the

2015
PRIZE
in
translation
judged by
AMMIEL ALCALAY
Have you heard the expression, If youre not at the table, youre on the menu? When
we started our translation prize two years ago, we were making a deliberate decision
to ensure that the art of translation and the work of translators held a place of honor
at the Gulf Coast table. Within the journals pages and online, we wanted to host
gatherings where English was not the only reference point, where there was and
is a space for joyful polylingualism. That joy, for us, starts with reading the Gulf
Coast Prize in Translation entries, which are thrilling in their variety and in their
approaches to the translation of (mostly) contemporary literature from around the
globe. We are honored to have Ammiel Alcalay as our judge this year and we dont
envy his having had to make a final decision. In addition to choosing a winner and
two honorable mentions, Ammiel wanted to commend the work of JD Larson for his
translation of Friederike Mayrckers tudes, and J. Bret Maney for his translation
of Guillermo Cotto-Thorners Manhattan Tropics. Ammiels generosity speaks to the
superb, crucial work being done by translators, and shows that we simply dont have
space to publish all the excellent work we receive. Samantha Schnees translation of
Carmen Boullosas El complot de los Romnticos is indeed extraordinary, and we
want to acknowledge it as one among many at the table. Translation is vital to a
nourishing literary community. We are excited by this work, and hope you are as well.
The Editors

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El complot de los Romnticos, Carmen Boullosas sixteenth novel, won the Caf
Gijn prize in 2008. Carmen is recognized in Mexico as one of the countrys
greatest living authors (Mexicos greatest woman writer, according to Roberto
Bolao) and was one of ten authors selected by Conaculta to represent Mexico at
last years London Book Fair. In their announcement, the 2008 Caf Gijn prize
judges acknowledged the ambitiousness of the work, its brilliant use of literary
culture, as well as its breaking with traditional narrative structure.
The novel begins in New York with The Parnassusa congress of dead writers
who meet to award a prize for the greatest unpublished work of a writer. In Part
One we travel to Mexico with Dante Alighieri, a trendy young American poetess,
and our narrator (a Mexican writer) to investigate its potential as a host city for
future gatherings of The Parnassus. Part Two is set in Mexico, where the motley
crew of protagonists visits, among other places, the film set of Zorro III, starring
Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta Jones. But Mexico is not fated to host
the Parnassus, and the triumvirate travels to Madrid (Part Three), where they
organize the firstand the last, thanks in part to the conspiracy of the Romantics
referenced in the titlegathering of The Parnassus to be held there.
In Christopher Dominguez Michaels Critical Dictionary of Mexican Literature
(1955-2010), translated by Lisa Dillman (Dalkey Archive, 2012), he writes, El
complot de los Romnticos concentrates all of Boullosas talent; its the book where
her two natures most harmoniously coalesce . A funny novel with prose that
flows like that of her best poems without risking their pathos, El complot de los
Romnticos is entertaining, musical, lively, richly vernacular without being crass,
learned, witty, and surprising . This all revolves around combining Cervantess
Journey to Parnassus and the Divine Comedy (and a bit of Michael Ende) with
another descent into the Mexican inferno. With that comically gargantuan task,
Boullosa creates her own sensational Dante, one who travels to Mexico on the
back of a rat and doesnt understand Britney Spears or anything else about the
contemporary world, but allows himself to be led along by Boullosas eternal,
savage woman a middle-aged Mexican novelist who acts as his guide.

this years winner is samantha schnee

Samantha Schnee

the 2015 Gulf Coast Prize in Translation

Translators Note

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Carmen Boullosa

gulf coast

The Trip Begins

Look!
The Florentine was standing next to me, dressed in new clothes from head
to toe, his face half-obscured by a blue baseball cap that said I Love Britney in
gold letters. He was barefoot, the slogan Dont Fuck With Me in thick orange
letters across his chest. How old was he? Thats when I finally realized how young
he was. Skinny, with his elegant demeanor, he really did look like he was made of
metal, finely wrought .
Dantecito, why dont you choose another T-shirt, one that says something else?
What does this one say?
Lets not copulate, or Dont mess with me.
I am in perfect agreement, with both sentiments! Lets go!
And what about your lid?
Whats a lid?
Lid. Cap. Hat. None of these words rang a bell. That thing youre wearing
on your head.
What about it?
It says I Love Britney. Do you know who Britney is?
No idea!
Your Beatrice wont like her. Neither will you.
You mean Britney is a woman?
Sort of. In one song she says shes not a girl or a woman. Shes a nymphet
whos past her prime, but a nymphet nonetheless.
Is she a human, some heavenly or infernal being, or a god of the ancients? Tell
me more, because I dont understand. She (he pointed to the poetess) told me that
these words dont mean anything, theyre simply decorative.
I took him to the video section at Borders. Britney was on two screens, not
because she was on top of the charts, but because of her most recent scandal.
Thats her.
Who?

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The girl whose name is on your hat.

Her? What is this were looking at?
How was I to know? I asked the salesman:
Which video is this?
Boys? Stronger? Which do you like better?
The damn sales kid was answering my question with a question, expecting an
answer for something I knew next to nothing about. He was clearly enjoying my
confusion. He had a bar-code scanner in one hand. He held it in front of his chest
and launched into a dissertation on the life and sorrows of Britney Spears, shifting
his weight back and forth from one foot to the other. He talked about her as if
she were a goddess or a saint, with admiration that wasnt entirely justified by her
deeds and sorrows.
Dante was glued to the spot. The video, a mere frivolity to me, a series of
half-baked clichs, was shocking for him. First, and I should have realized this
from the start, the simple existence of the monitor and the video had left him
stunned (that was what he had meant by his question), because he had never seen
images on a screen. The rat had told him about it, but hed never laid eyes on such
a thing. If you can call it a thing. When I turned back to him at the end of the
sales kids dissertation and it dawned on me what the bard was experiencing, I
didnt even try to explain. I let him watch. He furrowed his brow, he compressed
his lips, he raised and lowered his hands. Once he had overcome his astonishment, he began to focus on the content, because he said, Chairs! Theyre chairs!
What is she doing? Whos singing? Whats happening? Why is she standing on
the chair? Is she bumping into it on purpose? What is she doing? He spouted
questions, interjections, and exclamations, without giving me a chance to get a
word in edgeways.
Thats a car, Dante.
Car?
Shes driving it. Shes on a highway. Its night, you see the streetlamps? And
now its raining.
And why did she get under the chair? Whats in her hand? A sword? A rod?
What do you call what shes doing?

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Its a good thing I had asked what the title of the video was, it explained a lot.
Its a video called Stronger.
Strong! Strong! What kind of strength is this? What is the importance of that
chair? Those movements? That hair? What is she saying?
Shes not saying anything and it doesnt mean anything, either. Its a pastiche
of a famous scene featuring Liza Minelli, copying moves that were choreographed
decades ago for the stage and later for a movie, etcetera.
Famous? Pause. Movie? Minelli? Did you say video? Whats a video?
Yes, Dante, extremely famous. I had only enough patience to answer one of
his questions.
Where is she walking? Why is the light changing? I dont understand a thing.
Io capishconiente, capishconiente!
The screens switched to another song, the one I had mentioned to Dante: Im
Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman. Look, its the one I told you about, the lyrics of the
song are Im not a girl, not yet a woman.
The shots of the Grand Canyon impressed him less than the movement of the
camera, the close-ups and long shots from helicopters, and the speed with which
they changed. Whats that? Whats that? He wasnt asking, he was exclaiming.
Up till this point the two screens had been showing the same video. Suddenly,
on the screen on the left, Mariah Carey appeared, dyed-blond tresses and a long
red dress, descending a staircase. In the next image she was wearing a white dress.
Same scene. Illuminated staircase.
Another one! Dante said, looking at her, not knowing whom to watch.
Another one! Theres another?
Many. Hundreds. Thousands.
On her screen, Britney sang Im a Slave for You, and Dante didnt make a
peep. He wore an expression of horror mixed with fascination. Next came the 2001
Billboard Music Awards in Las Vegas, the stage floating in a fountain next to the
Eiffel Tower and a Roman temple, Britney wearing a microphone around her head,
a young dancer at her side, a hat covering half her face. Dante, paralyzed.
Thats the real Britney, not what you seen on MTV nowadays, said the sales
kid behind us. Who knows what else he said, because I couldnt engage in conver-

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sation or pay him any further attention. I didnt want to lose Dante. Not because
he was about to leave, but because now he looked truly crazed. Then the sales kid,
clearly a Spears fan, showed us a video which had a little of everything. Dantes
jaw dropped.
A demon! Shes a demon!
Her face in close-up. Pretty. Then hideous. Funny. Humorless. Hideous again.
Far away, up close, dressed this way or that. A man dances. Sinuous, frenetic, hard,
malleable, still, Britney dances. A parody of a caricature, a heroine, a victim, a killer,
the whole Spears shtick.
Dante was still exclaiming, A demon! A real demon! I couldnt have agreed
more. Dressed as a bride with a short veil and white boots, her kiss with Madonna,
her tight, wet T-shirt, her unintentional vulgarity, her cave-girl costume, the scene
with the chair again in fast-forward. And Dante frozen there, watching Britney.
The poetess approached us with a pair of tennis shoes in her right hand andI
dont mean to be repetitive, just to describe her accuratelyher blackberry in her left.
She grabbed him by the arm and literally tore him away from the screen,
sitting him on the bench where I was reading until he interrupted me to put
his shoes on. He managed, with difficultythe tongues got stuck, the laces got
tangledthe gringa was busy with her blackberry again. The Florentine got his
feet into the shoes and looked at the laces, not knowing what to do: So incredibly
complicated! I crouched down and tied his laces without a word. Once his shoes
were on he stood and took a few steps, trying them out.
I watched him carefully. He seemed more alive, more physical, with each
step. Had he stopped thinking about Britney? Had he thought about her at all?
What had he made of the screens? Were they like dreams to him? How does
somebody who has never encountered a screen experience one for the first time?
But I wasnt going to ask him these things. To get through to him I asked, Are
they comfortable? How do they feel?
I dont know.
His answer was valid for all my questions, the ones I had asked and the ones I
didnt. I dont know. At least we had that in common.
Dante: Lets go.

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We descended the escalators, the gringa following us with some kind of radar,
or else she would have lost us because she never took her eyes off the Berry-thing.
We picked up our trail again, surrounded by masses of fatties. We found the back
door that looked like the one we had entered. We passed through it. I thought to
myself, Goodbye toothbrush that I forgot to buy; I had remembered too late. The
sun shone with a shocking brightness, reflected over and over again in the mirrors,
windshields, and metal trim of all the cars.
The three rats were waiting for us, sitting on some planters, chatting away
quite happily. I gave them the rolls and they wolfed them down. They flatly
refused the water.
They must have rabies, I thought to myself. I felt like a simpleton, ready to
laugh at anything. I felt unsettled, like a leaf thats about to fall from a tree. But that
image didnt really work there, in the parking lot of that mall, all asphalt, cement,
cars, not a speck of shade anywhere now that the landscaped area was behind
us. It didnt occur to me that if the sun is shining brightly, the cars become ovens.
What a lack of common sense. Although, of course, in this country everyone has
air-conditioning. They dont trust the wind, how easy it is to leave trees where
they are, park in their shade, and roll down the windows when youre driving. But
no, simple doesnt work here. On the other hand, stupidity does; I thought of the
videos I hadnt seen before, all stupid, if you can call Britney stupid. Her homage
to stupidity surpassed all idiocy.
We mounted our rats. In one leap we were on the banks of a river, and the
moment we touched the earth something happened. I dont know how to describe
it exactly. There was a cracking sound, one that we both felt and heard. We had
crossed a frontier that wasnt only physical. To get to the point: traveling alongside
Dante, who was from the other side, time was not (at least not all time) inflexible.
The cracking sound was accompanied by a peculiar feeling. I wasnt sure what to
think. My senses heightened, and a little nervous, I read a strange sign up ahead:
Mississippi River.
Me: Where are we?
Another leap, but a shorter one, because we didnt lose sight of the landscape,
the river on one side, a small, pretty city on the other.

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The gringa: Were in Dubuque.

Slowly, slowly, the rats cut their speed, we were crossing water, as if we were
boats, we came alongside an enormous floating casino, a floating city, Dante called
it, and my rat, its not so great; we entered the port, climbed up onto a pier, walked
along the river among regular people, stopping in front of a building that made
a huge impression on Dante; past the graveyard, where we saw the Mesquakie
burying Dubuque himself with tribal honorssongs, smoke, feathers, drumsand
continued on to the town square, where Potosa, the daughter of Peosta, the chief
of the Pesquakie, was getting married to the selfsame Dubuque, But I thought he
was dead? I said; we passed the faade of the courthouse, the cathedral, and in one
leap we had left the town behind. The sign Mississippi River appeared again, we
continued bearing south, past Prairie du Chienit sounds much better in French
than in Englishand another huge leap, during which my rat yelled:
This here is the real Mississippi, bitches! Its where this country ended, for
many years, before they got carried away and seized the territory of the French and
the Spanish and the Mexicans with their greedy little hands!

gulf coast

In Gogorrn, where our three authorsDante, the Gringa Poet, and myself
have stopped off on a whim, Zorro III is being filmed. The mediocre writer (whom
I had invited to narrate our crossing the border) thought that touring the set would
be the perfect way to introduce Dante to Mexico (I had my reservations but speak
now or forever hold your peace, as they say, and I didnt speak up when our narrator
took us there because you cant say peep when youre a character in someone elses
novel). So there we were, on the set which was a reproduction of a town in the
Wild Westas your average citizen might have conceived it: little houses painted
in bright colors, flowerpots, lace curtains in the pane-less windows, tile rooftops
in perfect condition; streets paved with cobblestones, thoroughbreds saddled cowboy-style; covered wagons that looked fit for riding through the Elysian Fields; a
cantina with swinging doors, painted hot pink; a well with bucket and chain, and
a short, red brick wall; women dressed in embroidered blouses, shawls, and long

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skirts of light fabric tied at the waist; men in checked shirts, vests, long waistcoats,
handkerchiefs in their pockets, black hats on their heads, suede pants with pistols
stuffed into their waistbands, fancy boots; or, in the case of the Mexican pseudopeasants, white cotton clothes, loose-fitting pants and shirts, their straw hats with
high cones like the Indians in nativity scenes; everyone milling about in the street
teeming with children, women, men, fruit and candy vendors, a village band with a
violin, three brass instruments, and a splendid chanteuse with a plunging neckline
and plenty to look at. In the cantina, gorgeous, bare-legged women danced the
cancan and a fat, bearded man dressed in impeccable white pretended to play
the piano; from the stairs to the (nonexistent) second floor, bar girls surveyed the
floor, where pensive men playing dominos at the tables lost their temper periodically, getting into fights. A cloud of people hovered around this two-ring set: grips,
cameramen, sound technicians, lighting assistants, stuntmen, hair-stylists, makeup
artists, extras waiting for their cues, producers and their assistants (or P.A.sthats
what they called them, or kidswho were in charge of moving stuff around
the set, looking after the extras, coordinating the techs, that kind of stuff ) with
walkie-talkies on their hips. A few steps away, the offices of the set, an ant-hill of
people making phone calls, eyes glued to screens showing numbers and lists, and,
beyond that, the tech area, where the cameras and other equipment was kept. I
had to get us away from the set and over to the hotel where the interview would
take place, the bazillion star Quinta Real hotel in Zacatecas. There was nary a
rat in sight, so much for getting there by rat-pack. I left Dante, his eyes dancing
with the cancan girls and the chanteuse from the village band (he seemed a little
short-sighted), and the Poetess two meters away from Antonio Banderas who was
on Take Five of a scene where he came out on a balcony and walked across a plank
from one side of the idyllic street to the other (he didnt want to use a stuntman
for that), while I surveyed things, trying to come up with a strategy. It wasnt
difficult to figure out who would get us there. I set my sights on one of the P.A.s
and sent an email offering him a job: I needed someone to put me in touch with
the aforementioned trio, the same trio who had been added to the list of extras
for a scene on Monday, to invite them to a special event in Zacatecas, a private
meeting of writers, the local chapter of The Parnassus. In my email I explained that

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I wouldnt take him away from a single day of work, he could leave Saturday after
the morning scenes had been shot, and be back on Sunday evening, ready for call
early on Monday morning. The kid, a resourceful one, looked into the flights and
discovered it was impossible to make the trip in the short time we had, so he got a
businessman from San Luis, the one who finances the Real de Catorce arts festival
(The Desert Festival), a Seor Cerillo or Serillo (who happened to be a close
family friend), to lend his private jet to fly our friends to and from Zacatecasin
return for numerous favors his father had done him and because the writers of
The Parnassus impressed him so muchwhere we would spend one night, just
enough to complete our Interlude in Zacatecas.
The P.A. spoke with the aforementioned threesome, but since he thought
the Parnassus stuff wouldnt fly, he said, Wouldnt you prefer to go eat at a great
place nearby on Sunday? Thats where Antonio Banderas, Ms. Griffith and their
daughter Stella go, sometimes Ms. Zeta Jones and Michael Douglas too, with any
luck we might see them.
Who are Banderas and Zeta, Griffith and Douglas? the Florentine asked.
The stars of the movie, and their husband and wife, who are also stars of many
other movies.
Ah! Lets go!
And since when the captains at the helm, the sailor is not (especially if what the
captain orders is what the sailor wants with all his heart), the two women went
along for the ride, just as excited about the actors and actresses as the private jet
and seeing pretty Zacatecas. (To be clear: We went along for the ride, because I was
one of the two women.)
And, thought the P.A., Ill give them the weekly stash of peyote. Because
every week, come Saturday midnight, the production crew got high on peyote
with the local actors, an enthusiastic and adventurous group, of whom there were
quite a few, despite the fact they were in the minority. (When you eat peyote
it either goes well or goes badly. If it goes well, theres not much to say, but you
want to tell everyone about it. If it goes badly, you have to battle three furious
giants who pursue peyote-eaters without pity, intent on consuming them. They
pursue individuals but they pursue groups as well; theyre collective hallucinations.

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Although the peyote was free, the price was not inconsiderable if you had the bad
luck to encounter an ogre.)
No sooner had the Saturday morning shooting finished than the P.A. led the
aforementioned trio to his Ram Charger (his mothers), parked thoughtfully right
at the entrance gate to the fake open air village where most of the filming was
taking place. Dante took the shotgun seat, and the two women got in behind him.
The kid started the truck and they were off like a shot, as fast as the dusty road
allowed. They passed Villa de los Reyes in a single heartbeat, in another they were
on the highway to San Luis, straight ahead, all the way, towards the airport where
the jet belonging to Cerillo, or Serillo, awaited them.
To reach the airport they had to travel twenty kilometers further to the north
and double back the way they had come. But Im certain that despite the detour
and the day they were going to lose in Zacatecas, I saved them time. On set they
had been spellbound by the cameras, the actresses, the whole scene. Dante was
mesmerized by the cancan girls, their enormous breasts, and the train-robbing
scene; the Mexican writer was preoccupied with the version of Zorro they were
making because she had gotten her hands on a script and in vetting it had found
countless errors (which shed have to keep to herself because they didnt matter a
fig to anyone but her); the Gringa was awestruck by Antonio Banderas, whom she
had seen only from below, in the previous scene, and the idea of seeing him face
to face had her on tenterhooks. Who knows how long they would have remained
mesmerized on set if I hadnt gotten them out of there.
We were on the final stretch, doubling back, when the P.A. picked up the
walkie-talkie, and I heard his pitched voice saying, start getting the food ready,
were already at kilometer 13 on the highway, well be there soon.
Perfect. Well wait for you at the airport in Zacatecas.
Meanwhile, in the comfortable black Ram Charger, everything was going
smooth as silk, Dante, the Gringa, and me, all pleased as punch with our little
excursionthe promise of a night of hospitality, a great mealgourmet as
the kid had saidand since the P.A. had come clean about the meeting of the
local chapter of The Parnassus, Dante was intrigued about what the poets of
such a remote, beautiful place would be like. But. There was an unexpected

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passenger in the far back seat. As I already mentioned, the P.A. had parked in
front of the entrance to the fake village. When the car braked abruptly at a
gas station the stowaway passenger woke up: it was Zeta-Jones, who had left
the set for a rest, to take a catnap, the kind you take before lunch, to restore
herself with a few moments of golden slumber, which was so good for her skin.
It had been so simple to open the trucks door and lie down in the back seat
for a moment.
She dreamed she was in the kitchen with an aunt whom her mother detested
but to whom she was inexplicably drawn. The aunt said: Nothing you ever do
will have any significance, thats why you have to choose to laugh when you can,
and she put a glass in a mortar and began to grind it while she repeated the
same phrase over and over, then she sprinkled the glass over the food, and thats
when the car stopped and Zeta-Jones woke up and found herself in a moving
automobile and thought that we had kidnapped hershe and Antonio Banderas
were petrified in Mexico, afraid that on every corner, behind every cactus or palm
tree, a bandit was waiting to kidnap them and take all their money (we shouldnt
be surprised that Zorro and his costar were frightened of other real life Zorros and
their costars)and she jumped up like a scared cat.
Let me go! I have children! she shouted in English.
Zeta-Jones! the Gringa exclaimed.
Look whos here! said Dante.
Now I am totally fu said the P.A.
Since Im putting words in the mouths of everyone there, I should probably
clarify that I, I mean the I that was there, didnt say anything.
The P.A. blanched but, turning so the star could see who was at the wheel, said
in a composed voice, Whats up Catherine? I didnt know you were back there.
Should we go to that hotel you like in Zacatecas?
Oh, its you! What happened? What are we doing here?
I dont know what we are doing here, this is my mothers truck.
What day is it today?
Saturday.
I dont have a call time?

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