Categoría: Inglés

Translated  by Marvin Najarro Due to the virus, this 2020 has been designated by many people as the cursed year. But it is only one among the thousands that exist; it is not the only one that kills, more people are killed, for example, by the lack of empathy. By turning a blind eye and feigning ignorance to what hits us head on: racism, classism and oblivion. Locking ourselves in our bubbles and keep them under lock and key, because everything that happens outside, what others experience, doesn’t concern us. That is why we see so many children living on the…

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Translated  by Marvin Najarro  This text belongs to Las Insurrectas series The great Clarice Lispector has turned 100.  The amazing writer who never believed she was one; plenty of purity in her soul to walk through life with the arrogance of the intelligentsia. Her texts made their way amid the intricacies of daily life, with the typewriter on her lap while keeping an eye on her young children. The appropriate room of which Virginia Woolf speaks was for Clarice that typewriter that saved her from the void.  Clarice, who grew up in poverty, an emigrant since she was a child, who…

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Translated  by Marvin Najarro At the level of analysis is interesting to observe the behavior and passivity of the Guatemalan population, they get involved in protests because a government run by a gang of crooks has pocketed millions of quetzales, but look the other way when the indigenous peoples are murdered and dispossessed of their lands. The government can impose states of siege in key places where drug planes land and leave those indigenous communities isolated for months without the city’s mestizo intelligentsia saying a word. These governments, through the activities of mining companies, have also been destroying the habitat of…

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Translated  by Marvin Najarro Football belongs to the people, to the arrabal, as are the wildflowers, the ivy, the grasslands and muddy streets. The adobe houses, the tin champas, the hunger, the unfulfilled dreams, the hardened back, the head held high, the friendly hand, the shoulder to lean on, the look that carries the soul in the pupils. The after-hours work shifts, the sun and the cold sticking to the skin. And when it comes to football nations have no borders, nor languages, religion, or nationality, they are consolidated into one, all the nations become one.  Because football is like oxygen,…

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Translated  by Katrina Hassan There is a time when abuse and injustice tires the people and awakens them with indignation. This is how they begin the search of liberty and democracy. Some people take longer than others. Each has their own process and history. If they unite, they achieve defeat of impunity and can end all forms of dictatorships. They are rare, that’s for sure. That is why these awakenings are like flowering meadows, all full of hope. The joy of them is as contagious as if part of a great big town festival. To join, there needs to be common…

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Translated  by Katrina Hassan I have a clear memory of the instant when the words got stuck in my throat, whirling around inside. My heart beating a thousand per minute and the spell barely letting me walk. I left that place in a daze. I found myself in the pale dusk light, hugging the night. I looked around, took a breath of air and walked to the bus stop. I was in zone 1 of the Guatemalan capital and I was 17 years old. The Physical Education Magistrate was studied all day everyday from Monday through Friday. The students are given…

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Translated  by Katrina Hassan It has been appearing on my TV now for a few weeks, but I have been avoiding it. I look for movies somewhere else but it is a documentary about the violence that affected the indigenous communities in Guatemala at the time of the dictatorship. It is easy to change the channel or pretend it is only an image on the TV screen.  More than 200,000 people disappeared, it reads in large type. I don’t want to look at it. Not now, I am watching something else, relaxing, with documentaries about culture, food, anything except the one that…

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Translated  by Katrina Hassan They always come to my mind when the De Diez flowers start blooming in the warm summer days. The soft breeze, the sun and the dog days of summer bring with them the watering of a dusty yard with a random container. That house and that yard sheltered the innocence of my childhood. The smell of wet earth comes to me through my window here in this faraway land, where I now sow garlic, tomato seeds and mint. I fix the mint that expands elegantly between the vines and the Lantana flowers and the plant pots, in…

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