Read the first three chapters from The Scale of Maps at
CityLights Press
"A novel and its protagonist create one another, in a tale strung between the work of Cervantes
and Nabokov."
Sergio Prim is a staid and solitary middle-aged man who finds himself suddenly in love. A geographer by trade, but with a broken radar when it comes to navigating human relationships, he is thrown into a psychological crisis by the romantic advances of Brezo Varela, a lively young woman who shares his profession. Haunted by a series of hallucinations in which he's relentlessly pursued by a cynical, vampire-like seductress whose promises of pleasure fill him with horror, Prim attempts to seek refuge by immersing himself in an obsessive metaphysical quest: he determines that he must map the way to a place in which love never results in disillusionment. The Scale of Maps is the story of Prim's struggle to choose between living in the external world that his lover inhabits or continuing to hide in the "hollows" of his inner world; an intimate and mercilessly revealing examination of a meager and fearful life challenged by desire.
Belén Gopegui was born in Madrid, where she studied law and later worked as a newspaper columnist. Her first novel, La escala de los mapas, won the "Tigre Juan" prize and the "Iberoamericano Santiago del Nuevo Extremo" prize for first novels.
What Spanish critics have said about The Scale of Maps and Belén Gopegui
"What is astonishing about this novel is the originality of its narrative strategies in harmony with the rhythm of its prose. Although the story it tells is skeptical and shameless, like a transcript of the chaos man finds himself currently surrounded by, the author has not fallen into the trap of employing a disarticulated, broken, or halting language to reflect this chaos but rather, has imposed a poetic order on the jumble by locating it on the literary plane, where the high-flying clouds demand a heightened sense of precision."
Carmen Martín Gaite, Diario 16
"Plain and brilliant prose... A fable of love-laid-waste, an almost scientific story of the anguish of existence, a profoundly and deliberately distorted image of perverse reality, its space and time, a tragedy replete with tenderness and humor."
Rafael Conte, ABC literario
"[The] artistic quality of [the] text is so unquestionable that any consideration that doesn't pertain to the fact of that quality is absolutely beside the point... It is impossible to get the sense of this novel without becoming entangled in its exquisite writing."
J. Ernesto Ayala-Dip, El País
"Gopegui is one of our most outstanding young names [in Spanish literature]"
Miguel Garcéa Posada, El País
"Gopegui is the incredible proof that a novel exists that is learned, intellectual, coherent, highly realist and experimental, full of the character of Madrid and very European, highly conceptual, and very emotional. "
Francisco Umbral, El Mundo
"If anyone deserves a place of distinction in the panorama of contemporary Spanish narrative, it is Belén Gopegui."
Francisco Rico, quoted in "Belén Gopegui and 'la nueva novela social'" by Anny
Brooksbank Jones
MARK SCHAFER
Lecturer, Hispanic Studies Department,
University of Massachusetts at Boston
TRANSLATED BOOKS
- The Scale of Maps. Belén
Gopegui. San Francisco: City Lights
Publishers, (January 2011)
- Before Saying Any of the Great
Words: Selected Poetry of David Huerta.
David Huerta. Fort Townsend, WA: Copper
Canyon Press, (January
2009).
- Migrations. Gloria Gervitz. San
Diego/Essex, UK: Junction Press/Shearsman
Books, 2004.
- Stripping Away the Sorrows of This
World, Jesús Gardea (Mexico
City/San Francisco: Editorial Aldus,
S.A./Mercury House, 1998).
- Mogador: The Names of the Air,
Alberto Ruy Sánchez (San Francisco:
City Lights Publishers, 1992).
- The Book of Embraces, Eduardo
Galeano, translated by Cedric Belfrage and
Mark Schafer (New York: W. W. Norton
1990).
- René's Flesh, Virgilio
Piñera (Boston: Eridanos Press,
1989).
- Cold Tales, Virgilio
Piñera (Hygiene, CO: Eridanos Press,
1988).
TRANSLATED STORIES, POEMS, ESSAYS &
ORIGINAL ARTICLES AND REVIEWS
- Reading Poems to Boston Harbor: An Interview with Translator Mark Schafer", 17 November 2009
-
“Song of Money” Poetry Daily
(September 20, 2008)
- “Song of Money,”
“Sweet Angel,” Before Saying
Any of the Great Words,” “Song
of Unease,” David Huerta, American
Poetry Review, Vol. 37/No. 5
(September/October 2008): 33–
34.
-
“Before Closing One's Eyes,”
“Upon,” “Poem by
Gottfried Benn,” “The
Desert,” “A Visit from My
Friend,” “Passions,”
“Declaration of Antipoetry,”
“Sick Man,” “Song of the
Kiwi,” David Huerta, Oregon Literary
Review, Vol. 3, No. 2 (Summer
2008)
- “Uproar,” David Huerta, The
Bitter Oleander, Vol 14, No. 2 (Spring
2008): 88–89.
- “A Café Without
Men,” “In Pornography,”
“Puritan Playthings,”
“Shipwrecks,”
“Cities,”
“Apparition,” “Can
Matías Hill, on the Way to
Matanzas,” “Nocturnal
Emissions,” José Antonio
Ponte, Island of my Hunger: Cuban Poetry
Today, edited by Francisco Morán
(San Francisco: City Lights Publishers,
2008): 166–181.
- “Toward
the Surface,” David Huerta, Web
Conjunctions, (January 10, 2008)
- “Index,” David Huerta, The
Antioch Review, Vol. 65, No. 4 (Fall 2007):
686–687.
- Fifteen selections from Incurable,
David Huerta, Mandorla Vol. 10 (2007):
45–65.
- “Words,” “Before
Saying Any of the Great Words,”
“Open and Close,” “Minor
Failures,” David Huerta, Shearsman,
Vol. 73 & 74 (Winter 2007/2008):
89–93.
-
“The Desert,” “Song of
Unease,” “Fruit,”
“What I See,” “Sick
Man,” David Huerta, Jacket, No.
33(July 2007),
- “Words,” David Huerta, The
Spoon River Poetry Review, Vol. XXXII, No.
1(Winter/Spring 2007): 85–87.
- “The
Bullfight,” David Huerta, Memorious,
Issue 7 (February 2007)
- “Open and Close,” David
Huerta, Salamander, Vol. 12, No. 2 (Spring
2007): 3.
- “Kitchen of Paradise,”
David Huerta, Massachusetts Review, Vol.
XLVII, No. 3 (Fall 2006): 510.
- “The Fall,” Virgilio
Piñera, Felex Gonzalez-Torres,
edited by Julie Ault (New York:
steidldangin publishers, 2006):
152–153 [reprint/revised].
- “San Matías Hill, on the
Way to Matanzas,” Antonio José
Ponte, New Laurel Review, Vol. XXIII,
(2006): 72.
- “Low Boil” and
“Another Rooster,” David
Huerta, Connecting Lines: New Poetry from
Mexico, edited by Luis Cortés
Bargalló and Forrest Gander
(Louisville, KY: Sarabande Books, 2006):
57–61.
- “Three Songs of the Lunatic
Moon” and “In the Wind’s
Confidence,” Pedro Serrano,
Connecting Lines: New Poetry from Mexico,
edited by Luis Cortés
Bargalló and Forrest Gander
(Louisville, KY: Sarabande Books, 2006):
193–199.
- “Somewhat in The Style of
Ishmael,” “Regarding the
Planet,” “Song,”
“Auguries,”
- “Cities, “A Seat in the
Ruins,” Antonio José Ponte,
Mandorla, No. 7, (2004):
175–179.
- “The Face,” Virgilio
Piñera, ¡Cubanísimo!
the Vintage Book of Contemporary Cuban
Literature, edited by Cristina
García (New York: Vintage Books,
2003): 227–235. [reprint]
- “Josephine Baker in Cuba,”
Nicolás Guillén,
¡Cubanísimo! the Vintage Book
of Contemporary Cuban Literature, edited by
Cristina García (New York: Vintage
Books, 2003): 219–223. [reprint]
-
“One Crystal in Another: A
Translation Conversation,” (review of
No Shelter: The Selected Poems of Pura
López-Colomé,) Mark Schafer,
Perihelion, Issue 10, ( 2002).
- “Thirteen Propositions against
Trivial Love,”
“Machinery,” “Prayer for
August 21,”
- “Pathological Beings,”
“Bolero at Armageddon,”
“Summer Mist,” “The
Cauldron,” “Cancellation of a
Construction Project,”
“Descent,” “A Baroque
Cell,” “Light from Parallel
Worlds,” “Deck of Cards,”
David Huerta, Reversible Monuments, edited
by Mónica de la Torre and Michael
Wiegers (Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon
Press, 2002): 317–341.
- Selection from Migraciones, Gloria
Gervitz, Reversible Monuments, edited by
Mónica de la Torre and Michael
Wiegers (Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon
Press, 2002): 263–279.
- “I Hear Through Your Ears”
from On Lips of Water, Alberto Ruy
Sánchez, BOMB Magazine, No. 79
(Spring 2002): 94–96. Chapters 4 and
5, of Meaning to Eat, Antonio José
Ponte, turnrow, (Winter 2001): 145–
151.
- “Prayer for August 21” and
“The Cauldron,” David Huerta,
BOMB Magazine, No. 78, (Winter 2001/2002):
84–86. Chapter 6 of Meaning to Eat,
Antonio José Ponte, BOMB Magazine,
No. 78, (Winter 2001/2002):
84–86.
- “Five Windows on the Same
Side” and “Catching On,”
in The Forbidden Stories of Marta
Veneranda, Sonia Rivera-Valdés, tr.
Dick Cluster, Mark Schafer, Alan
West-Durán, and Marina Harss, (New
York City: Seven Stories Press, 2001).
- Chapters 1–3 of Meaning to Eat,
Antonio José Ponte, Massachusetts
Review, Vol. XLII, No. 2 (Summer 2001):
223–37.
- “A Baroque Cell,” David
Huerta, Two Lines 2001 (Cells) (2001):
178.
- “Idea for a Naive
Tapestry,” “Chair on the
Run,” “A Forest, A
Ladder,” Antonio José Ponte,
Atlanta Review, Vol. VII, No. 2
(Spring/Summer 2001): 52–54.
- “Machinery (I),”
“Cancellation of a Contruction
Project,” “Light from Parallel
Worlds,”
- David Huerta, Atlanta Review, Vol. VII,
No. 2 (Spring/Summer 2001):
49–51.
- “The Cannon of Punta
Grande,” Néstor Taboada
Terán, The Fat Man from La Paz;
Contemporary Fiction from Bolivia,, edited
by Rosario Santos (New York: Seven Stories
Press, 2000).
- “Phone Calls,” Roberto
Bolaño, Grand Street, Vol. 18, No. 3
(Winter 1999): 171–175.
- “The Great Baro,” Virgilio
Piñera, Dream With No Name;
Contemporary Fiction From Cuba, edited by
Juana Ponce de León and Esteban
Ríos Rivera (New York: Seven Stories
Press, 1999): 257–251.
- “Small Creatures”
(selection from La orfandad del esplendor),
Carlos Olivares Baró, Dream With No
Name; Contemporary Fiction From Cuba,
edited by Juana Ponce de León and
Esteban Ríos Rivera (New York: Seven
Stories Press 1999): 113–130.
- “Voices of the Water,”
Alberto Ruy Sánchez, The Picador
Book of Latin American Stories, edited by
Carlos Fuentes and Julio Ortega (London:
Picador, 1998): 289–298.
- “The One Who Came to Save
Me,” Virgilio Piñera, The
Picador Book of Latin American Stories,
edited by Carlos Fuentes and Julio Ortega
(London: Picador, 1998): 29–32.
- “Retrography,” Mauricio
Ortega, Two Lines, (Spring, 1998):
181–82.
- Essays by Jorge Mañach Robato,
Nicolás Guillén, José
Lezama Lima, Álvaro Mutis,
- Gabriel García Márquez,
Alejandro Rossi, and Egardo
Rodríguez Juliá, The
- Oxford Book of Latin American Essays,
edited by Ilan Stavans (New York:
- Oxford University Press, 1997)
- “Meat,” Virgilio
Piñera, The Oxford Book of Latin
American Stories, edited by Roberto
González Echevarría, (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1997)
327–329.
- “The Balcony,” Francisco
Tario, Grand Street, 63 (Winter 1998):
117–123.
- “Shadow and Light in the
Desert” (excerpt), Alberto Ruy
Sánchez, Review: Latin American
Literature and Arts, 55 (Fall 1997):
62–66.
- “Descent” and
“Forget,” David Huerta, Review:
Latin American Literature and Arts, 55
(Fall 1997): 58–61.
- “The Lights of the World,”
Jesús Gardea, TriQuarterly, 99
(Spring/Summer 1997): 92– 98.
- “Springtime,” Jesús
Gardea, Seven Hundred Kisses; a Yellow Silk
Book of Erotic Writing, edited by Lily Pond
(San Francisco: Harper SanFrancisco, 1997)
143–146. Two stories by Juan Bosch,
Conjunctions, Vol. 27 (Fall 1996):
135–141.
- "Like the World," Jesús Gardea,
New England Review, Vol 17, No. 4, (Fall
1995): 19–21.
- "All the Years of Snow," Jesús
Gardea, Indiana Review, Vol. 19, No.1
(Spring 1996): 74–79.
- “Poor Memory,”
“Maps,” “Collar
Bones,” “A Battle of
Romans,” “Triptych after the
Flood,” “The Naked
Truth,” “Life in the
Diamond”, Alberto Blanco, Dawn of the
Senses; Selected Poems of Alberto Blanco,
edited by Juvenal Acosta, (San Francisco:
City Lights Books, 1996).
- "Toward the Light: The Poetry of Gloria
Gervitz," Mark Schafer, The Literary
Review, 38 (1995): 385–387.
- "Tequila: Panegyric and Emblem,"
Álvaro Mutis, Artes de
México, 27 (Nov.–Dec. 1994):
82.
- "So That Hildebrando Pérez Might
Learn How to Drink a Shot of Tequila,"
Efraín Huerta, Artes de
México, 27 (Nov.–Dec. 1994):
93.
- "Trinitario," Jesús Gardea,
TriQuarterly, 91 (Fall 1994):
46–55.
- "Bucho Vargas, Healer and Medicine
Man," Mario González Feo, Costa
Rica: A Traveler's Literary Companion, ed.
Barbara Ras (San Francisco: Whereabouts
Press, 1994).
- "Man Alone," Jesús Gardea,
Harvard Review, 7 (Fall 1994):
69–71.
- "One For the Road," Jesús
Gardea, Pyramids of Glass; Short Fiction
from Modern Mexico, eds. David Bowen and
Juan A. Ascencio, (San Antonio: Corona
Publishing Company, 1994). “Serial
Stories,” “The Memoirs of Mama
Blanca in the Personal History of the
Author,” and “Testimony,”
Mama Blanca’s Memoirs, Teresa de la
Parra, translated by Harriet de Onis,
UNESCO “Archives” Series
(Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh
Press, 1993).
- "The Art of Reading," Julio Ortega,
Antaeus, 70 (1993).
- "The Guitar," Jesús Gardea, New
Writing from Mexico, edited by Reginald
Gibbons, (Evanston, IL: TriQuarterly Books,
1992): 183–191.
- "The Emanicipation of the Lunatics,"
Oscar de la Borbolla, New Writing from
Mexico, edited by Reginald Gibbons,
(Evanston, IL: TriQuarterly Books, 1992):
215–217.
- "Jesus, May My Joy Be Everlasting,"
Severino Salazar, New Writing from Mexico,
edited by Reginald Gibbons, (Evanston, IL:
TriQuarterly Books, 1992):
170–181.
-
"Voices of the Water," Alberto Ruy
Sánchez, New Writing from
Mexico, edited by Reginald Gibbons,
(Evanston, IL: TriQuarterly Books,
1992): 96–105.
GRANTS AND AWARDS
- Translation Fellowship from the
National Endowment for the Arts to complete
translation of poetry by David Huerta
(2005)
- Inaugural Residency at the Banff
International Literary Translation Centre,
to translate the poetry of David Huerta and
to work with the author (2003)
- Arlington Arts Council grant for
literary translation (1998)
- Massachusetts Cultural Council grant
for professional development (literary
translation) (1998)
- Robert Fitzgerald Translation Prize
(1995)
- Translation Fellowship from the
National Endowment for the Arts to
translate a collection of stories by
Jesús Gardea (1993)
- Translation Grant from the Fund for
Culture Mexico-USA to translate a
collection of stories by Jesús
Gardea (1993)
EDUCATION
- 1998 M.A. in Hispanic Studies, Boston
University
- 1987 Graduate translation workshop with
Magda Bogin, City College of New York
- 1986 Graduate translation workshop with
Gregory Rabassa, New York University
- 1985 B.A. with Honors, College of
Letters, Wesleyan University
READINGS, CONFERENCES AND PANELS
- Reader, 15th Annual Spring Reading of
The Writers’ Room of Boston, Inc.,
November 5, 2008,
- The Pierre Menard Gallery, Cambridge,
MA
- Reader/Panelist/TranslationWorkshop
Leader, Skagit River Poetry Festival 2008,
LaConner, WA, May 15–17, 2008
- Lecturer: “Translating Gloria
Gervitz’s Migraciones from Spanish
While It Was Being Written,” February
23, 2007, Boston University
- Reader (of Huerta translations), 13th
Annual Spring Reading of The Writers’
Room of Boston, Inc., June 21, 2006, The
Algonquin Club, Boston
- Readings with Gloria Gervitz (Fall
2005): Poet’s House (NYC, 10/28), St.
Mark’s Poetry Project (NYC 10/31),
Brandeis University (11/1), Simmons
College/Center for New Words (11/3), King
Juan Carlos I of Spain Center of NYU (NYC,
11/4) (Spring 2006): University of San
Diego (3/6), University of California at
Santa Barbara (3/7), University of
California at Irvine (3/8), Mexican
Cultural Institute (Los Angeles, 3/9),
Modern Times Bookstore (San Francisco,
3/13), Black Oak Bookstore (Berkeley,
3/14)
- Reading with David Huerta, Banff
International Literary Translation Centre,
October, 5, 2003
- Reading with Alberto Ruy
Sánchez, Brown University (Julio
Ortega’s class), October 29,
2002
- Reading with Alberto Ruy Sánchez
and Antonio José Ponte (with Dick
Cluster and Cola Franzen) at Boston
University (Fall 2000)
- Reading with Alberto Ruy Sánchez
and tape of Jesús Gardea, ALTA
conference, Guadalajara, Dec. 4, 1998
- Reading from Stripping Away the Sorrows
From This World, Schoenhof’s Foreign
Books, October 29, 1998
- Panelist,
“Lecturas/Traducciones/Humor,”
at “Latin American Fiction
Today” conference at Boston
University, November 13, 1997
- Reader, Annual meeting/reading of the
Boston Writers’ Room, Inc., The
French Library, Boston, MA, Spring
1997
- Bilingual reading with Alberto Ruy
Sánchez and Alberto Blanco in the
“Other Labyrinths, Other
- Solitudes: Mexican Writing Today”
series at the Society of the Americas, New
York City, October 31, 1995
- Reader, bilingual reading at
Brattleboro bookstore, VT, 1995
- Bilingual readings with Alberto Ruy
Sánchez from his novel Los nombres
del aire and my translation Mogador at
Wellesley College, Harvard, Wesleyan, and
Boston Universities, April 19-22, 1994
- Panelist, “Virgilio
Piñera: Writing in the Flesh/La
escritura en carne y hueso”,
(conference)
- University of Chicago, October 15-16,
1993
- Bilingual reading with the Mexican poet
Gloria Gervitz from her book Migraciones
and my translation at Brown University,
sponsored by Providence College, October
13, 1992
- Panelist, “The Cultural
Textuality of Translation,” Brown
University, October 11, 1991 Reading of
original poetry in Spanish as part of the
Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes series
"Escritores inéditos" at the Palacio
de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, February
27, 1988 TEACHING
- Lecturer in Spanish and Translation and
Co-coordinator of the Translation
Certificate Program, Hispanic Studies
Dept., University of Massachusetts at
Boston, 2007–present
- Lecturer in Spanish, Hispanic Studies
Dept., University of Massachusetts at
Boston, 2007– present
- Teaching Fellow in Spanish at Boston
University, 1994–1995
- Faculty member in Humanities, Sudbury
Valley School, Framingham, MA,
1993–1994
OTHER PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Translation
- Project Translator, International
Program, The Museum of Modern Art (NYC),
2003
- Staff translator, Art Nexus/Art in
Colombia, 1997–1998
Editorial
- Senior Bilingual Textbook Editor,
Baseline Development Group, 2007
- Senior Bilingual Textbook Editor,
Houghton Mifflin, 2000–2005
- Bilingual Editor, Houghton Mifflin,
1998–2000
- Bilingual freelance writer/editor,
1988–2004
PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS
- American Literary Translators
Association
- New England Translation
Association
- Modern Language Association
(Representative for Independent Scholars,
1995)
- New England Translator's Group
(founding member)
- The Writer's Room of Boston, Inc.
(Board of Directors, member)
- National Writers Union
LANGUAGES
- English (native fluency in reading and
writing)
- Spanish (near-native fluency in reading
and writing)
- Haitian Creole (beginning proficiency
in reading and writing)
- Swedish (beginning proficiency in
reading and writing)