The Grill,
a bilingual edition of Adolfo Pardo's 1981 testimonial novel La Parrilla describing a young woman's experience of arrest and torture under Chile's Pinochet dictatorship. Published by Veliz Books in January, 2017. “La parrilla [The Grill], Adolfo Pardo’s transcription and novelization of a 19-year-old woman’s account of her detention and torture under the Pinochet dictatorship, now translated by Scott Spanbauer, is a historical literary document that we are fortunate to have. La parrilla was published and circulated clandestinely in Chile in 1981, and Pardo put himself at great risk to make sure that his story was told: a story of horrific detail; a story of unspeakable pain, shame, and torture that reveals, among other things, how Chilean doctors facilitated the physical, sexual, and psychological abuse of prisoners. This is a story about how a person lives through and survives the vilest of manmade hells, yet the speaker somehow maintains a spiritedness and determination that is itself and act of political force and resistance. This book, which first appeared amid the dangerous silence of repression and censorship, is not just a document of history; it’s also a document about how history gets written when those who demand justice and recognition are brave enough to sacrifice their lives so that the most vulnerable of voices will never disappear, will remain present to expose what brutal state governments are capable of doing to their own people.”
—Daniel Borzutzky, translator of Country of Planks by Raúl Zurita
Calling Water by Its Name, a bilingual edition of Laura Cesarco Eglin's 2010 collection Llamar al agua por su nombre, published in 2016 by Mouthfeel Press.
"Into
orange blossoms,
dancing castanets, clouding sandscapes, Laura Cesarco Eglin
weaves dreamy memories of a rioplatense childhood and a
maturing poet's
understanding of language's ability to make, unmake, and remake the
world. While 'all that remains of the sand / is the word handful,'
Cesarco Eglin keeps language fresh--woodsing, outjugated, underbay--and
her imaginative leaps teach us 'how to live our death' and how to
live
with insistent longing: 'Rewinding moments / in the shadow of later
because / when I say enough it's already gone.' Through Scott
Spanbauer's deft and daring translations, English speakers now have a
chance to experience one of Uruguay's loveliest emerging voices." -Ron Salutsky, author of Romeo Bones
Additional selected publications:
Water, Water Everywhere April 9, 2016:
Ways of Seeing
Funeral Rehearsals
Turning into Algae
Blue Lyra Review Issue 5.1 Spring 2016:
Connotations
Hiedra Vol. 3, Fall 2014:
Can't Be Contained in a Bottle
From Lighter to Fire
Pilgrimage Vol. 37, Issue 3:
That's Nothing
The Grammar of the Shrimp
The Franklin Mountains Are Not the Moon
Coconut Poetry Magazine, Number 17:
A Question of Skin
The Nights and I
Today I Tell You
Other completed and/or forthcoming translations:
Excerpt from Murder by Augustín Espinosa (1934).
Tailor Shop by Laura Cesarco Eglin.
Poem: In the Hell of One Night by Isaac Del Vando Villar (1919).
Contact:scott@spanbauer.com