And then I worked with Kendall to give the manuscript a final polish and get the translator’s note together. Heather Cleary: I translated the book, which involved talking with Brenda to lay a few foundations at the outset and then working with her again toward the end of the process to clear up any questions and think through a few possible adjustments to help the novel breathe in this new atmosphere. Editing a manuscript in translation is quite different from editing one written originally in English. Being with that manuscript meant an immense freedom and many hours when I felt very happy.
I really enjoyed those years I remember them fondly. During that Christmas I wrote maybe sixty to eighty pages (which is a lot for me!) about parts of this character I was interested in developing. I tried to finish it several times, but in Christmas of 2016 I copied a paragraph I liked from that failed novel, and on a trip to the beach, in a notebook I bought at a Walmart and with a pen with the hotel logo, I developed what I liked about the voice of that secondary character into Feliciana. To start, I’d love if each of you could speak to your role in the process of bringing Witches to publication, and how you collaborated with one another in translating the project into English.īrenda Lozano: The first thing I wrote was the voice of Feliciana, the curandera, who was a secondary character in a novel I never finished about the birth of a volcano in Mexico in the 1940s (which is a story I find fascinating). In this conversation, they discuss the nature of their collaboration, their theories of translation, and the importance of translated works to the literary landscape.īrenda Lozano’s responses have been translated by Vanessa Genao. Her investigation brings her into the company of a legendary healer, a curandera named Feliciana, and the women’s lives and stories begin to intertwine.Īs part of our translation-themed series, What’s the Word, the editors sat down for a virtual roundtable with three of the key players behind Witches-Brenda Lozano, the novel’s author Kendall Storey, its editor (and the editor-in-chief of Catapult Books) and Heather Cleary, who translated the book from Spanish into English. One of our 2022 titles, Witches, tells the story of a young journalist, Zoe, who is reporting on a murder in San Felipe, Mexico. Catapult Books has a robust list of works in translation.
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