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Did you know the Caldwell Public Library offers materials in more languages than just English? We have children’s books in several languages: English, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, French, Arabic, and Braille. For adult books, we have a robust Spanish-language section, with fiction and nonfiction books either originally written in Spanish or translated from the English.
Today I want to highlight a few of my favorite Spanish-language materials that are carried by libraries in the LYNX consortium, as well as their English-language translations.
As one of the literary greats of the Spanish language, Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez has an extensive body of work that includes short stories, novels, and novellas. This novella, Crónica de una muerte anunciada, was translated to the English as Chronicle of a Death Foretold. Told through a nonlinear narrative by an anonymous narrator, the story follows the murder of character Santiago Nasar at the hands of two other townspeople, the Vicario brothers. García Márquez blends elements of crime fiction with elements of literary fiction: unlike traditional detective stories, the characters don’t focus on investigating the murder. The title and text reflect that the murder had been foreseen widely throughout the town; in this case, the mystery is why the townspeople were not willing or able to prevent it. With the tense subject matter, the fast-paced plot, and García Márquez’s typical carefully-crafted prose, this novella is sure to entertain… but also to make you think.
This short story collection by Argentinian writer and editor Mariana Enríquez is often categorized as horror and compared to works by such writers as Carmen Maria Machado (Her Body and Other Parties) and Shirley Jackson (“The Lottery”). Set in contemporary Argentina, they are not afraid to include typical pillars of horror such as violence, weirdness, and the macabre. However, there’s also something speculative about many of these stories. For me, the horror in Enríquez’s works comes not only from the violent and the grotesque, but also from the way she treats questions of womanhood, safety, and poverty. The titular “Things We Lost in the Fire” is the highlight of the collection for me, followed closely by “The Dirty Kid” and “End of Term.”
This movie, directed by Mexican filmmaker Alejandro G. Iñárritu and featuring Spanish actor Javier Bardem, is described as a psychological drama. It follows Uxbal, who is a single father and earns a living procuring work for a group of undocumented immigrants to Barcelona from China. When Uxbal is diagnosed with cancer, he seeks to settle his affairs before his death, but his world begins to collapse around him as he falls into tragedy after tragedy. Though the movie’s plot is often gruesome and usually solemn, it is also a beautiful exploration of fatherhood, commitment, and the way we grapple with and against death. The copies available through the LYNX consortium feature the original audio (in Spanish with some dialogue in Catalan) and include optional subtitles in Spanish and English.
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