First meetings with authors whose work I translate are emotional moments for me. Spending time with Mónica Crespo in Viskaia this month was pure joy. Mónica is the author of “Las madres secretas” [The Secret Mothers], a collection I am translating and that seeks a publisher. Individual stories have appeared in Ploughshares, Exile Quarterly, and The Massachusetts Review. I guess we’ve been collaborating for at least four years now.
The motive of this trip to Spain was an invitation extended by the Madrid Bookfair to participate in the first-ever translation events in the Fair’s history. I had the fortune to be in the company of fellow translators and friends Katie King, Samantha Schnee, Curis Bauer, and Sundial House editor Eunice Rodríguez Ferguson. The four days at the fair were exhausting, revelatory, and enjoyable in equal measure. And hot. SO hot! It was so hot they had to close El Parque de Retiro for an entire day.
The heat and Mónica Crespo were the main reasons I had decided to go north after the fair. I was delighted by the big African neighborhood in Bilbao, the city’s walkable streets, its neo-Baroque and modernist architecture, and its own bookfair where I met poets and editors offering very different fare from Madrid, including some extraordinary publishers of hand-made books, prints, and maps.
Mónica Crespo is precisely as ebullient, generous, positive, and beautiful in person as she seemed via social media and WhatsApp, where her messages are always accompanied by a trail of encouraging and joyful emoticons. Over pintxos and beer, we got to know each other a bit more. Then I traveled up to Bermeo to enjoy the seacoast and the company of the extraordinary writer-translator-singer, Amaia Gabantxo, who I’ve admired from afar for many years. I won’t forget our magical dinner over the sea in the company of her good dog, Puck! Mónica joined Amaia and me the next day, Sunday. We enjoyed the fresh, salty breeze on our skin, and delicious fish and treats in Amaia’s secret garden and, as will happen when three writing women get together, we got to the heart of life fast: Our work, nature, war, violence, and our solidarity as creative women. I’ll never forget it.
That evening, saying goodbye to Mónica as she boarded the bus that would take her home to Bergara was hard. In her, I have not just an extraordinary author, but a true friend.
(Photo: by Mónica Crespo)
