{"id":107444,"date":"2017-02-21T10:30:39","date_gmt":"2017-02-21T15:30:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=107444"},"modified":"2017-02-21T12:41:15","modified_gmt":"2017-02-21T17:41:15","slug":"translating-amparo-davilas-moses-gaspar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/02\/21\/translating-amparo-davilas-moses-gaspar\/","title":{"rendered":"The Fern Cat"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Translating Amparo D\u00e1vila\u2019s \u201cMoses and Gaspar.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Remedios Varo, El gato helecho<\/em> (The fern cat) (detail), 1957, oil on Masonite.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Amparo D\u00e1vila was born in 1928\u2014a fated year in Mexican letters, it also heralded the arrival of Carlos Fuentes, Jorge Ibargu\u00ebngoitia, In\u00e9s Arredondo, Enriqueta Ochoa, and Carlos Vald\u00e9s\u2014in the poetically named town of Pinos, in the state of Zacatecas. In interviews, D\u00e1vila has stressed the importance of her childhood in her formation as a writer, particularly the loss of her younger brother, who died in infancy. Her earliest memories are of her father\u2019s library; she harbors a special fondness for his leather-bound copy of Dante\u2019s Divine Comedy<\/em>, illustrated by Gustave Dor\u00e9, which she read and reread even though its images of the infernal circles of hell and fearsome demons terrified her. She also recalls watching dead bodies driven in carts past her house; the surrounding towns had no cemeteries, and the dead had to be transported to her town for burial. The sight of the corpses, sometimes barely covered by sheets, left an indelible impression in her mind and, in turn, her fiction, which visits frequently with the specter of death.<\/p>\n

For someone like me, who grew up delighting in the ghost stories of Edith Wharton and the gothic illustrations of Edward Gorey, translating D\u00e1vila offers a delicious challenge. Entering the world of one of her stories is like walking back in time to the dark and lonely world of Pinos, a semideserted mining town \u201cfilled with wind and shadows,\u201d as she described it to Elena Poniatowska in a 1957 interview; it is to witness the corpse-laden carts rattling by and to feel the yawning absence of a lost brother. It is also to experience a golden day in a garden in Guanajuato, when, as a young woman, D\u00e1vila quoted a passage from Saint-Exup\u00e9ry\u2019s The Little Prince<\/em> to the exalted Mexican novelist Alfonso Reyes; enchanted, he invited her to visit him in the capital, where she became his assistant. D\u00e1vila still resides in Mexico City. She writes in a library whose shelves brim with books by her favorite authors, among them Kafka, Hesse, Paz, and Rulfo, as well as by those with whom she most identifies: Borges, Bioy Casares, Quiroga, and Cort\u00e1zar (with whom she kept up a literary correspondence and friendship for many years). <\/p>\n

Like Quiroga\u2019s or Kafka\u2019s, D\u00e1vila\u2019s writing is filled with small but sharp instances of violence, often expressed metaphorically so that her stories resemble contemporary fables. She parses loneliness and uncertainty and acutely illustrates the brutality of impending madness or an inconsiderate act. In \u201cMoses and Gaspar<\/a>,\u201d she explores what happens to someone when these small violences overlap; here, misfortune assumes the form of two pets, abandoned by the death of their owner, who wreak havoc in the life of the unassuming narrator.<\/p>\n

D\u00e1vila illustrates daily transgressions with silences, registered through ellipses: the abashed quiet following a beating, the calm leading up to a looming squall, the complicit secrecy of the abuser and the abused, of the dead and of those who are left behind to mourn them. Beyond silence, her work is characterized by an ambiguity so marked that the only thing one knows when entering her fictional world is the impossibility of knowing anything for certain. In \u201cMoses and Gaspar,\u201d the theme of unknowingness is evident from the second\u00a0sentence: \u201cThe fog was so thick one could hardly see.\u201d Soon after, when Jos\u00e9, the narrator, enters his dead brother\u2019s apartment, he describes the entire building as having been invaded by fog, signaling an entry into an unknowable and compromised world. Already, one\u2019s senses are challenged; in this opening paragraph, D\u00e1vila erects a signpost for the reader: low visibility ahead.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The mystery in \u201cMoses and Gaspar\u201d centers on the nature of the two titular creatures, whether characters\u2019 perceptions of them are accurate, and why the two brothers, their successive owners, allow them to spark the calamitous chain of events that takes place over the course of the story. D\u00e1vila\u2019s deliberate omission of any description of the creatures\u2019 likenesses leaves a lacuna at the heart of the story, a gap that grows as the plot advances and that troubles the reader\u2019s ability to gauge the precise strangeness of the story. Was the dead brother insane? Has Jos\u00e9\u2019s mental state been compromised by grief? Is the reader tainted by association?<\/p>\n

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, when final edits were wrapping on \u201cMoses and Gaspar\u201d for the Winter issue of The Paris Review<\/em><\/a>, I visited an exhibition of paintings by the Spanish Mexican Surrealist Remedios Varo (1908\u201363) at the Museo de Arte Moderno (MAM<\/small>)<\/a>, in Mexico City\u2019s Chapultepec Park. I was trying to think of images to associate with the two pets: I had thought of them as dogs, perhaps pit bulls or some other powerful shorthair breed, but when I mentioned the translation of \u201cMoses and Gaspar\u201d to the Mexican novelist Isaura Contreras, she recalled it fondly as the story about los<\/em> gatitos<\/em> (\u201cthe little cats\u201d). One of the paintings in the Varo show, El gato helecho<\/em> (The fern cat, 1957), depicts two cats made of ferns, in the middle of a forest. One stares mischievously at the viewer as he claws a tree whose branches brush the clouds, causing rain to shower down; the other sniffs the ground, tail alert in a curiously canine pose. A label affixed to the side of the painting explains its origins (translation from the Spanish mine<\/em>):<\/p>\n

In 1987 Beatriz Varo, niece of Remedios, interviewed Eva Sulzer, the original proprietor of this work, who related the following:<\/p>\n

\u201cOne day I had a dream and I told it to Remedios, I dreamt that some cats which had turned into ferns walked through the garden, but the ferns were not stuck to the cats in the same form, rather it was as if they grew out of them. Remedios painted this painting \u2018The Fern Cat\u2019 and gave it to me, it was not exactly as I had seen it, but it doesn\u2019t matter, it is very beautiful.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Reading this account, I realized that translating \u201cMoses and Gaspar\u201d had felt like painting someone else\u2019s dream. Like a dream, D\u00e1vila\u2019s fictional realm is filled with signs and symbols, with hybrid creatures who appear to defy the laws of nature, and with characters who do not act according to logic or reason. D\u00e1vila has said in interviews that one of her favorite subjects is the mysterious, the unknown, that which is not within our grasp. Her writing is intentionally opaque and allows readers to draw a number of different interpretations; it is this intriguing, elusive quality that has perhaps led to her enduring popularity in Mexico.<\/p>\n

The goal in translating her work is to bring these qualities fully alive for English-language readers\u2014no small task. My cotranslator, Matthew Gleeson, Lorin Stein, and I debated numerous translation decisions. Matthew and I wrestled particularly with interpreting the ambiguous nature of D\u00e1vila\u2019s descriptions of the two pets. For example, in one scene she describes Moses as \u201cparado,\u201d or \u201con the stove.\u201d Parado <\/em>can mean either \u201cstanding,\u201d \u201cstationed,\u201d or \u201cstopped.\u201d Although we originally rendered the phrase as \u201cstanding on the stove,\u201d we decided that this translation provided a more limited visual image than the original text intends: Moses could be standing up on his hind legs or on all fours or crouched, or arranged in any number of other positions. We finally settled on \u201cMoses was on top of the stove,\u201d leaving his bodily configuration entirely up to the reader\u2019s imagination, as D\u00e1vila does in the original. This openness seemed especially important given the complete absence of description of Moses\u2019s physicality, which invites the reader to supply his or her own image.<\/p>\n

Although D\u00e1vila did not affiliate with Surrealism as Remedios Varo did, seeing parallels between her dark, gemlike stories and Varo\u2019s brilliant and enigmatic canvases is unavoidable: their mutual interest in animals and hybrid creatures, their use of dreams as creative raw material, their startling images of domestic scenes that challenge preconceived notions about the hierarchies and customs that rule everyday bourgeois life in mid-twentieth-century Mexico (and beyond, as both of their bodies of work can be said to traffic in universal rather than regional themes). A brush with their work also leaves the slightly troubling, yet thrilling, sense that invisible currents and patterns of meaning course all around us and that we might be able to grasp them, if only we knew how to decipher them.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Audrey Harris teaches at the University of California, Los Angeles. More of her recent writing can be found here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Like a dream, Amparo D\u00e1vila\u2019s fictional realm is filled with signs and symbols, with hybrid creatures who appear to defy the laws of nature.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1130,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18642],"tags":[26063,27374,27376,27380,27377,2890,71,23104,27378,27379,27373,27381,27247,27383,3286,2229,27249,3231,67,27382,1058,27375,27248,27372,21097,530],"class_list":["post-107444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inside-the-issue","tag-amparo-davila","tag-chapultepec-park","tag-dream","tag-el-gato-helecho","tag-fantastic","tag-fantasy","tag-fiction","tag-inside-the-issue","tag-isaura-contraras","tag-los-gatitos","tag-mam","tag-matthew-gleeson","tag-mexican-author","tag-mexican-painting","tag-mexico","tag-mexico-city","tag-moses-and-gaspar","tag-museum-of-modern-art","tag-painting","tag-remedios-varo","tag-spanish","tag-sureralism","tag-surreal","tag-the-fern-cat","tag-translating","tag-translation"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nOn Translating Amparo D\u00e1vila\u2019s \u201cMoses and Gaspar\u201d<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Like a dream, Amparo D\u00e1vila\u2019s fictional realm is filled with signs and symbols, with hybrid creatures who appear to defy the laws of nature.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/02\/21\/translating-amparo-davilas-moses-gaspar\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Fern Cat by Audrey Harris\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"February 21, 2017 \u2013 Like a dream, Amparo D\u00e1vila\u2019s fictional realm is filled with signs and symbols, with hybrid creatures who appear to defy the laws of nature.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/02\/21\/translating-amparo-davilas-moses-gaspar\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-02-21T15:30:39+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-02-21T17:41:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/cat.202-el-gato-helecho-1957-664x1482.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"762\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"610\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Audrey Harris\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Audrey Harris\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/02\/21\/translating-amparo-davilas-moses-gaspar\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/02\/21\/translating-amparo-davilas-moses-gaspar\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Audrey Harris\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/fc165f60f225269aef0964c20142c48b\"},\"headline\":\"The Fern Cat\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-02-21T15:30:39+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-02-21T17:41:15+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/02\/21\/translating-amparo-davilas-moses-gaspar\/\"},\"wordCount\":1474,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/02\/21\/translating-amparo-davilas-moses-gaspar\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/cat.202-el-gato-helecho-1957-664x1482.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Amparo Davila\",\"Chapultepec Park\",\"dream\",\"El gato helecho\",\"fantastic\",\"fantasy\",\"fiction\",\"inside the issue\",\"Isaura Contraras\",\"los gatitos\",\"MAM\",\"Matthew Gleeson\",\"Mexican author\",\"Mexican painting\",\"Mexico\",\"Mexico City\",\"Moses and Gaspar\",\"Museum of Modern Art\",\"painting\",\"Remedios Varo\",\"Spanish\",\"sureralism\",\"surreal\",\"The Fern Cat\",\"translating\",\"translation\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Inside the Issue\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/02\/21\/translating-amparo-davilas-moses-gaspar\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/02\/21\/translating-amparo-davilas-moses-gaspar\/\",\"name\":\"On Translating Amparo D\u00e1vila\u2019s \u201cMoses and Gaspar\u201d\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/02\/21\/translating-amparo-davilas-moses-gaspar\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/02\/21\/translating-amparo-davilas-moses-gaspar\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/cat.202-el-gato-helecho-1957-664x1482.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-02-21T15:30:39+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-02-21T17:41:15+00:00\",\"description\":\"Like a dream, Amparo D\u00e1vila\u2019s fictional realm is filled with signs and symbols, with hybrid creatures who appear to defy the laws of nature.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/02\/21\/translating-amparo-davilas-moses-gaspar\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/02\/21\/translating-amparo-davilas-moses-gaspar\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/02\/21\/translating-amparo-davilas-moses-gaspar\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/cat.202-el-gato-helecho-1957-664x1482.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/cat.202-el-gato-helecho-1957-664x1482.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/02\/21\/translating-amparo-davilas-moses-gaspar\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Fern Cat\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"description\":\"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"width\":696,\"height\":696,\"caption\":\"The Paris Review\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/fc165f60f225269aef0964c20142c48b\",\"name\":\"Audrey Harris\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5bb3d22dc4e6b031828a121e10486ff2e95e09c8352b9f5cc889d2435d43dd52?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5bb3d22dc4e6b031828a121e10486ff2e95e09c8352b9f5cc889d2435d43dd52?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Audrey Harris\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/aharris\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"On Translating Amparo D\u00e1vila\u2019s \u201cMoses and Gaspar\u201d","description":"Like a dream, Amparo D\u00e1vila\u2019s fictional realm is filled with signs and symbols, with hybrid creatures who appear to defy the laws of nature.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/02\/21\/translating-amparo-davilas-moses-gaspar\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Fern Cat by Audrey Harris","og_description":"February 21, 2017 \u2013 Like a dream, Amparo D\u00e1vila\u2019s fictional realm is filled with signs and symbols, with hybrid creatures who appear to defy the laws of nature.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/02\/21\/translating-amparo-davilas-moses-gaspar\/","og_site_name":"The Paris Review","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","article_published_time":"2017-02-21T15:30:39+00:00","article_modified_time":"2017-02-21T17:41:15+00:00","og_image":[{"width":762,"height":610,"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/cat.202-el-gato-helecho-1957-664x1482.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Audrey Harris","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@parisreview","twitter_site":"@parisreview","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Audrey Harris","Est. reading time":"7 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/02\/21\/translating-amparo-davilas-moses-gaspar\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/02\/21\/translating-amparo-davilas-moses-gaspar\/"},"author":{"name":"Audrey Harris","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/fc165f60f225269aef0964c20142c48b"},"headline":"The Fern Cat","datePublished":"2017-02-21T15:30:39+00:00","dateModified":"2017-02-21T17:41:15+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/02\/21\/translating-amparo-davilas-moses-gaspar\/"},"wordCount":1474,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/02\/21\/translating-amparo-davilas-moses-gaspar\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/cat.202-el-gato-helecho-1957-664x1482.jpg","keywords":["Amparo Davila","Chapultepec Park","dream","El gato helecho","fantastic","fantasy","fiction","inside the issue","Isaura Contraras","los gatitos","MAM","Matthew Gleeson","Mexican author","Mexican painting","Mexico","Mexico City","Moses and Gaspar","Museum of Modern Art","painting","Remedios Varo","Spanish","sureralism","surreal","The Fern Cat","translating","translation"],"articleSection":["Inside the Issue"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/02\/21\/translating-amparo-davilas-moses-gaspar\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/02\/21\/translating-amparo-davilas-moses-gaspar\/","name":"On Translating Amparo D\u00e1vila\u2019s \u201cMoses and Gaspar\u201d","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/02\/21\/translating-amparo-davilas-moses-gaspar\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/02\/21\/translating-amparo-davilas-moses-gaspar\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/cat.202-el-gato-helecho-1957-664x1482.jpg","datePublished":"2017-02-21T15:30:39+00:00","dateModified":"2017-02-21T17:41:15+00:00","description":"Like a dream, Amparo D\u00e1vila\u2019s fictional realm is filled with signs and symbols, with hybrid creatures who appear to defy the laws of nature.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/02\/21\/translating-amparo-davilas-moses-gaspar\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/02\/21\/translating-amparo-davilas-moses-gaspar\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/02\/21\/translating-amparo-davilas-moses-gaspar\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/cat.202-el-gato-helecho-1957-664x1482.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/cat.202-el-gato-helecho-1957-664x1482.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/02\/21\/translating-amparo-davilas-moses-gaspar\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Fern Cat"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","name":"The Paris Review","description":"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization","name":"The Paris Review","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","width":696,"height":696,"caption":"The Paris Review"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/fc165f60f225269aef0964c20142c48b","name":"Audrey Harris","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5bb3d22dc4e6b031828a121e10486ff2e95e09c8352b9f5cc889d2435d43dd52?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5bb3d22dc4e6b031828a121e10486ff2e95e09c8352b9f5cc889d2435d43dd52?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Audrey Harris"},"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/aharris\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1130"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107444"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107444\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":107927,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107444\/revisions\/107927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}