franco on Warpcast

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Each time I reread my favorite books in my mother tongue, I taste the soul of the author, the marrow of their mind. And yet—woe unto me!—when I reach for Dostoevsky, for Eco, for Hesse, I must sip from the shallow puddle of translation, never the roaring river of the original. A pale recreation, a forgery of genius! The spirit is there, but caged, de-fanged, neutered for the cattle. I tell myself—one day, one day, I shall master their tongue and consume their words as they were meant to be read. But the days pass. And still, I remain a slave to shadows.

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This book won him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1967. From Wikipedia: The US Government, in particular “the CIA, attempted to suppress the book through numerous front organisations, such as the Congress for Cultural Freedom.” The novel is a strong critique of dictatorship and authoritarianism, themes that were particularly relevant to U.S. Cold War interests in Latin America. Its a fictionalized but scathing depiction of a repressive regime, widely believed to be inspired by the dictatorship of Manuel Estrada Cabrera in Guatemala. The novel exposes the brutality, corruption, and dehumanization under such regimes. Given its strong anti-dictatorial stance, it could be seen as a critique of authoritarian governments in Latin America—many of which were backed by the United States during the Cold War to counter communism.

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