C. M. MAYO
Author of Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution, etc.

EXPLORERS . MEXICOPHILES . WRITERS
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Why and how did I start translating Mexican prose and poetry? I've been living in Mexico City on and off (and mostly on) for almost thirty years. Waaaaaay back in the early 1990s I started writing my own poetry and short fiction and shortly thereafter started translating Mexican poets. By the 2000s I had translated several Mexican poets and writers and edited three issues of Tameme and two chapbooks, and seen my translations appear in numerous literary magazines and anthologies, including my own, Mexico: A Traveler's Literary Companion. I don't translate full-time; for me, it is a labor of love, a way to engage with my Mexican colleagues and bring what I can to the literary banquet.
 


New in Kindle: My longform essay about the Mexican literary landscape and the power of the book, "Dispatch from the Sister Republic or, Papelito Habla"
 
The Secret Book by Francisco I. Madero, Leader of Mexico's 1910 Revolution
Edited and expanded transcript of my talk at the Center for Big Bend Studies, now a paper in the Journal of Big Bend Studies, vol. 29, 2017.
For more detail about how I started translating, and a few of my adventures in Translationlandia, I invite you to read the transcript of my talk for the 2015 American Literary Translators Association Conference for the panel chaired by Mark Weiss, "Translating the Other Side" October 29, 2015:

Translating Across the Border

And a little more crunchiness about literary politics, my remarks for the panel I chaired at the American Literary Translators Association Conference #38, October 31, 2015:

Translating Latin American Poets and Writers:
Embracing, Resisting, Escaping the Magnetic Pull of the Capital
 
C.M. Mayo Reads Agustín Cadena's "Café San Martín," ALTA 2015
For the American Literary Translation Association's Café Latino at the Café Passé in Tucson, Arizona, October 30, 2015. For more about Agustín Cadena, visit his blog El vino y la hiel. For more about C.M. Mayo's translations, click here.

(APPROX 7 MINUTES)
 

Scroll on down for a list of my works of translation
in chronological and/or alphabetical order.
 

"The Café" by Rose Mary Salum
Catamaran Literary Reader, Summer 2017

"The Time" by Rose Mary Salum
Catamaran Literary Reader, Fall 2016

 

 
"The Coco" by Agustín Cadena and "Someone Is Calling Me" by Rose Mary Salum, ArLiJo #91, August 1, 2016.
Read my note about these translations at Madam Mayo blog.
"The Vampire" by Agustín Cadena (together with four other stories translated by Patricia Dubrava) in Mexico City Lit, April 2016.
Read my note about this publication and the past and future of literary magazines at Madam Mayo blog.

"Blind Woman" (poem) by Mexican poet Agustín Cadena in BorderSenses, Fall 2015

Read a note about my latest translation of work by Mexican poet Agustín Cadena at Madam Mayo blog.

A note about my latest translation of work by Mexican writer Rose Mary Salum (from the Madam Mayo blog):

The opening chapter of Mexican writer
ROSE MARY SALUM'S forthcoming novel, El agua que mece el silencio, "The Water That Stirs the Silence," is in the second issue of Origins, a new literary magazine edited by Dini Karasik. I've written on this blog before about Rose Mary Salum's Literal Magazine; her visionary anthology Delta de las arenas, a collection of Arab and Jewish Latin American writing; and I've posted a podcast interview with her for my Conversations with Other Writers series. If you come to the conclusion that I am a big admirer of her work as both a writer and an editor, you'd be exactly right.

Having founded an edited a literary magazine myself—Tameme (circa 1999-2007)— I know what courage, what eye-crossing hard work, time, not a little cash, help from many friends, and avalanching Himalayas of email it takes it bring one out. As a writer and translator, I celebrate any new literary magazine, and especially one so well designed and edited. As a reader, I say, "cheers!" for I relish the chance to encounter new voices, most especially those edgy ones not necessarily for the smooth and easy slots of mainstream commercial media.

Writes editor Dini Karasik, on Origin's website's introduction,

"ORIGINS IS A LITERARY JOURNAL THAT EXPLORES THE NARRATIVE ARTS THROUGH THE LENS OF IDENTITY.
We are interested in distinct voices. Writing that tells us something about a character's roots or what makes her unique. Stories that transport us across town and country, beyond and within borders both physical and abstract, to discreet moments that change or define us. We want to read provocative poems and have gripping conversations with writers about everything from craft to creativity.
Literature offers us the opportunity to endlessly interpret who we are as human beings. This journal is a celebration and investigation of our diverse origins and the art that inevitably springs forth." www.originsjournal.com.
 

The new issue of the Lampeter Review on magic realism and Latin America, edited by Tony Kendrew, includes a masterful short story by one of Mexico's greatest writers, IGNACIO SOLARES, translated by Yours Truly as "Victorian's Delirums" on page 22.

Read the complete issue on-line here.
And for the free PDF download, click here.

Ignacio Solares' masterful short story "Victoriano's Deliriums" enters into the points of view (and what may or may not be some hallucinations) of the dying general and ex-President of Mexico, Victoriano Huerta.

A little background: In 1913 General Victoriano Huerta led the coup d'etat that overthrew Mexican President Francisco I. Madero. A wealthy Coahuilan businessman and ardent Spiritist, Madero had led the 1910 Revolution, then campaigned for and won the presidential election in 1911. As President, Madero had trusted General Huerta, a fatal mistake. Huerta's own rule was troubled and brief. In 1914 he fled for Europe and then on arriving in El Paso, Texas he was arrested. Huerta died there in early 1916 from cirrhosis of the liver, while under house arrest.

IGNACIO SOLARES is one of Mexico's best-known literary writers. Among his many works are the novels Un sueño de Bernardo Reyes; Madero, el otro; El Jefe Máximo; and El sitio, which won the prestigious Xavier Villaurrutia Prize. Born in Ciudad Juárez, he now lives in Mexico City where he is editor-in-chief of La Revista de la Universidad, the magazine of the Mexico's National University.

C.M. Mayo at the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, UCSD: Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero and His Secret Book, Spiritist Manual
Recorded on January 29, 2015 in La Jolla, CA, at the University of California San Diego Center for US-Mexican Studies: C.M. Mayo discusses her new book, Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero and His Secret Book, Spiritist Manual. (Approx 1 hr 11 minutes)


Why Translate? The Case of the President of Mexico's Secret Book
Transcript of my talk for the annual conference of the American Literary Translators Association, November 15, 2014

The Secret Book by Francisco I. Madero, Leader of Mexico's 1910 Revolution
Edited and expanded transcript of my talk for the Center fo Big Bend Studies Conference, November, 2016.




In a blend of personal essay and a rendition of deeply researched metaphysical and Mexican history that reads like a novel, award-winning writer and noted literary translator C.M. Mayo provides a rich introduction and the first English translation of the secret book by Francisco I. Madero, leader of the 1910 Revolution and President of Mexico, 1911-1913.
 
"Fabric of a Life" (about Frida Kahlo's wardrobe) by MÓNICA LAVÍN, translated by C.M. Mayo, Patek Philippe Magazine, Fall 2012
 
An avid translator of contemporary Mexican fiction and poetry, C.M. Mayo is the founding editor of Tameme, the bilingual (Spanish/English) literary journal, now a chapbook press. Her anthology of Mexican fiction in translation, Mexico: A Traveler's Literary Companion, was published by Whereabouts Press in March 2006.

 
 

Complete List of Published and Forthcoming Translations

(All contemporary Mexican literature, from Spanish to English, unless noted)

Mexico: A Traveler's Literary Companion
(Whereabouts Press, 2006)
A portrait of Mexico in a collection of contemporary Mexican fiction and literary prose. Includes works by Carlos Fuentes, Angeles Mastretta, Rosario Castellanos, Fernando del Paso, Carlos Monsiváis, and many others.














By author (alphabetical order)

ARACELI ARDÓN
"It Is Nothing of Mine" (short story) in Mexico: A Traveler's Literary Companion, (Whereabouts Press 2006)

LUIS ALBERTO AMBROGGIO (Argentine-American)
Difficult Beauty (Selected Poems 1987-2006), by Luis Alberto Ambroggio, edited by Yvette Neisser Moreno (Cross-Cultural Communications, 2009), contains translations by C.M. Mayo: "Deadlines"; "The Story"; "The Fallen."


AGUSTÍN CADENA

"The Apaches of Kiev," Tupelo Quarterly, 2017

"The Coco" ArLiJo, August 2016

"Blind Woman" (poem) BorderSenses, Fall 2015

"Café San Martín" (poem) Goodbye, Mexico: Poems of Remembrance, edited by Sarah Cortez (Texas Review Press, 2015)

"Lady of the Seas" (short story) Terra Incognita, 2004 and in Mexico: A Traveler's Literary Companion (Whereabouts Press, 2006) and in Exile: The Literary Quarterly, Autumn 2010.

"An Avocado from Michoacán" (short story) (Tameme Chapbook / Cuaderno #1, 2007
Read the review in Pluma Fronteriza by Raymundo Eli Rojas

"Parque Murillo" (short story) is in the anthology Three Messages and a Warning, edited by Eduardo Jiménez Mayo and Chris N. Brown (Small Beer Press, 2011).

"The Vampire," Exile Quarterly, 2014 and Mexico City Lit, April 2016

"Why I Read" (essay), Chatahoochie Review, 2011







ÁLAVRO ENRIGUE
"On the Death of the Author" (short story) in Best of Contemporary Mexican Fiction, edited by Álvaro Uribe and Olivia Sears, (Dalkey Archive, 2009)

FERNANDO DEL PASO
"The Emperor in Miravalle" excerpt from a chapter in the novel Noticias del Imperio, in Mexico: A Traveler's Literary Companion (Whereabouts Press, 2006)

ANTONIO DELTORO
Poems: "Cats"; "Kites," in Noise of Dreams/Ruido de Sueños, Ediciones El Tucán de Virginia, 1994; "The Plaza,"The Tree Is Older Than You Are, poetry and short stories from Mexico, Naomi Shihab Nye, editor, (Simon & Schuster, 1995)

EDUARDO HURTADO
Poems: "The Moth"; "Balloon,"Noise of Dreams/Ruido de Sueños, Ediciones El Tucán de Virginia, 1994; "The Fly"; "Balloon," The Tree Is Older Than You Are, poetry and short stories from Mexico, Naomi Shihab Nye, editor, (Simon & Schuster, 1995)

MÓNICA LAVÍN
"Day and Night" (short story) in Mexico: A Traveler's Literary Companion (Whereabouts Press 2006); also in New World / New Words: Recent Writing from the Americas— a Bilingual Anthology, ed. Thomas Christensen with a forward by Gregory Rabassa (Two Lines, 2008)

GUADALUPE LOAEZA
"Oh Polanco!" (Literary prose) in Mexico: A Traveler's Literary Companion (Whereabouts Press 2006)

TEDI LÓPEZ MILLS
Poems: "Advertisement"; "Letter"; "On Reading Virgil," Reversible Monuments, Mónica De la Torre and Michael Wiegers, eds, (Copper Canyon Press, 2002)
"Island," Tameme, issue #1, 1999; "You Appear Dead to My Eyes," Noise of Dreams/Ruido de Sueños (Ediciones El Tucán de Virginia, 1994)

MYRIAM MOSCONA
Poems: "Among the Olive Branches..." Noise of Dreams/Ruido de Sueños (Ediciones El Tucán de Virginia, 1994)


ROSE MARY SALUM

Short Stories:

"The Water That Stirs the Silence," Origins, Spring 2015

"Someone is Calling Me," ArLiJo, August 2016

"The Time," Catamaran Literary Reader, Fall 2016

"The Cafe," Catamaran Literary Reader, Summer 2017

IGNACIO SOLARES
Story "Victoriano's Deliriums" Lampeter Review 11, March 2015

MARIANNE TOUSSAINT
Poem: "Morocco,"Tameme, issue #1, 1999

VERÓNICA VOLKOW
Poem: "In the Valley of Zapata"; "Veracruz," Noise of Dreams/Ruido de Sueños (Ediciones El Tucán de Virginia, 1994)

JUAN VILLORO
"1975"(short story), Tameme, issue #3, 2003 (and with the title "One-Way Street") in Mexico: A Traveler's Literary Companion (Wheresabouts Press, 2006).

 
C.M. Mayo's Professional affiliations include: