Signs Preceding the End of the World

Beautiful and lyrical, surreal and yet also believable. This was truly masterful and the translator's work here shines alongside the author's.

So, I read the English edition right after the original, and almost dropped it ten pages in. The tone feels all wrong: brusque and choppy, not the indescribable softer touch of Herrera’s oh-so-deliberate Spanish. English lacks sensuousness and depth sometimes. And reflexive verbs! Herrera makes delicious use of this property, and it’s completely lost in translation. I had to go back and reread parts of the Spanish just to remind myself of the flow and tone. I can’t call it a bad translation, it really is quite sensible, it just misses so much.

I'm reminded of The Enchanted by Rene Denfeld. A gripping story told with all the trappings of a fairy tale. It's a hero's journey with shades of myth. Crossing the river, descending underground. While it's clear Makina is coming to the US from Mexico it's never made explicit. She instead walks to the place where the hills meet, takes a bus to the place where the wind cuts like a knife - she's indistinctly placed and that lack of naming carries with it a dreamlike state.

The translation is beautifully done and translator Lisa Dillman offers a look at her process involving frequent collaboration with the author himself and the difficulty in nailing down certain pieces of slang used throughout. A slight 100 or so pages, I actually wished it was longer so that I could linger for a while longer in this world.

A haunting novella. In some ways at least. A story of empowerment and yet disempowerment. A look into the world of human trafficking (the immigration kind), motivations driven by poverty, and cultural tenacity. A linear story of a young woman traveling alone from Mexico to the US in search of her brother. I wasn't a fan of some of the choices made in the translation, but this is a great story that will stick with me for awhile.