Black people don’t write

This is the conclusion you would come if you took a look at my bookshelves [1].

Due to current events, one fellow blogger proposed July as a “Black literature month” here in Spain (the Black History Month is in February/October — if you are live either in the UK or in the US — but is not yet widespread here) to which I gladly joined, ready to immerse myself in search of black authors among my shelves… Only to realize (to my horror!) I don’t own any book written by a black person. My library as a whole is pure whiteness and a bit Asian, except for a couple of books that specifically talk about black people but written by white authors, and that, guys, makes me feel ashamed.

Like men who don’t realize there are no women among the CEOs or World Leaders pictured on the news, I wouldn’t have noticed the lack of diversity in my shelves if it hadn’t been pointed out by the protests all around the world and my social media feeds filled with fellow readers recommending antiracism books.

What’s more, my utter dismay came when I couldn’t think of any book written by a Spanish black author. A quick search on the internet gave a grand total of five books, and one is actually a photo book [2] to which, surprisingly, I leafed through last autumn visiting a museum. Being a black woman in Spain [3] is the only title available in my public library, and I already made a reservation to go and borrow it tomorrow.

I can only guess the challenges a black person must face here in my country… You see, I have grown up in a city where there was not a big black community: in my primary and high schools (both public) there were only three black children studying at the same time as me, none of them in my class and to whom I never talked. By chance, I worked with one of them for a brief period of time in our twenties but, apart from a strange surname from her father, I never even thought about asking what role her race had played in her life. Because I wouldn’t have thought there was any issue! Privileged whites don’t occupy our time with problems we didn’t know existed and, maybe, with exception of the big cities, I guess, this is the background of my country; a place where black people are thought to be either immigrants or tourists, but certainly not Spaniards.

So here I am, feeling embarrassed, but ready to learn the lesson and start paying close attention to my literary choices. After all, I just aspire to be well-read, and that requires embracing all the literary voices.

*****

[1] You can also come to the conclusion that I am a privileged white a**hole, but I was trying to emulate the “White people can’t jump” statement for the punch.

[2] It is “And you, why are you black?”, by Rubén H. Bermúdez, and it is available in English here.

[3] This is my translation; the original title is “Ser mujer negra en España”, by Desirée Bela-Lobedde.

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New Year resolutions vs. Real life

Please, excuse that this post has no relation whatsoever to literature, but I have been reflecting on some issues that recently came up around here and I felt the need to write them down somewhere.

It’s just that, like everyone else, I had goals that I thought would change my life for the better, but it turned out the exact opposite was profoundly benefitial. I’m no longer assuming anything, people!

Let me explain some of my goals, and how they alone decided to take a different path altogether:

Goal 1: Be productive and organized

Yes, I am a big fan of planners and all those Instagram accounts dedicated to bullet journals and such; I enjoy being busy and crossing out tasks I need to complete, and I live accordingly to what has been written down for every day on my planner, but guess what: I got the flu just after Christmas and for eight days I was basically surviving and doing NOTHING. I even spent New Year’s morning in the emergency room at the hospital because I lost conciousness when I was about to have breakfast. What a plan!

My parents took me to their home due to my hypotension and high fever, so I was not left alone at my place, and those first days I found myself feeling guilty of being unproductive! This productivity disease we live in makes you feel this way. Fortunately, I later learned to go with the flow and enjoy my downtime as I was recovering: I would read some of the books from my parents’ library to pass the time while they were out working and, after dinner, the four of us (my sister was also staying there during her Christmas break) would watch a TV series and enjoy some time together.

Do you know when was the last time we were together like this? To be honest, I can’t even remember and, most importantly, I don’t know if and when will happen again. So thank you, Real life, for those unproductive and yet deeply satisfying days with my loved ones; they have been some of the highlights of the last months.

Goal 2: Read more books

I did want to read more books in 2018 than the previous year, of course, because I am a book blogger, right? You can only aspire to be a better blogger and a better reader if you read more than before, more than everybody else… MORE.

Well, today I am pleased to announce that I told my book club coordinator I cannot keep attending our mettings. I quitted the club.

For the last 2 months I have been unable to keep up with the reading pace, which is one book per fortnight (up to 300 pages, no more), so my strategy, in order to secure my spot, consisted on reading less than half of the book, attending the meetings and sit quiet while the rest of the group had a conversation about that book I hadn’t read. There is a long waiting list of people who want to join these book clubs due to the limited spots, so today I finally came to my senses and decided to let this activity go. It was hard because I made good friends there but, anyway, we will remain friends and I feel at ease again knowing I don’t have to read a particular book at a particular pace.

I am not reading that much this year, it seems, and now it is OK.

Goal 3: Spend more time doing what you love

While I really believe one should have her own time to do things you enjoy, I have realized that I have fallen into a spiral of selfishness: what’s important seems to be *my* goals, *my* dreams, *my* hobbies… myself.

Some weeks ago, one of those days I was devoting *my* time to *my* hobbies, I walked into the sitting room and heard my elderly neighbour crying for help through the wall that separates our apartments. The woman had fallen on the floor four hours ago and was unable to sit or get up. Shouting through her door, she gave me her daughter’s phone number (her mind is sharp as hell, thank goodness), so I called her daughter, she came with the keys, and we both got this old lady up. She later told me she thought she was going to spend the entire night on the floor and thanked me for being her “guardian angel”. While writing this, my eyes are getting wet again.

From that day I got two new habits: I call for her through the door when I go out, just to see if everything is fine, and I pay her a proper visit at least once a week. To be honest, sometimes it’s hard to stop thinking I should be doing other things (*my* things), but I feel I’m doing the *right* thing spending some time with her. Besides, she is happy to see me and she tells me she’s grateful for me to visit her, and that makes me feel useful and appreciated. I can’t ask for more.

Goal 4: Declutter your house

Yes, I have also read Marie Kondo’s book and went into a frantic tidying and decluttering marathon. This would fill an entire series of posts, but I’ll summarize the important point.

First of all, I am really glad that I did it; my home now is clean and tidy and there is no one single item that doesn’t have its own place and, more important, purpuse. But the process of decluttering have been emotionally draining and thought-provoking.

From the first days, when facing all the clothes I owned, I felt disgust towards myself. There were clothes I had never worn, with the labels and all! In the following days, I would also take out of closets presents I had never used. People have bought things for me, spending money so hard to earn, and I haven’t even looked at them. I had to face the person I had become: a hoarder and dissatisfied being who always wanted more. I mean, I could have lied to myself and told I’m not that bad, but proof was right in front of me; there is no way to scape your own flaws when they are finally revealed, you just acknowledge them and try to work little by little to build the person you really want to be.

You know, I had always read articles about consumerism and I agreed I had enough with the things I already owned. However, and I don’t really know how to explain this, I had never “felt it in my bones” like these past weeks while going in and out from my apartment to the dumpster, throwing what seemed an infinite number of garbage bags containing my things.

So the goal was to declutter, but the outcome was totally unexpected.

*****

And this is it. Most of my resolutions have followed their own rules, and honestly, it is totally fine with me. I have come to the conclusion that I prefer real life rather than that unrealistic idea of the things you should do, which makes you lose sight of what’s actually relevant.

So tell me, how are your resolutions going? Has someone done major changes like I’ve been forced to do? Maybe I hope so 😉

How to survive a sleepless night

Last night I couldn’t sleep, and here we are.

I don’t consider myself a particularly stressed person, but from time to time I find myself concerned about everyday issues (exams, for instance) that prevent me for getting enough sleep. And, according to the last book I have read, I think I must  have the brain of a teenager because I need my 7-8 hours of sleep every night to be a functional person.

I have recently read a couple of articles on what to do when you have trouble sleeping (not about sleeping disorders, which should be treated by a doctor), and I’m not going to talk about sleeping habits, but about how to fight insomnia in situ: the night in question and the day after, having tried all the methods myself over the past weeks  😉

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The night in question

Let’s start at the beginning: it’s 3 am and you are staring at the ceiling from your bed, thinking about the ton of things you have to do tomorrow.

a) First of all, get out of bed. To me, there’s nothing more counterproductive that trying to sleep when you are awake – I just can’t do it.

b) Make a cup of tile and/or valerian. According to my own experience, this isn’t likely to help until it’s five minutes to get up – that’s the moment when the tile really kicks in, hard. So, why do I still try it? Simply because it gives me hope it will work, if only this time…

c) Then take your cup of hope and do something productive. Keep in mind that the next day you’ll accomplish fewer things than scheduled, so try to get ahead of it tonight. Besides, there is nothing else to do at this hour, and you should know that watching TV or surfing the internet will make you feel guilty in the morning, so get stuff done.

I either study or organize papers. In those sleepless nights is when I realized studying taxes doesn’t always have the effect of a sleeping pill…  This should be a new field of research.

I have never tried to clean, even though I have considered it many times, but I’m confused: I don’t know if cleaning, considered as a soft exercise, might activate your brain even more, making it totally impossible to fall asleep again that night or, on the contrary, it might leave you exhausted and ready for bed. If you have tried it, I’m willing to hear about it.

d) When you begin to feel sleepy, leave whatever you are doing and go to bed. Apparently, we have sleeping circles, and once one of them arrives, the next won’t come until an hour and a half later, so don’t play with fire.

 

The morning after

Today will be all about willpower, believe me.

a) I’m sure you have reset your alarm for a later hour to skip all the healthy morning routines you wanted to do. Getting more sleep, if possible, is a great thing, but I would never-ever skip my breakfast. In fact, I wouldn’t even bother getting up if I’m not going to drink my chocolate milk and eat a toast with butter and jam. Fig jam. Oh God.  😀

b) The last day I suffered from sleep deprivation I did something remarkable I want to share: I woke up and exercised a little bit. I know, I KNOW. Those who do exercise regularly already know that a workout makes the difference between a great morning and a morning in which you just go through, but the effect when you haven’t sleep properly is multiplied by 100. I mean, you won’t do The Workout because this is not the day for that, but I’m talking about no more than 20-30 minutes in order to activate your brain a little. Trust me.

c) Drink as much coffee as you need before 5 pm. We need to get going but we don’t want to be awake when it’s finally time to go to bed.

d) Don’t wear sunglasses. I read this tip in an article talking about how to survive if you partied all night and you have to work the next day, but it applies here too for the same reason: your brain gets activated by the light caught by the eye, so we want all that brightness. It is going to hurt, but it’s necessary.

e) Then, rearrange your tasks in order to do the things that require concentration and/or quietness first. You might feel almost dying, but these first hours of the morning are in fact your best of this particular day, so be ready. If possible, leave errands for later in the day, when you’ll be really tired – you’ll shake off sleepiness by going here and there and it won’t require concentration.

f) When you get home (in my case is for lunch, because in Spain we have lunch very late), don’t nap. I repeat: DON’T NAP. In my own experience, this is the hardest part, but I know I can’t nap for a few minutes – when I haven’t rest well at night it’s impossible for me to wake up from a nap until a couple of hours later and, therefore, that night I’ll go to bed late and the circle of insomnia will continue forever. We don’t want that to happen, so it’s better if you just go for a short walk (remember: without sunglasses!).

g) At around 6 pm you’ll experience a burst of energy. Take advantage of it to do whatever requires your concentration, but keep in mind it won’t last more than 1-2 hours.

h) And finally, go-to-bed. Can there be anything more pleasant? When you began feeling sleepy in the evening, don’t fight it, just embrace your bed early, get advantage of that sleeping circle that just came to you from the heavens, and get the rest you deserve. After all, you survived!

*****

Do you have any survival tips for these occassions? Please, share them!

The thing about translations

You don’t realize the things that happen around you if they have become normal in your life, because you see them every day, until a little spark lights up in your brain and you start to think a little.

Why should Gustave Flaubert call one of his characters Carlos? Is Carlos a common enough name in France to call one of his characters like this, or did he want to add an exotic touch in his most famous novel, Madame Bovary? Oh, wait a minute: Carlos only exists in the Spanish translation of Flaubert’s novel.

This is because in Spain names have been always translated in literature: why you should read or listen to a strange foreign word if it can be avoided? No way; you shouldn’t, so this is the reason why we used to translate every single thing that is susceptible to being translated, even names. Thus, Emma Bovary is married to a man called Carlos, and young Werther falls in love with a girl called Carlota whose fiancé, Alberto, was so charming that Werther decided to kill himself in order not to break the perfect couple. And these are only the main characters; you don’t know what we are capable of doing with the secondary, and less important, ones.

We do exactly the same with famous real people; the best example is what we call the British Royal family: Prince Carlos, Prince Guillermo and Prince Eduardo; the names are written like this in all the newspapers and magazines you can read here. In the same way, in our literature, a girl called Ana wrote a diary in the secret annex, and another Ana – Karenina – was the main character of León Tolstoi’s novel. And if we find a name that is spelled the same in Spanish, we pronounce it in Spanish, of course. It’s like a national epidemic.

When did it begin? I really don’t know; I suppose it has always happened. I remember that, when I was little and I started studying English for the very first time, our teacher said we had to introduce ourselves with our English names, so in my English class I said “hello, my name is Elizabeth” instead of Isabel and he called us by our English names. We thought this was absolutely normal, and the children who hadn’t a translatable name were a little bit unlucky, in fact: all they could do was say their names with English pronunciation. So I think we have always had the idea that the names can be changed depending on the country where you are.

Fortunately, this doesn’t happen nowadays because a lot of publishers are editing new translations of the classic authors. But today you can still find some new editions which really are reprinted books from old editions, some of them still censored if the first edition was published during Franco’s dictatorship! About this kind of editions, all I can say is: what happened in that carriage between Emma Bovary and her lover, Rodolphe (in my edition, Rodolfo)? I think I can’t live anymore without knowing what happened in that removed scene.

Another – and not less important – problem is titles’ translation. This happens all over the world, I know, but I think changing the title is a big mistake because the author wants this words to be the first ones for the reader to know about the story. Every book starts with a title; who do translators think they are to change it? As examples, here we have Donna Milner’s novel, After River, a book that I read a few months ago and I loved, as Cuando todo cambió – When everything changed – (you can change a word of two, but what is this?), and Kate Morton’s latest novel, The secret keeper, will be translated as El secreto de Dorothy –Dorothy’s secret –, a title that suggests to me a soap opera perfect for napping in front of.

The whole thing worries me a lot: censored scenes, titles with a different meaning and changed names. Nobody can be sure that the editions they own haven’t got anything else different from the original book unless they read it. I just hope two things: that Fantasy has been freed in all the editions all over the world, and that you found Madame Bovary much more interesting than I did 😉 .