OxBlog

Thursday, November 06, 2003

# Posted 6:22 AM by Patrick Belton  

SPANGLISH FINALLY GETTING ITS DUE: After living for a substantial period in Mexico, I came to nurse a lifelong affection not only for that beautiful country and its people, but also for the borderlands, and the people who occupy the at times creative, at times painful, space that corresponds to the tidy black line which on political maps neatly separates two countries and cultures.

I also became very fond of the language which is often spoken on that tidy black line, Spanglish. And for that reason I'm very pleased to note this underappreciated, amazingly versatile language is finally receiving its long-overdue literary recognition: this, namely, in a new book by Ilan Stavans, a Jewish Mexican who teaches at Amherst, and whose engaging earlier works include The Hispanic Condition and Tropical Synagogues. Particularly worth mentioning, the introductory essay of his book includes inter alia (Latinglish) his playful translation of a particularly significant passage from Iberian literature: “In un placete de la Mancha of which nombre no quiero remembrearme, vivía, not so long ago, uno de esos gentlemen who always tienen una lanza in the rack, una buckler antigua, a skinny caballo y un grayhound para el chase.” ¡Que viva la frontera!
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