The Dictator and the Greeting Cards by Edmundo Paz Soldán Translated by Roy Youdale and Nick Caistor

The Dictator and the Greeting Cards

by Edmundo Paz Soldán  

From the collection Desencuentros 

Madrid: Páginas de Espuma, 2018

Translated by Roy Youdale and Nick Caistor

The dictator and the greeting cards

In those days the dictator Joaquín Iturbide was the owner of a greetings card factory and had a monopoly of the sale of cards in the country and one day it occurred to him to declare 26th June Friendship Day and the cards produced for that day were unexpectedly popular with people and yielded spectacular profits for the company; this led the dictator to declare 14th August Envy Day and the success was repeated. The dynamics of this success continued by virtue of its own momentum and in less than five years every day of the year was used up and there was a Bitterness Day and an Unfaithful Girlfriend Day and a Great-grandparents Day and a Couples Who Love Each Other but Actually Hate Each Other Day and a Worshippers of Onan Day and a Those Who Would Like to Sleep with Their Maids Day and a Readers of the Marquis de Sade Day and a Those Who Dream of Centaurs Day. To make room for new dedications the day had to be divided into various parts: dusk on 3rd January was declared the time for Those Who Like to Make Love in the Darkness of a Cinema and early morning on 16th October the time for Those Who Wouldn’t Kill a Fly and midday on 21st December the time for Those Who Miss the Chachachá. And so on. The dictator now earned more money each year from the sale of cards than from his brazen theft from the country’s coffers, but he was not ready to step down. He wanted to die in power, an ancient and venerable patriarch.

When death came he was truly ancient. In his honour, the country’s Committee of the Great and the Good declared four twenty-seven and fifteen seconds on the afternoon of 2nd April to be the Fleeting Moment of Perpetual Dictators.

Cuento con dictador y tarjetas

En ese entonces el dictador Joaquín Iturbide era dueño de una fábrica de tarjetas y poseía el monopolio de la venta de tarjetas en el país y un día se le ocurrió declarar el 26 de junio día de la Amistad y las tarjetas creadas para ese día tuvieron un éxito inesperado en la población y lograron ganancias espectaculares para la empresa; ello llevó al dictador a declarar el 14 de agosto día de la Envidia y el éxito también se repitió. Y por su propia inercia la dinámica del éxito continuó y en menos de un lustro todos los días del año estaban copados y había día del Rencor y día de la Novia Infiel y día de los Bisabuelos y día de los Esposos que se Aman pero en Realidad se Odian y día de los Adoradores de Onán y día de los que Quisieran Acostarse con sus Sirvientas y día de los Lectores del Marqués de Sade y día de los que Sueñan con Centauros. Para dar lugar a las nuevas ocurrencias hubo que dividir el día en varias partes: el 3 de enero al atardecer fue declarado momento de los que les Gusta Hacer el Amor en la Oscuridad de un Cine y el 16 de octubre en la madrugada momento de los que No Matan ni una Mosca y el 21 de diciembre al mediodía momento de los nostálgicos por el chachachá. Y así sucesivamente. El dictador ya lograba más dinero anualmente con la venta de tarjetas que con lo que robaba sin disimulo de las arcas del país, pero no quiso dejar el poder. Quería morir con él, ya viejísimo y venerable patriarca.

Cuando le llegó la muerte era en verdad viejísimo. En su honor, la Junta de Notables del país declaró las cuatro de la tarde con veintisiete minutos y quince segundos del 2 de abril como el Fugaz Instante de los Dictadores Perpetuos.

Edmundo Paz Soldán (born 1967)

Edmundo Paz Soldán is Bolivian, but lives and works in the US, teaching Romance Studies at Cornell University. He is a leading member of the Latin American literary movement known as McOndo, which uses magical realism in a modern, urban setting. He has published eleven novels, of which six have been translated into other languages, and four collections of short stories. He has been shortlisted for, or awarded, literary prizes in Bolivia, Mexico and Spain.

Roy Youdale

Roy completed a PhD in literary translation in 2017 at Bristol University and a book based on his thesis, Using computers in the translation of literary style: challenges and opportunities, was published by Routledge in June 2019. The case study for both the thesis and the book was a complete translation into English of Mario Benedetti’s third novel, Gracias por el Fuego (1965). Roy is currently seeking a publisher for his translation.

Nick Caistor

Nick is a translator, journalist and author of non-fiction books. He has translated more than 40 books of fiction from Spanish, Portuguese and French, including works by Paulo Coelho, Eduardo Mendoza, Juan Marsé, Edney Silvestre and Dominique Sylvain. He has twice received the Valle-Inclán prize for translation from Spanish, while his recent short biography of Che Guevara (Macmillan) was praised as ‘a biography of Che Guevara for grown-ups’. He was shortlisted for the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize 2019 for his translation of Mario Benedetti, Springtime in a Broken Mirror (2018, Penguin). He has also published biographies on the former Cuban leader Fidel Castro, and the Mexican poet Octavio Paz (for Reaktion Books’ Critical Lives series). He has written a cultural history of Mexico City for Signal Books, and a history of Buenos Aires for the same publisher. As a journalist, he has presented and produced many programmes on BBC Radio 4 and the BBC World Service, and he contributes regularly to the Times Literary Supplement and the Guardian.

8 September 2021