The Ghost of Memory

I received a copy of the new novel by Wilson Harris, The Ghost of Memory (Faber & Faber, 2006) in the mail last night. As I began to browse through its pages I was stunned to find that one of the three epigraphs he uses to open the book is an excerpt from my translation of a poem by Juan Sánchez Peláez. The epigraph reads as follows:


Elena is earth seaweed
Ocean wave.
...
Standing on the rock and the coral of the abysses.

Juan Sánchez Peláez, translated from
the Spanish by Guillermo Juan Parra


In 2004, I wrote a review of his previous novel, The Mask of the Beggar (Faber & Faber, 2004) for The CLR James Journal which included a discussion of the above excerpt in relation to affinities between the work of Harris and his contemporaries in Venezuela, Sánchez Peláez and Elizabeth Schön. I'm deeply honored to have Harris cite my translation in his new novel.

*

I'm also happy to note two recent publications of my work:

1. An essay on the poetry of Micah Ballard, in Galatea Resurrects #5.

2. My English translations of several poems by Juan Sánchez Peláez from his book Filiación oscura (1966), in Fascicle #3.

Thank you to editors Eileen Tabios and Tony Tost.