Two Voices Salon: Translator Valerie Miles on Spanish author Enrique Vila-Matas
Center for the Art of Translation | 582 Market Street, Suite 700 | San Francisco, CA
On February 11, 2016, we were very pleased to be joined by the editor and translator Valerie Miles via Skype to discuss her translation of Enrique Vila-Matas’s Because She Never Asked, as well as Vila-Matas’s work more generally. When Miles worked with Vila-Matas to create her anthology A Thousand Forests In One Acorn, the author told her that Because She Never Asked was his favorite book that he has ever written. Two Lines Press’s Scott Esposito discusses with Miles why this is, as well as how this book fits into Vila-Matas’s idiosyncratic, postmodern, ironic approach to literature. Miles also talks about the challenges of translation Vila-Matas and her favorite of his books.
AUDIO TABLE OF CONTENTS
0:00 Introductions
4:29 The main idea of Because She Never Asked
10:10 Paul Auster’s book with Sophie Calle, and how it relates to Because She Never Asked
14:30 Valerie’s perceptions of Vila-Matas as a person, and the relationship of Vila-Matas the person to Vila-Matas the author/literary figure
18:35 Vila-Matas’s ridiculous presentation of himself on the page, and how this relates to his literary aesthetic, and the kidney failure that occurs in Because She Never Asked
23:30 Why Because She Never Asked is Vila-Matas’s favorite thing he has ever written; Exploradores del abismo; and Vila-Matas’s near-death experience
30:25 Translation challenges that Valerie faced in Because She Never Asked, including Vila-Matas’s voice and his use of tense in this book
36:50 “Shandys” in Vila-Matas’s literature, the origins of Vila-Matas’s aesthetic
45:10 Vila-Matas’s generosity toward other writers and artists in his books, and writers Valerie and artists has discovered through Vila-Matas
49:54 Vila-Matas’s El País column about Green Apple Books bookseller Stephen Sparks
51:10 Valerie’s favorite work of Vila-Matas’s, The Illogic of Kassel, and a general discussion of Kassel
59:10 Vila-Matas’s relationship to Roberto Bolaño, and disciples of Bolaño compared to disciples of Vila-Matas
1:02:40 Audience Q & A
Valerie Miles, an editor, writer and translator, co-founded Granta en Español in 2003. She established the NYRB Classics series in Spanish, curated the exhibition dedicated to Roberto Bolaño’s archival papers and edited his posthumous work. She teaches translation and creative writing at the Pompeu Fabra University, has written for the New York Times, the New Yorker, El País and the Paris Review, and is the author of A Thousand Forests in One Acorn. She lives in Barcelona, Spain.
Born in 1948 in Barcelona, Enrique Vila-Matas is one of the great European storytellers, specializing in stories and novels that play with the interrelation between fiction and reality. He manages to combine great erudition (worn very lightly) and a sometimes black, absurdist sense of humor.