The English translation of Sergio Ramírez's 1988 novel, Divine Punishment, was launched yesterday at a PEN World Voices/Americas Society event.
As I've mentioned, the book actually got a lot of good US media coverage when it first came out in Spanish -- see the profiles in The Los Angeles Times and The New York Times -- and was slated for 1990 publication in the US. But the Sandinistas lost the 1990 elections, Ramírez -- Nicaragua's vice-president since 1985 -- was no longer a hot political figure, the editor at his American publisher left, and they dropped the book. (Neither Ramírez nor his translator, Nick Caistor, were sure of who exactly the publisher had been -- a few names were bandied about, but the foolish outfit not definitively identified.)
Caistor had actually translated the book back then -- but all traces of hard- and disk-copies were lost in the ensuing mess, and he actually translated it again, for the now available -- from McPherson & Co. -- edition.
Ramírez described how he wrote the book, even though he was kept rather busy in his official capacity at the time -- rising at four in the morning (with the help of his wife -- someone to wake him, and push him out of bed ...), and working for a few hours before he switched to a completely different frame of mind.
Among the amusing titbits: he did write the book on a computer -- an IBM that came to him via Canada and Madrid (with the US embargoing Nicaragua, computers were impossible to get from or via the US at the time) -- using the old Symphony (DOS) program. The book took up 20 (!) floppy disks -- ah, the good old days of data storage -- which, of course, are now essentially unreadable (the necessary hardware hardly exists any longer); he donated them to a Spanish literary museum.
Back in 1988 the book got a rave from Carlos Fuentes -- a rave published just as Fuentes was picking up his Premio Cervantes, the highest Spanish literary honor. Ramírez was in town for the ceremony, as were many of Fuentes' foreign publishers; selling foreign rights to the book went very well that week.
(You can catch Ramírez at another PEN World Voices event today, Sergio Ramírez: Journey to the Heart of Literature; the PEN World Voices page notes it's in Spanish but fails to note that the Instituto Cervantes admirably provides simultaneous translation (see the small print), so (just-)English-speakers shouldn't be scared off. An interesting life, and a very fine writer, so an event well worth checking out.)
As I've mentioned, the book actually got a lot of good US media coverage when it first came out in Spanish -- see the profiles in The Los Angeles Times and The New York Times -- and was slated for 1990 publication in the US. But the Sandinistas lost the 1990 elections, Ramírez -- Nicaragua's vice-president since 1985 -- was no longer a hot political figure, the editor at his American publisher left, and they dropped the book. (Neither Ramírez nor his translator, Nick Caistor, were sure of who exactly the publisher had been -- a few names were bandied about, but the foolish outfit not definitively identified.)
Caistor had actually translated the book back then -- but all traces of hard- and disk-copies were lost in the ensuing mess, and he actually translated it again, for the now available -- from McPherson & Co. -- edition.
Ramírez described how he wrote the book, even though he was kept rather busy in his official capacity at the time -- rising at four in the morning (with the help of his wife -- someone to wake him, and push him out of bed ...), and working for a few hours before he switched to a completely different frame of mind.
Among the amusing titbits: he did write the book on a computer -- an IBM that came to him via Canada and Madrid (with the US embargoing Nicaragua, computers were impossible to get from or via the US at the time) -- using the old Symphony (DOS) program. The book took up 20 (!) floppy disks -- ah, the good old days of data storage -- which, of course, are now essentially unreadable (the necessary hardware hardly exists any longer); he donated them to a Spanish literary museum.
Back in 1988 the book got a rave from Carlos Fuentes -- a rave published just as Fuentes was picking up his Premio Cervantes, the highest Spanish literary honor. Ramírez was in town for the ceremony, as were many of Fuentes' foreign publishers; selling foreign rights to the book went very well that week.
(You can catch Ramírez at another PEN World Voices event today, Sergio Ramírez: Journey to the Heart of Literature; the PEN World Voices page notes it's in Spanish but fails to note that the Instituto Cervantes admirably provides simultaneous translation (see the small print), so (just-)English-speakers shouldn't be scared off. An interesting life, and a very fine writer, so an event well worth checking out.)