Security Questions, by Cuban writer Osdany Morales (Nueva Paz, Cuba, 1981), translated into English by Harry Bauld, is the winning collection of the inaugural Translated Poetry Prize organized by Anglophone publishers Fitzcarraldo Editions, Giramondo Publishing, and New Directions.
The biennial award includes a $5,000 advance for author and translator, as well as the simultaneous publication of the work in North America (New Directions), the United Kingdom and Ireland (Fitzcarraldo), and Australia and New Zealand (Giramondo).
The distinguished volume corresponds to El pasado es un pueblo solitario (Bokeh, 2015), and its English title—according to the organizers—refers to “the security questions Morales was asked upon his arrival in the United States as a gateway to his experiences as an immigrant.”
Fitzcarraldo’s poetry editor, Rachael Allen, highlighted in the poems of Security Questions “their newness, their humor, their clairvoyance and timelessness,” as well as their “unique and irreverent, startling and moving” style.
“The qualities of the collection—its intricate weaving of memories and experiences, heightened by the absurdities of exile and underpinned by the unmistakable, syncopated, pulsating rhythms of the poems—were evident from the first reading,” said Nick Tapper of Giramondo. “Its publication in English will be a significant event.”
In the opinion of Jeffrey Yang, editor at New Directions, Bauld’s work constitutes “a brilliant translation […] that profoundly reflects our turbulent times, while uplifting the heart and mind with humor and compassion.”
“They caught my attention. I translated one and sent it to him by way of introduction and welcome. He paid me the compliment of saying how strange it was ‘to hear my own voice in English,’” recounts Bauld about how he approached Morales, who was then a newcomer to the faculty at the school where they both worked, after having found his poems on the Internet.
The translator explains that “the poems in Security Questions are, on the one hand, a lyrical sequence shaped by coming of age in a small Cuban town during the final stages of Fidel Castro’s regime and, on the other, a testimony to exile and immigration, the traces left after leaving a troubled homeland for the uncertainties of the present.”
For his part, Morales speaks of how the experience of writing El pasado… allowed him to access a new literary territory. “Before arriving in the United States, I had only written fiction. If it hadn’t been for this book, it would have taken me much longer to reach the lands of memory,” he has stated, as transcribed by the sponsoring publishers. “At that time, I believed that fiction was not confessional, that only poets had access to that kind of meaning. It was while writing poetry that I realized I had been carrying many memories in literary form, that exile had established a past that I could now narrate without waiting for old age. Exile and poetry made me look not exactly backwards, but inwards.”
In addition to Osdany Morales’s book, the multicultural shortlist for the prize also included the volumes With the Remains of My Hands, by Priya Bains, translated by Alex Mepham; A Beam of Light in the Winter from the Bowstring Played by A Crested Serpent Eagle, by Bukun Ismahasan Islituan (Isbukun Bunun, native to Taiwan); The Dust Museum, by Liu Ligan (Dong Li; mainland China); Water’s Edge And Other Poems, by Hiyori Kojima (James Garza; Japanese); Help Me Change My Bandages, by Maniniwei (Emily Lu; Taiwan-Malaysian Chinese); Just Land, by Jaku Mata (Eric Abalajon; Filipino); and Life on Three Wheels, by E.M. Palitha Edirisooriya (Samodh Porawagamage and Kasun Pathirage; Sinhalese).
