Join us as we count down to ALTA42: Sight and Sound with the National Translation Award in Poetry and Prose long- and shortlisted titles! We will be featuring the titles in alphabetical order alongside blurbs penned by our judges for the National Translation Awards in Poetry and Prose. This year’s prose judges are Bonnie Huie, Charlotte Mandell, and Jeffrey Zuckerman. This year’s judges for poetry are Anna Deeny Morales, Cole Heinowitz, and Sholeh Wolpe.
For quick reference, you may find the NTA longlists here, and the NTA shortlists here. Today we’re shining the spotlight on Poetry NTA shortlisted title Decals:
Decals
by Oliverio Girondo
translated from the Spanish by Rachel Galvin and Harris Feinsod
(Open Letter Books)
In their bracing translation of Oliverio Girondo’s first two published books of poetry, Harris Feinsod and Rachel Galvin place this giant of the Argentine avant-garde—at long last—on the map for English-speaking audiences. Hailed by contemporaries Pablo Neruda for his “iconoclastic excess” and Jorge Luis Borges for his “frightening efficiency,” Girondo’s inimitable combination of wry cosmopolitanism and visceral pathos has been a touchstone for generations of 20th– and 21st-century Latin American writers. Feinsod and Galvin capture Girondo’s biting cultural critique, verbal legerdemain, and visual nuance with expert penetration while seamlessly transmitting the mischievous exuberance of his rhythm and syntax.