2023-12-15 16:49:08
Friday, December 15, 2023, 3:49 p.m.
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The American writer Joyce Carol Oates has written almost every genre, poetry, theater, short stories, screenplays, essays and especially the novel, but until 2023 it was not possible to read her works in Basque. Now Xabier Olarra’s ‘Rape’. He has translated the short novel ‘A love story’ for the publishing house Igela, seasoned by the fact that, like many of Carol’s works, the writing is “very autobiographical, hard and leaves impactful moments”. He highlighted four during his appearance in Donostia: the tachycardia problems he has had for a long time, which Carol had when she was dying; He had a mystical experience at the age of 32; being widowed twice and memoirs from 1972 to 1983.
The novel is set in New York state, around the 4th of July holiday, and features a young widow, Teena Maguire, and her 12-year-old daughter, Bethi. They take a shortcut back home through Rocky Point Park, full of “gangs of boys unleashed by hormones, anger and alcohol”, and along the way their mother suffers a gang-rape. “The daughter will be freed in such a way and barely,” the translator said. The incident is given in the first chapter and from then on Carole has the ability to tell it “briefly and quickly” through Olarra. He also explained that it perfectly reflects the “rumors and comments” in the USA and that the characters, the two victims, the aggressors, the prosecutor, the judge or the police, are “very well chosen”. In this regard, Mujika has praised their construction, as they are not “Manichean” and, in this way, the reader “will find both the victims and the aggressors very believable”. What’s more, even though he wrote the novel in 2004, it is “very important” and in recent times “in the thick of misfortunes” as Mujika said.
The characters are not the only ones who stay above the main event and theme. As stated by Olarra, the author’s “look at the judicial system, without making a judgment about it”, will resonate with the reader. That’s right, by showing what each character does and how they act, “it becomes clear what (the system) is like”, he added. To achieve this goal, writing is very important, as both of them pointed out. “He is able to tell in a very vivid way and that is why his writing is so powerful”, explained Olarra.
When asked about the translation process, Olarra made it clear that all books have their ups and downs. “Even with all the attention, something always slips by.” Thus, in the case of the work ‘Rape’, the author explains that he writes “with his ear very close” and that this has forced him to make decisions. “With some sentences it means two things in English or it can have two variants, and when translating it into Basque you have to choose one”, he summarized.
‘Rape. A love story’
Carole, a “very prolific” writer as praised by Mujika, has produced more than a hundred books in all, and of very high quality, as Olarra explained, because “the two do not always go hand in hand”. “They can be many and what Carole wrote is weighty,” the translator emphasized. However, “you can’t read everything”, as he admitted in the presentation, and until he received the Pepe Carvalho prize in 2020 – a trophy awarded by the City of Barcelona to a writer who has had a notable career in the dark novel – Olarra was unknown “even though he has been on several lists of candidates for the Nobel Prize for Literature”. Since then, he has read several works by the American, and he works on them. In addition to the work ‘Rape’, Mujika has highlighted from the list ‘Them’ (1969), ‘Zertara bizizan’ (1994) or ‘Blonde’ (2000).
In Mujika’s opinion, this idea of violence has been captured perfectly in the illustration made by Araiz Mesanza for the cover. As the author explained in the video, he sought to “reflect the lightness of the heavy subject” and that’s why he chose black and white and a simple stroke. “I wanted to capture the tension of the gesture that changes everything and the intention of the attacker, the gesture that is given before an unauthorized touch or attack,” he explained.
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