana), and mainly as a Tamil, I see Raavannan as a Tamil icon of resistance against oppression. Valmiki’s Ramayana depicted the north-Indian Rama as an avatar of god, south Indians as monkeys and the people of Lankapuri as demons. I named my album after the King of Lankapuri because I did not agree with his portrayal as a villain. There is a long history of challenging the Aryan agenda of Ramayana. The title song “Raavannan” is based on this issue. I find the resonances of the epic strongly even in today’s context, and I think every Tamil should be aware of this.

Photo: © SujeethG

You criticize the superstitious beliefs of Tamils. Why did you address this theme?

Tamil people take their religious identity very seriously. For once, why don’t we look at this from God’s perspective? Everyone is asking for favors. So it is all about making deals with him. One of my songs “Kadavul” (God) deals with how God has become a security guard and “O.Saami” (O’God) deals with how there exists a big group of brokers between people and God. I want to awaken individuals from such blindness. For instance, “Kozhai” (Coward) from [the album] Raavannan challenges male domination.

I am now working on Pambal (Fun), slated for release in 2012. This album is totally funny and humorous; it marks a switch from a serious trend towards light-hearted comic satire. As usual, my friends Santhors and Thishanthan are composing the music for this project. In this album I also deal with social issues like dowry deaths and caste oppression. I think it is important for us to not only criticize our oppressors, but also to think within our own community and work towards righting the many wrongs we see.

How do you feel about the corporate commodification of music?

My music is not molded by the market. The corporate world looks at sales and audiences; it begins dictating terms. However, my music is concerned about the message it puts across. I believe that pursuing any kind of a corporate agenda prevents the creation of true art.

In the context of the Tamil language (in which I work), the music industry simply functions as an extension of the movie industry. In such a case, an independent artist like me has to resist the pressure of writing formulaic lyrics for commercial films.

The elusive search for fame and saleability, instead of looking at the value of ones creation, spells the end of social concern.

RELATED ARTICLES

Listen to more of SujeethG’s music.

Download SujeethG’s albums.

Watch the documentary Killing Fields on the genocide that took place in Sri Lanka.

Read Sampsonia Way’s interview with Indian poet Meena Kandasamy.

Read Sampsonia Way’s interview with filmmaker Leena Manimekalai.

City of Asylum/Pittsburgh invites you to an evening with Horacio Castellanos Moya next Wednesday, July 27, at 7:00 pm. Castellanos Moya will read from his latest novel Tyrant Memory, translated into English by Katherine Silver and published by New Direction Press.

In her New York Times review, Sheila Glaser writes: “Castellanos Moya’s sharp urban ironies give way to the rhythms of life in a provincial Latin American capital,” and added that “Tyrant Memory remains Castellanos Moya’s most ambitious novel to date.”

To guarantee a seat, please make a reservation by calling 412-321-2190 or emailing lauramustiocoap@gmail.com

Event Location: 318 Sampsonia Way

On Friday, we presented a Q&A with with the author and an excerpt from Tyrant Memory. Today we include an excerpt from The She-Devil in the Mirror, also translated by Katherine Silver and published in 2009 by New Directions Press.

From THE SHE-DEVIL IN THE MIRROR, By Horacio Castellanos Moya, translated by Katherine Silver. Copyright ©2000 by Horacio Castellanos Moya. Translation copyright ©2009 by Katherine Silver. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing.

RELATED ARTICLES

Read Sampsonia Way’s Q&A with Horacio Castellanos Moya

Read an excerpt from Tyrant Memory

Read An Interview with Horacio Castellanos Moya.