While I am still working on a long post about the first Galician book I read after finishing the MA (Rivas’s A man dos paíños), I want to include here a brief reference to the one I have just finished: Xosé Fernández Ferreiro’s O atentado, published by Xerais in 1999. After having studied the MA in Irish Writing and Film, the thematic similarities between Galician and Irish literature are striking. Just to give you a brief glimpse, scroll down and you will find an excerpt from O atentado along with my own translation. The themes of land and emigration that underpin the conversation between father and son make this piece, in my opinion, easily transferable to an Irish readership. In all likelihood, Galician readers are already aware of the similarities between Galician and Irish literature. Hence the aim of this post is to make our Irish neighbors aware of that little Atlantic corner on the Iberian peninsula that shares so much with them. “How Irish is this?” Please, feel free to express your own opinion. Comments are welcomed!
Namentres traballo nunha publicación longa sobre o primeiro libro galego que lin ao ter rematado o Máster (A man dos paíños, de Rivas), quero incluír aquí unha breve referencia ó libro que veño de ler: O atentado, de Xosé Fernández Ferreiro, publicado por Xerais en 1999. Ao estudiar o Máster de Literatura e Cine Irlandeses, as semellanzas temáticas entre a literatura galega e a irlandesa son apreciábeis. Só por darvos unha breve mostra, debaixo atoparedes un fragmento de O atentado, xunto coa miña propia tradución. Os temas da terra e a emigración que presenta a conversa entre pai e fillo fan que este anaco, na miña opinión, sexa facilmente transferíbel ós lectores irlandeses. Con toda probabilidade, os lectores galegos están ao tanto das semellanzas entre literatura galega e irlandesa. Polo tanto, o fin desta publicación é dar a coñecer aos nosos veciños irlandeses ese recuncho atlántico da península ibérica que tanto comparte con eles. “Cómo de irlandés é isto?” Por favor, sentídevos libres de expresar a vosa opinión. Os comentarios son benvidos!
O atentado [The Attack]
[Galician original text first, English translation below]
-Non, Cándido, non. Non nos enganemos. Cómpre aceptar a realidade. Non se pode fuxir dela… Ademais, ti non queres esta terra -o vello falaba mentres miraba pola ventá a longa chaira de Lemos, as leiras co centeo próximo a madurar-. Nunca a quixeches. E agora, desde que coñeces Madrid e viches outro mundo, menos aínda. Non é que non a queiras. Quérela, pero desexas outras cousas que non están aquí. Eu non te censuro por iso. Agora, e sempre, a xente quere deixar a aldea. A mocidade busca unha vida distinta. Menos dura. E fai ben. Claro que a vida é dura en todas partes. É un campo de batalla. Xa cho teño dito máis veces.
Respiraba, miraba ó fillo, e logo volvía falar.
-Ti tamén te poderás ir, se iso é o que verdadeiramente queres. Non che falo de América porque é cousa que nunca che atraeu. Ti querías ser maquinista do tren, como Antón… Cando morra, que será pronto, entérrasme e vaste. Colles o teu camiño. Es un home feito e dereito e podes facer o que queiras.
-Non fale así.
-Eu desexo o mellor para ti e quero que consigas, se podes, esas cousas nas que pensas e nas que pensabas xa antes, trátese ou non das mesmas.
Cándido mirabao e calaba. Oíase o rumor dun tren que baixaba cara a Ourense polo canón do Sil, xa máis alá de Areas.
-Si, fillo, si. Esta terra é moi dura. Pide demasiado e da moi pouco. Para vivir dela hai que suar sangue. Iso é o que mellor a esterca. Vainos comendo pouco a pouco… Pode que fagas ben con íreste de aquí. Tal vez o debín facer eu cando tiña a túa idade. Se o fixese, quizais agora non terías que facelo ti ou como hai anos o fixo o propio Evaristo. Daquela pode incluso que o pobre Antón estivese vivo. Eu, certamente, tamén pensei en irme cando vin de servir ó rei en África. Tentei emigrar. Pero a verdade é que non puiden. Non puiden desprenderme disto, non sei se por amor á terra ou se por covardía. Quizáis polas dúas cousas. Iso de cortar as raíces e deixar o curruncho onde se nace é moi duro. Ou debe selo.
Calaba. Descansaba uns momentos. Non era a sombra do que fora noutros tempos. Quedáballe tan só a forza interior. A súa fidelidade á terra. A súa rectitude moral. A súa pequena grandeza, que Cándido sempre admirara tanto.
-[…] Eu só son un pobre labrego, fillo de labregos e neto de labregos. Non te trabuques. Xa que logo, son un anaco da terra. Desta terra de Lemos. Só aquí podo vivir en paz. Ben, en paz non se vive en ningures. Xa me entendes. A xente de agora non lle ten tanto apego a isto. O mundo é máis pequeno cada vez. Madrid, por exemplo, na miña mocidade quedaba moi lonxe. Agora está a un paso. E quen di Madrid di América, anque pode que para os galegos, aínda hoxe, quede máis lonxe Madrid ca Bos Aires. Segundo se mire.
Fernández Ferreiro, Xosé. O atentado. Vigo:Xerais, 1999. 78-80. Print
English translation:
‘No, Cándido, don’t. Let’s not deceive ourselves. We must accept reality. We can’t run away from it… Besides, you don’t want this land’, the old man spoke while looking out of the window at the large Lemos plain, the rye fields about to ripen. ‘You never wanted it. And now, since you’ve come to know Madrid and seen another world, even less. It’s not that you don’t want it. You love it but you wish for things that aren’t here. I don’t condemn you for that. Nowadays, and always, people want to leave the village. The young are looking for a different life. Less hard. And they are right to do so. Of course, life is hard everywhere. It’s a battlefield. I’ve told you many times’.
He breathed in and out, looking at his son, and then spoke again.
‘You can leave too, if that’s what you really want. I won’t speak of America because it has never appealed to you. You wanted to be an engine driver on the trains, like Antón… When I die, which will be soon, bury me and leave. Be on your way, follow your path. You are a grown man and you can do whatever you want to’.
‘Do not talk like that, father’.
‘I wish you the best and I want you to get, if you can, those things you are thinking about and that you have thought about before, whether they are the same or not’.
Cándido looked at him and remained silent. The murmur of a train coming down towards Ourense by the Sil canyon, already beyond Areas, could be heard.
‘Yes, son, yes. This land is harsh. It asks too much and gives very little. To live from it one must sweat blood. That’s the best dung. It consumes us bit by bit… You might do right by leaving this place. Maybe I should have done it when I was your age. If I had done it, perhaps you wouldn’t have to do it now, like our own Evaristo had to years ago. Then maybe even our poor Antón would be alive. Sure, I also thought about leaving when I came back from serving the King in Africa. I tried to emigrate. But the truth is, I couldn’t. I couldn’t get rid of this, I don’t know if out of love for the land or cowardice. Maybe because of both. Cutting yourself from your roots and leaving the corner where you are born is very hard. Or it must be’.
He remained silent, resting for a moment. He wasn’t even the shadow of what he had been in times gone by. Only his inner strength remained. His faithfulness to the land. His moral uprightness. His little greatness, which Cándido had always admired so much.
‘[…] I am nothing more than a poor farmer, son of farmers and grandson of farmers. Don’t be mistaken. And so, I am a piece of the land, of this land of Lemos. It’s only here that I can live in peace. Well, nowhere can you live in peace. You know what I mean. People nowadays don’t have as much bonding with this. The world is getting smaller every time. Madrid, for example, in my youth was very far. Now it’s just a step away. And the same goes for America, however for Galicians, even today, it might be that Madrid is farther than Buenos Aires. It depends on how you look at it.
My own translation from Fernández Ferreiro’s O atentado.
Work Cited:
Fernández Ferreiro, Xosé. O atentado. Vigo:Xerais, 1999. 78-80. Print
Irishness and Beyond 