(Originally tweeted a shorter version, but here extended for reading as an essay.)
I am confused to see this translation today of a crónica by Pedro Lemebel in the Paris Review. As far as I understand it, this text should not be coming out right now. There is a legal battle in Chile currently on-going over the rights to Lemebel’s writing. As I understand it, this crónica and an anthology due out in 2024 from Penguin should not be happening. Let me explain what I understand.
First, let me start by saying (for those who do not know) that Pedro Lemebel was a daring and vitally important marica writer from Chile whose work has been crucial for me, as a queer/trans translator & reader of Latin American lit for decades. Lemebel’s joy & social critique, the anger and the sense of play is wild and fun and incisive. Lemebel’s daring and brilliant work deserves to find its readers around the world through widespread publication and varied and capable translations. That is not what is happening now.
The short version of the story is that there is a legal battle over the rights to Pedro Lemebel’s writing. There has been no reporting about this in English-speaking media that I have found. There has been ample coverage in Spanish though, for example here. Upon Lemebel’s death, the rights were left to Lemebel’s brother, Jorge Mardones. Jorge had a child out of wedlock, Geraldine Mardones, who he never recognized or supported. Lemebel, as could be expected, was kind with Geraldine, included her in the family and supported her. Since his death, Jorge’s three children have monopolized the rights to the estate and excluded Geraldine from decision-making, attempting to keep her out of the family and not give her any control over her uncle’s writings. They have treated her as an “illegitimate” daughter and sister with no regard for her or her wishes. Over the last years, she has spoken out for her rights to be involved in the estate. While the three other children have attempted to profit off Lemebel’s writing by controlling rights & attempting to sell rights to the highest corporate bidders, Geraldine has said publicly that Lemebel’s writing should be more freely available, that his writing should not be sold off and controlled by neoliberal agents of corporations and the gatekeepers of the literary industry in NYC. Geraldine is pushing for the writing to be re-published in more democratic ways and for the work itself to be amplified and multiplied in many different editions. As I see it, Geraldine is fighting for the excluded and unrecognized, within the family and in the larger society for queer and trans and travesti people who continue to be excluded. The family continues to try to keep her out.
Some years ago, I was working to translate some of Lemebel’s writing, when we were told by a US agent supposedly representing the family that we could not do those translations. She stated she was working with the rights-holders, and later I discovered that this agent was working only with the “legitimate” children and without informing or including Geraldine Mardones. It is sad as a queer/trans translator who loves Lemebel to be told only cis-hetero (to the best of my knowledge) translators would be allowed to translate the work. Since there is a legal case pending in Chilean courts right now, my understanding is that all publications have been placed on pause until the resolution of the legal case. Therefore, though I am not a lawyer, this crónica and this Penguin publication might be in violation of that Chilean legal decree.
Beyond these obvious rights issues, these translations that are happening now are not being done in ways that honor histories of Latin American--and specifically Chilean--maricas & locas, travestis & mujeres trans, la joteria & sex workers. The renderings of the published translations gloss over specificities of these maricas & locas, travestis and others in Latin America who have dissident sexualities & genders. As a translator of many LGBT authors & as a queer/trans translator myself, this is distressing. These are complicated topics & should be handled with care by individuals with an intimate knowledge of these issues of language, life, love, and embodiment. The baroque language and complicated syntax is another (exciting) challenge for translation and for English-speaking readers. Translating Lemebel would be very hard work, and it deserves care.
Currently, the Penguin anthology is titled, A Last Supper of Queer Apostles. This title just pisses me off. The use of this word “queer” in the title papers over all of the complicated histories of local terminology and lives in Spanish. Lemebel was incredibly smart & strategic with language, how to play with it, how to undermine Global North definitions of sexual & gender dissidence. His performance of the Last Supper with a crew of travestis is recorded in a video by Gloria Camiruaga. The performance is archived on this page of Lemebel’s performance group, Las Yeguas del Apocalipsis. The actors are specifically referred to as travestis, and this insistence is crucial to the work that Lemebel did, shifting between genders and performance and genres to challenge every convention. This anthology title--& erasing travesti with "queer"--reads like a clever USAmerican marketing ploy to try to sell more books, make it marketable & recognizable for US readers, with no regard for everything Lemebel’s writing means. I have seen many of the same issues with many of the other recent published translations. I do believe in multiple translations of Lemebel, and yes let a thousand translations bloom, but only after the legal issues have been resolved in Chilean courts. In a world where queer and trans people continue to be under attack, it matters who translates us, who does this work and how it is done. These are aesthetic and political questions that must be considered.
It needs to be said publicly that there is a battle over Lemebel’s legacy and US agents and translators are acting like nothing is going on. And the Paris Review and Penguin appear to be publishing like nothing is happening.
On the Penguin page is a Lemebel quote, “I speak from my difference,” but the original is "Hablo por mi diferencia" -- I speak for my difference, with it, because of it. As always Lemebel saying a million things with one preposition. More care is needed, at all levels of this process of translation. These translations and the lack of approval from all heirs erase that difference, replacing it with a marketable First World “queerness” in opposition to Lemebel’s working-class marica critique & wildness. I have not said anything publicly until today, but I needed to say this.
If there are publications that would like to publish my thinking on this, I’d be happy to write this up in an essay. In Chile, you can also speak with Victor Hugo, El Che de los Gays who was a friend of Lemebel and currently works with Geraldine Mardones and her legal team, fighting for the wider distribution of Lemebel's work.