Rodrigo Rey Rosa

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Rodrigo Rey Rosa (2015)

Rodrigo Rey Rosa (born November 4, 1958 in Guatemala City ) is a Guatemalan writer and translator. In 2004 he received the Guatemalan National Prize for Literature ( Premio Nacional de Literatura de Guatemala ).

biography

As the son of a middle-class family from Guatemala City - on his father's side with Italian roots - Rey Rosa, he remembers, traveled a lot with his parents; through Mexico and Central America, but also to Europe. The first time he traveled alone immediately after graduating from school, he was 18 years old. He went to London and then toured the old continents (Europe). Since he had little money, he worked in Germany , from there to Spain .

After traveling for a year, he returned to Guatemala , but left his home country in 1979 due to the prevailing atmosphere of "violence and tension". He settled in New York , where he enrolled in film school but did not get a degree.

By the time he arrived in the United States , he had been seriously writing for about a year and had published a short story in Imparcial magazine. He also wrote a short story in English for acceptance into the School of Visual Arts in New York. He studied cinematology there for two years, but left it again in 1983. He spent most of the following year in Morocco ; For six weeks he was in Paul Bowles' literary writing workshop in Tangier, and traveled across the country. Later he dedicated some works to these experiences in North Africa.

His relationship and friendship with Bowles shaped him deeply. The American author translated his first works into English and made them known in the English-speaking world.

He was also friends with the Spanish painter Miquel Barceló , whose art illustrated some of his books. In addition, he wrote a work that he dedicated to the elaboration of the dome in the meeting room of the UN Human Rights Council.

In 1992/93 he returned to Guatemala and since then has been in a state of constant "coming and going" (New York, Colombia, Spain, Morocco), even though he settled in the Peten region, where he has a house near Sayaxché on the Río La Pasión . He also owns an apartment in Guatemala City , but admits it is not a place to work.

Awarded the National Prize for Literature, the Premio Nacional de Literatura, in 2004 Rodrigo Rey Rosa wrote works that put his country at the center.

Translation occupies an important place in his artistic work. He usually alternates between writing and translating. “I usually work on a translation in between working on a book. This is very useful for finding solutions. There is less anxiety about the creative process, but it can be a long and complex process, especially if you respect the work you are translating, ”he said.

Rodrigo Rey Rosa also worked as a journalist and in 2004 also released Lo quesoñó Sebastián (What Sebastian Dreamed), an 83-minute film that he dedicated to Bowles. The film, directed by Rey Rosa, is based on his novel of the same name, and he wrote the screenplay with Robert Fittman. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and was also shown at the Berlin International Film Festival .

Many of his books have been translated into other languages ​​such as French, German, Dutch, Italian and Japanese.

In 2011 Rey Rosa explained about his work: “If I were to talk to myself, I would say that my writing was abstract at first. I started to write what you prose poems called, stories of half a page, which eventually located Cárcel de árboles , which is my first long poem (dt.Gefängnis of trees) widened. For me it was a big leap to write texts that are more than 15 pages long. Previously, I had published two collections of short stories - Elcuchillo del mendigo and Elaguaquieta - that cover topics that may appear in any city in Latin America but are not linked to the environment or the surrounding landscape. From the objects described, or the landscape, you can infer that they are set in Latin America, but you never know exactly where they are, because I was a bit vague and didn't include names of places. My most recent text, on the other hand, on which I am still working, takes place in today's Guatemala and contains recognizable characters and aspects, in a kind of 'realistic' eagerness to reflect the environment, the language, the clothes of the people - in contrast to my earlier stories. I would say that I was tired of looking for other forms of storytelling, but I don't think it's an evolution. I started to write things a little vaguely and then I have moved towards greater accuracy. It can be a return, I don't know if it was a progression, but there is a difference. "

He says of his way of writing: "I forbid myself to know more about the story than what is created while writing it. At the beginning I never make a sketch, in the writing process I learn what the novel needs. I suspect that it is me that puts it in the role of the reader ".

Awards

  • Premio Nacional de Literatura Miguel Ángel Asturias (National Prize for Literature Miguel Ángel Asturias ), 2004

plant

  • El cuchillo del mendigo , short stories, Publicaciones Vista, Guatemala, 1986.
  • Cárcel de árboles , short stories, Fundación Guatemalteca para las Letras, 1991.
  • El cuchillo del mendigo. El agua quieta , short stories, Barcelona, ​​Seix Barral, 1992. Actually two books that have been combined here: El cuchillo del mendigo and EL AGUA QUIETA . The first contains 26 stories, the second 12.
  • Cárcel de árboles. El salvador de buques , short stories and novels. Barcelona, ​​Seix Barral, 1992.
  • El salvador de buques , Roman, Publicaciones Vista, Guatemala, 1993.
  • Con cinco barajas , personal anthology of short stories, Mexico, UNAM, 1996.
  • Lo que soñó Sebastián , Anthology: Novels and Stories, Barcelona, ​​Seix Barral, 1994.
  • El cojo bueno , Roman, Madrid, Editorial Alfaguara, 1996.
  • Que me maten si ... , Roman, Barcelona, ​​Seix Barral, 1997.
  • Ningún lugar sagrado , short stories, Barcelona, ​​Seix Barral, 1998; (contains 10 stories set in New York ).
  • La orilla africana , a novel set in Tangier; Barcelona, ​​Seix Barral, 1999.
    • Tangier , from Guatemalan Spanish by Arno Gimber, Rotpunktverlag, 2002, ISBN 3858692484 .
  • Piedras encantadas , Seix Barral, 2001 (published in Guatemala under the title Noche de piedras by Del Pensativo, 2002)
  • El tren a Travancore (Cartas indias) , Mondadori, Barcelona, ​​2001.
  • Caballeriza , Roman, Seix Barral, 2006.
    • Stables , from the Guatemalan Spanish by Elisabeth López-Semeleder, Septime Verlag, 2014, ISBN 978-3-902711-30-4 .
  • Otro zoo , relatos, Seix Barral, 2007.
  • Siempre juntos y otros cuentos , Almadía, 2008.
  • El material humano , novela, Anagrama, 2009.
  • Severina , Roman, Alfaguara, 2011.
  • Los sordos , Roman, Alfaguara, 2012.
    • The Deaf , from Guatemalan Spanish by Anna Gentz, Septime Verlag, 2016, ISBN 9783902711502

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Javier Rodríguez Marcos. Violencia y talkción , culture supplement Babelia in El País , September 15, 2012; accessed on the same day
  2. ↑ a b Jeffrey Gray. Placing the Placeless: a Conversation with Rodrigo Rey Rosa , interview in English, conducted in New York on May 21, 2001 and published in the University of North Carolina Journal A Contra Corriente, vol.4, Nº2, Winter 2007; Pp. 160-186; Retrieved July 13, 2011
  3. ↑ a b Rodrigo Rey Rosa in the Instituto Cervantes Munich , accessed on July 13, 2011
  4. ↑ a b c El escritor Rodrigo Rey Rosa retrata en su última novela el Tánger más actual , El Mundo December 30, 1999
  5. ↑ El arte de Barceló acalla las críticas , El País November 19, 2008
  6. ↑ Rodrigo Rey Rosa dedicates his last novel to the Guatemalan Mafia , El Mundo May 12, 2006
  7. ↑ Tommaso Koch. Una obsesión de ida y vuelta, según Rodrigo Rey Rosa , El País July 12, 2011; Retrieved July 13, 2011
  8. ↑ film data on IMDb ; Retrieved September 15, 2012
  9. ↑ Rodrigo Rey Rosa on Paul Bowles ' website , English; Retrieved July 13, 2011
  10. ↑ Martín Solares. Un poco de paranoia no le hace mal a nadie ( Memento of July 22, 2011 in the Internet Archive ), Milenio Nº190, interview taken from the author's website on Solo Literatura ; Retrieved July 13, 2011

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Rey Rosa, Rodrigo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Guatemalan writer and translator
DATE OF BIRTH 4th November 1958
PLACE OF BIRTH Guatemala City , Guatemala