Vinicius Jatobá

Vinicius Jatobá was selected by Granta as one of the Best of Young Brazilian Novelists in 2012. Since then he has had stories published in English, French, Spanish and German. He is also a prize-winning dramatist. In 2015 he’ll be in Paris for a year as the recipient of the prestigious Icatu Prize for Arts, where he’ll work on his new novel, Enchantment Road. His first novel, Elegy, will be published in early 2015.

‘The Big Family’ (‘A grande família’) was written especially for The Football Crónicas and is published here for the first time.

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Diego Trelles Paz

Diego Trelles Paz (Lima, Peru, 1977) is the author of Hudson el redentor (Peru, 2001), El círculo de los escritores asesinos (2005), and Bioy (2012), which received the Francisco Casavella Prize and was a finalist for the Rómulo Gallegos Prize in 2013. He is also the editor of El futuro no es nuestro (2009), an anthology of short stories by young Latin American writers that has been published in six countries and translated into Hungarian and English: The Future Is Not Ours: New Latin American Fiction (2012). He holds a doctorate in Hispanic Literature from the University of Texas, Austin, and currently lives in Paris.

Football and Plague’ (‘La peste y el fútbol’) was first published in Hudson el redentor

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José Pérez Reyes

José Pérez Reyes. Asunción, Paraguay, 1972. Writer, lawyer, university professor. He has had three collections of short stories published: Ladrillos del tiempo (2002), Clonsonante (2007; his best-known work) and Asunscenarios (2012). In 2007 he was named among the Bogotá39, a Hay Festival initiative recognising the continent’s best young authors. His stories have been included in international anthologies in Colombia, Mexico, Cuba, Argentina, Chile, Portugal and Spain. He has had work translated into English and published by Words Without Borders in 2011. His webpage and blog can be found at joseperezreyes.blogspot.com. His work frequently combines Guaraní with Spanish: in ‘Loyalty Card’, the Guaraní words appear in italics.

‘Loyalty Card’ (‘Carnet de fiel consumidor’) was first published in Asuncenarios (Editorial Arandurá).

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Agustín del Moral Tejada

Agustín del Moral Tejeda. Las Choapas, Veracruz, Mexico, 1956. Novelist, journalist and social activist. He was a member of the PRT (Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores – The Workers’ Revolutionary Party) between 1978 and 1992. Between 1985 and 1987, he coordinated ‘El istmo en la cultura’, a supplement of Diario del Istmo (Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz), which in 1987 shared (with the Gaceta del FCE) the National Prize for Journalism in the field of Cultural Disclosure. In 1997 the University of Veracruz published his novel Nuestra alma melancólica en conserva. He is now editorial coordinator of the university’s publishing house.

‘The Mexican Pelé’ is an extract taken from his creative non-fiction book Un crack mexicano: Alberto Onofre, published in 2003 by Ficticia and UV Editorial.

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Hernán Iglesias Illa

After living for ten years in New York, Hernán Iglesias Illa recently moved back to Buenos Aires, the city he was born and bred in. He is the author of three books, Golden Boys (2007), Miami (2010) and American Sarmiento (2013), and he has a webpage hernanii.net. In a normal week, he watches between eight and ten football matches on television.

‘San Martín de Brooklyn Eye the Play-Offs’ (‘San Martín de Brooklyn busca el repechaje’) was first published in Orsai magazine in January 2011.

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Wilmer Urrelo Zárate

Wilmer Urrelo Zárate. Bolivia, 1975. He is the author of three novels: Mundo negro (Nuevo Milenio, 2000), winner of the National Prize for Best Debut Novel and published in Italian by Edizione Estemporanee; Fantasmas asesinos (Alfaguara, 2006), winner of the National Prize for Best Novel; Hablar con los perros (Alfaguara, 2011), winner of the Anna Seghers Prize for Literature 2012, as chosen by the Anna Seghers foundation in Berlin, Germany. His short stories have appeared in numerous Bolivian and international anthologies.

Lucha Libre versus Football’ (‘Lucha Libre versus fútbol’) was first published on the website www.ecdotica.comin February 2010.

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Pablo Corso

Pablo Corso is thirty-three years old and lives in Buenos Aires, having spent childhood and adolescence in Bariloche, Patagonia. He is a Communications graduate, a journalist and an Independiente fan. His crónicas and articles have been published in Rolling Stone, Newsweek, Russia Beyond the Headlines, Brando and Caras & Caretas. He worked as an editor on the daily newspaper Crítica de la Argentina and the magazine El Guardián. His Twitter account is .

‘The Team That’s Always Robbed’ (‘Este equipo siempre pierde por afano’) was first published in El Guardián in February 2011.

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Clara Becker

Clara Becker is from Rio de Janeiro. She is a Botafogo fan and a reporter for the magazine Veja Brasília. She worked for piauí magazine from 2009 to 2013.

‘Congressman Romário: Big Fish in the Aquarium’ (‘Peixe no aquário’) was first published in piauí in January 2012.

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Surya Lecona Moctezuma

Surya Lecona Moctezuma is a Mexican freelance journalist focused on human-rights issues and current affairs across Latin America. She loves non-fiction, crónicas and old typewriters. She has contributed to numerous publications, including Replicante, Expansión, La Otra Orilla, El Financiero and De Largo Aliento. She is part of the editorial board on the magazine Spleen! Journal and co-author of Tú y yo coincidimos en la noche terrible, a book focused on 127 journalists that have been killed or disappeared in Mexico.

‘Costa Nica: The Central American Dream’ (‘Costa Rica, Costa Nica, Costa Risueña’) was first published in March 2013 in Replicante.

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Leonardo Haberkorn

Leonardo Haberkorn is a Uruguayan journalist and Associated Press correspondent in Montevideo. He has worked for a range of media outlets in Uruguay and has had pieces published in several leading Latin American magazines, including Gatopardo (Colombia/Mexico) and Etiqueta Negra (Peru). His work has been published in the anthologies Crónicas de otro planeta: las mejores historias de Gatopardo (Mexico, 2009), Para gritar, para cantar, para llorar (Chile, 2010) and Antología de crónica latinoamericana actual (Spain, 2012). He has published ten books, including Milicos y tupas, which won the Bartolomé Hidalgo and Libro de Oro prizes in 2011.

‘Run, Ghiggia, Run’ (‘Corre Ghiggia, corre!’) was first published in Gatopardo (No. 32, Colombian edition) in 2002.

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Marco Avilés

Marco Avilés. Peru, 1978. Journalist and editor. He is content manager at Cometa, an enterprise dedicated to telling stories in different settings and locations (cometa.pe). He has had one book published, Día de visita (Libros del KO, Spain), and he previously edited the crónicas magazine Etiqueta Negra. He lives in Lima with his girlfriend, two ginger cats and a hairless dog. His writing can be found and followed at www.marcoaviles.com.

‘The Goal-Begetting Women of the Andes’ (‘Las bombarderas de los Andes’) was first published in February 2007 in Etiqueta Negra.

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Mario Murillo

Mario Murillo was born in La Paz, Bolivia, on August 7, 1980. He teaches at Universidad Mayor de San Andrés and the Universidad Católica Boliviana. He has had two books published, La bala no mata sino el destino: Una crónica de la insurrección popular de 1952 en Bolivia (Plural, 2012) and La pelota no se mancha: Una etnografía de la Liga Deportiva El Tejar en Bolivia (IDIS, 2013), as well as football crónicas and articles in a range of compendiums and magazines. He was a screenwriter and assistant director on the documentary film La bala no mata (Fundación Grupo Ukamau, 2012) and is a member of the anarco-ch’ixi group El Colectivo 2.

‘The Goal in the Back of Beyond’ (‘Ahí donde se grita gol’) was first published in 2011 in Bolivia a toda costa: Crónicas de un país de ficción,an anthology co-edited by the El Cuervo and Nuevo Milenio publishing houses.

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Juan Pablo Meneses

Juan Pablo Meneses. Santiago de Chile, 1969. Writer and journalist. He is the author of several books, including Equipaje de mano (2003), La vida de una vaca (2008) and Niños futbolistas (2013). He studied journalism in Santiago and in Barcelona. In Mexico he edited Generación ¡Bang! (2012), an anthology of young narco-crónica writers, while in Buenos Aires he founded the Portable Journalism School (Escuela de Periodismo Portátil). He currently lives in Chile, where he is the editor of the daily hoyxhoy and teaches at Universidad de Chile.

‘A Grenade for River Plate’ (‘Una granada para River Plate’) was first published in Equipaje de mano in 2003.

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Alberto Salcedo Ramos

Alberto Salcedo Ramos. Barranquilla, Colombia, 1963. Journalist and writer, author of numerous non-fiction books, including La eterna parranda and El oro y la oscuridad (both published by Aguilar). He is a teacher at the Fundación Nuevo Periodismo Iberoamericano and has run crónica workshops in several countries. His work has been included in numerous anthologies, including Mejor que ficción (Anagrama) and Antología latinoamericana de crónica actual (Alfaguara). He has been awarded the Inter American Press Association Prize for Excellency (twice), the Ortega y Gasset Prize for Journalism, the Simón Bolívar National Journalism Prize (five times) and the King of Spain’s International Journalism Prize, among other distinctions. His crónicas have been translated into English, German, French and Italian.

‘Queens Football’ (‘El fútbol de Las Regias’) was first published in SoHo magazine in August 2007.

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Álex Ayala Ugarte

Álex Ayala Ugarte is a Spaniard by birth, a Bolivian by heart and a stutterer by vocation. He was the Sunday editor of the Bolivian newspaper La Razón, the creative non-fiction editor of the weekly Pulso and founder of Pie Izquierdo, the first non-fiction magazine in Bolivia. He contributes to publications such as Etiqueta Negra, Paula, Virginia Quarterly Review, Séptimo Sentido, Frontera D and Internazionale. He has taken part in crónica workshops alongside journalists such as Alberto Salcedo, Francisco Goldman, Jon Lee Anderson and Alma Guillermoprieto. He won the National Journalism Prize in Bolivia in 2008. He was part of the anthology of Bolivian crónicas, Bolivia a toda costa: Crónicas de un país de ficción, and his first book, Los mercaderes del Che, was recently published in Bolivia and Spain.

‘Football’s Strangest Kidnapping’ (‘El secuestro más extraño del fútbol’) was first published in the Bolivian magazine El Día D and subsequently published in the following magazines: Sole (Colombia), Emeequis (Mexico), Soho (Argentinian edition), Séptimo Sentido (El Salvador).

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Slavko Zupcic

Slavko Zupcic (Venezuela, 1970), psychiatrist, occupational health doctor and writer. He is the author of the novels Barbie, Círculo croata, and Pésame mucho, all of which are included in the book Tres novelas (2006); he is also the author of the short story collections Dragi Sol (1989); Vinko Spolovtiva, ¿quién te mató? (1990); 583104: pizzas pizzas pizzas (1995), and Médicos taxistas, escritores (2011, 2014). He has published the book of literary crónicas Máquinas que cantan (2005) and the children’s book Giuliana Labolita: el caso de Tepe Toledo. In 2007 he was included in the group Bogotá 39, selected by Hay Festival. His short stories have appeared in a number of anthologies in Venezuela and Latin America, and have been translated to English, German, Hungarian, French and Portuguese language. In 2015 he and Alejandra Costamagna published Bogotana(mente) with the publishing house Brutas Editoras. He presently resides in Valencia (Spain) and practices medicine in Castellón.

Literary Solutions to the Death of My Mother-in-Law’ (‘Soluciones literarias a la muerte de mi suegra’) is part of a new collection of short stories.

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Federico Vegas

Federico Vegas (Caracas,1950) completed his degree in architecture from the Central University of Venezuela (UCV) in 1976. He has taught architectural design in the UCV, design at Princeton University (1983) and was a visiting scholar at Harvard University (1995). He has published the following books on architecture: El continente de papel (1984); Pueblos. Venezuela 1979-1984 (1986); Venezuelan Vernacular (1985);and La Vega, una casa colonial (1988). In the 1990s he began publishing collections of short stories: El borrador (1996); Amores y castigos (1998); Los traumatólogos de Kosovo (2002); La carpa y otros cuentos (2009); Los peores de la clase (2011); La nostalgia esférica (2014). He has also published six novels: Prima lejana (1999); Falke (2005); Historia de una segunda vez (2006); Miedo, pudor y deleite (2008); Sumario (2010); Los Incurables (2012); El buen esposo (2013). His newspaper pieces and essays are collected in the books La ciudad sin lengua (2001); La ciudad y el deseo (2007); and Ciudad vagabunda (2014).

The Tent’ was originally published as ‘La carpa’ in the collection of short stories La Carpa y otros cuentos (Caracas: Alfaguara, 2009). 

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Gustavo Valle

Gustavo Valle (Caracas, 1967) is the author of the books Materia de otro mundo (2003); La paradoja de Itaca (2005); Ciudad imaginaria (2006); Bajo tierra (2009); El país del escritor (2013); and Happening (2014), which earned him the III Novel Biennial Adriano González León and Venezuela’s Critics’ Prize, as well as the XIII edition of the Cross-Genre Prize of the Friends of Urban Culture Society. He has written two feature film scripts, El libro que no ganó el concuro and Peones, both of which have merited him awards by the National Centre of Cinematography (CNAC). He is a regular contributor to a number of print and digital media in Argentina, Venezuela and Spain.

Corny or Porny first appeared as Lo cursi y lo porno in the magazine Letras Libres in January 2004 and was later included in the La paradoja de Ítaca (Caracas: Ministerio de Cultura, 2005).

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Héctor Torres

Héctor Torres (Caracas, 1968)is a narrator and literary promoter. He is the author of the short-story books El amor en tres platos (2007) and El regalo de Pandora (2011), as well as of the novel La huella del bisonte (2008), which featured among the finalists of the 2006 Adriano González León Biennial, and of the crónica collections Caracas muerde (2012) and Objetos no declarados (2014). Formerly the editor of the website www.ficcionbreve.org he was also the creator of the Critics’ Award to Best Novel of the Year, awarded by said portal. His texts have been included in a number of anthologies, and he has been a contributor to various print and online publications. He has taken part in workshops with the writers Santiago Gamboa, Leila Guerriero and Alberto Salcedo Ramos. Presently he is a regular contributor in the magazine Clímax and the portal El Cambur. He delivers literary workshops and since 2006 is the coordinator of the Short Story Prize for Young Authors of the Policlínica Metropolitana.

What do They Call Those Born in Chivacoa’ first appeared as ‘Como se les llama los que nacen en Chivacoa’ in Caracas muerde (Caracas: Punto Cero, 2012).

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Francisco Suniaga

Francisco Suniaga (Margarita Island, Venezuela, 1954) is a lawyer specialised in international law. For years he worked as an academic and wrote columns in Venezuela’s most respected newspapers. Between 2004 and 2009 he was the director of Exxito magazine, which focused on politics and economy. He has published the novels La otra isla (2005), which has been translated to German and French; El pasajero de Truman (2008); and Esta gente (2012). In 2010 Random House Mondadori also published the collection of autobiographical fiction Margarita infanta, a mural derived from his childhood in the Caribbean island of Margarita. Presently he is fully engaged in fiction writing and is planning to publish his next novel in 2016. He splits his time between MargaritaIsland and Caracas.

The Other Island’ is an extract from chapter XXII of the novel La otra isla (Caracas: Oscar Todtmann Editores, 2005).

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Jesús Miguel Soto

Jesús Miguel Soto (Caracas, 1981) read media and communication as well as letters (Letras) at the Central University of Venezuela. He has experience working as a lecturer, copy editor and editor. He has published the collection of short stories Perdidos en Frog and the novel La máscara de cuero. He has been the recipient of a number of awards, including the 64th edition of the yearly short story competition by El Nacional, the VII National Short Story Award organised by the Association of Venezuelan Authors and Composers (SACVEN) and the XXIII edition of the Literary Competition Juana Santacruz (Mexico). His stories have appeared in anthologies, such as Joven narrativa venezolana II and De qué va el cuento. Antología del relato venezolano 2000-2012.

Jesús has just been named one of the Bogotá39 for 2017: the 39 best Latin American writers under 39.

One of Many Potential Short Cuts’ was originally published as ‘Uno de muchos posibles atajos’ in the collection of short stories Perdidos en Frog (Caracas: Lugar Común, 2012).

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Carlos Sandoval

Carlos Sandoval (Caracas, 1964), literary critic, writer, editor. He is research fellow at the Institute of Literary Research of the Central University of Venezuela (UCV) and lecturer at the UCV and the Catholic University Andrés Bello. His latest publications include De qué va el cuento. Antología de relatos venezolanos 2000-2012 (2013); Servicio crítico. Despachos tentativos sobre literatura venezolana (2013); Propuesta para un canon del cuento venezolano del siglo XX (2014; as coordinator, together with Carlos Pacheco and Luis Barrera Linares); El rastro de Lovecraft. Cuentos misteriosos y fantásticos (2015). He has been recognised with the Municipal Prize for Literary Research (2001), the I Crónicas Competition by the magazine Clímax (2006) and the Short Novel Prize of the I Literary Biennial ‘Julián Padrón’ (2010).

Any Old S’ was first published as ‘S cualquiera’ by the Venezuelan portal Prodavinci.com.

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Eduardo Sánchez Rugeles

Eduardo Sánchez Rugeles(Caracas, 1977) is the author of the novels Blue Label / Etiqueta Azul (2010), winner of the Ibero-American Novel Prize Arturo Uslar Pietri; Transilvania, unplugged (2011); Liubliana (2012), winner of the International Literary Prize Letras del Bicentenario Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, and of Venezuela’s Critics’ Prize 2012; Jezabel (2013), and Julián (2014). He holds undergraduate degrees in letters (Letras) from the Catholic University Andrés Bello, and in philosophy from the Central University of Venezuela; he also holds master’s degrees in Latin American studies from the Autonomous University of Madrid and in literary studies from the Complutense University of Madrid.

Ljubljana’ is an excerpt from the prologue of the novel Liubliana (Caracas: Ediciones B/Bruguera, 2012).

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Ednodio Quintero

Ednodio Quintero (Trujillo, Venezuela, 1947) is a university lecturer, essayist, Japanese literature specialist, photographer and one of the most distinguished contemporary writers in Venezuelan literature. He is the author of eight books of short stories collected in two anthological volumes: Combates (2009) and Ceremonias (2013); eleven novels, including La danza del jaguar (1991), Mariana y los comanches (2004) and El hijo de Gengis Khan (2013); several book-length essays; a biography, Akutagawa, el elegido (2013); and a couple of film scripts. He has been recognised with the most significant literary awards in the country, such as the yearly short story competition by El Nacional (1975), the CONAC Prize for Narrative (1992) and the Miguel Otero Silva Prize awarded by the publishing house Planeta (1994). On two occasions he has taken part in year-long programmes by the Japan Foundation in Tokyo, where he has conducted research on the authors Junichiro Tanizaki and Ryunosuke Akutagawa. He also works on translations of contemporary Japanese literature into Spanish.

The Princess of Escurrufiní’, originally ‘La princesa de Escurrufiní’, is a previously unpublished short story.

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Miguel Hidalgo Prince

Miguel Hidalgo Prince (Caracas, 1984) completed his undergraduate degree in letters (Letras) from the Central University of Venezuela. He is the author of the collection of short stories Todas las batallas perdidas, published in 2012 by BID & Co and is presently working on a new collection.

Half Way There’ was first published as ‘A medio camino’ by the Venezuelan portal Prodavinci.com. 

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Maye Primera

Maye Primera is a Venezuelan journalist. She was editor-in-chief of the newspaper TalCual and worked as the Venezuela and Caribbean correspondent of the Spanish newspaper El País. She has published the books La República Alucinada: conversaciones sobre la Independencia venezolana (2011); Rostros y voces contra la impunidad (2010); and a biography of the Venezuelan politician Diógenes Escalante (2007). She is also the co-author of the anthologies of journalistic crónicas Mejor que ficción (2012) and Se habla venezolano (2010). She presently resides in Miami and works as Latin America editor of Univision Noticias online.

All I Want Is the Bones of My Son’ is an extract from Rostros y voces contra la impunidad (Caracas: cofavic, 2010), published by the Committee of the Families of the Victims of the Events of February and March 1989.

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Leonardo Padrón

Leonardo Padrón (Caracas, 1959), poet, chronicler, columnist, scriptwriter for film and television. He is the author of the poetry collections La orilla encendida; Balada; Tatuaje; Boulevard; El amor tóxico; Los materiales humanos,and Métodos de la Lluvia. His first book of crónicas, Kilómetro Cero, sold over twenty thousand copies and was published in three different editions. In 2015 he published his new collection of crónicas, Se busca un país. He has been recognised with the Poetry Prize by the Catholic University Andrés Bello, the Essay Prize Fundarte, the Municipal Prize for Cinema, the National Association of Cinematographic Authors Award, and the Fundavisual Latina Prize. He was a member of the poetry group Guaire, which had a decisive influence on the Venezuelan literary scene in the eighties, before becoming one of the most successful writers in the television industry in Venezuela, earning more than twenty-five different awards. Over the past decade he has made a considerable impression on the air waves with his radio show Los Imposibles, which has been running for seven consecutive seasons and has been turned into the publishing best-seller Los Imposibles, conversaciones al borde de un micrófono (volumes 1-7). He is one of the most known and respected writers in the country and has been translated to a number of languages.

Variations on Goodbye’ was published as ‘Formas del adiós’ by El Nacional newspaper in February 2014.

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Juan Carlos Méndez Guédez

Juan Carlos Méndez Guédez (Barquisimeto, Venezuela, 1967) is the author of the novels Los MaletinesTal vez la lluvia; Una tarde con campanas; El libro de Esther; and Árbol de luna, among others. In 2013 his work Arena negra was named book of the year by the country’s librarians. He has also published the collections of short stories Ideogramas; Hasta luego Míster, Salinger; and Tan nítido en el recuerdo. He holds a PhD in Latin American literature from the University of Salamanca, and his books have been translated into French and Galician. His latest novel El Baile de Madame Kalalú was published in Spain in 2016.

The Briefcases’ is an extract of chapters twenty and twenty-one of the novel Los maletines (Madrid: Siruela, 2014).

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Willy McKey

Willy McKey (Caracas, 1980), poet, cultural agitator, editor and educator specialised in non-fiction and cultural journalism. He is an adviser and analyst of political semiotics and the editor of Newsweek, the cultural magazine of the Venezuelan online portal Prodavinci. He has been awarded the 2007 Fundarte Poetry Prize for his collection Vocado de orfandad and the 2009 National Book Award for the poetry magazine El Salmón - Revista de Poesía. He is the author of the poetic-performative publishing experiences Paisajeno and Nuestra Señora del Jabillo

A Chronicle of Scarcity’ was published as ‘Una crónica de la escacez’ by Prodavinci on May 27 2013.

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Roberto Martínez Bachrich

Roberto Martínez Bachrich (Valencia, Venezuela, 1977) read letters (Letras) at the Central University of Venezuela, where he later lectured. He holds a master’s degree in narrative technique from Scuola Holden in Turin and is presently completing his PhD in Hispanic language and literature at City University in New York (CUNY). He has been a contributor to several newspapers and magazines in Venezuela and has published three collections of short stories, Desencuentros (1998); Vulgar (2000); Las guerras íntimas (2011, 2013); the poetry collection Las noches de cobalto (2002); the crónica La voz del animal (2013), and the biographical essay Tiempo hendido. Un acercamiento a la vida y obra de Antonia Palacios (2012), which earned him the X Annual Cross-Genre Prize of the Foundation for Urban Culture. In 2011 he was named as one of the ‘25 best-kept secrets in Latin America’ at the International Book Fair of Guadalajara (FIL).

While the Blood Dries’ was originally published as ‘Mientras se seca la sangre’ in BBC Mundo in 2011 and is included in the collection of non-fiction texts titled La prosa en ruinas. Escrituras de lector due out in 2016. 

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Carolina Lozada

Carolina Lozada(Venezuela, 1974), writer. Holds an undergraduate degree in letters (Letras) from the University of the Andes (Mérida, Venezuela). She is the author of El cuarto del loco (2014); La culpa es del porno (2013); La vida de los mismos (2011); Los cuentos de Natalia (2010); and Memorias de azotea (2007).

The Villagers’ was originally published as ‘Los pobladores’ and in 2014 won the sixty-ninth edition of the yearly short-story competition of the daily Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional.​

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Albinson Linares

Albinson Linares (Venezuela, 1981) is a journalist and writer. He is a graduate from the University of Los Andes (Táchira) and has worked in Venezuela’s major newspapers and magazines, from El Nacional’s Papel Literario to Playboy or Prodavinci, among others. He is a regular contributor to international publications such as Etiqueta Negra, Ecos (Germany), Letras Libres, Reforma (Mexico) and many others. He is the author of the books Hugo Chávez, nuestro enfermo en La Habana (2013), El último rostro de Chávez (2014) and Caracas Bizarra (2014). In 2012 he was included among the ‘New Chroniclers of the Indies’ by the Gabriel García Márquez Foundation for New Iberian-American Journalism. Presently he lives in Mexico City and works as editorial adviser for Bizz magazine, freelance editor for NYT América and web editor for Information Week Mexico.

The Living Ruins of the Tower of David’ was first printed as ‘Las ruinas vivas de la Torre del Rey David’ in Mexico’s Exceso magazine in February 2011.

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Eduardo Liendo

Eduardo Liendo (Caracas, 1941) is a novelist and short-story writer. He attended the secondary school Luis Espelozín in Caracas and studied at the Moscow Institute of Social Studies (1967-69) but his literary training came primarily as a voracious reader during his years as a political prisoner in the colonial Fortín El Vigía and the Island of Tacarigua (1962-67). He has worked as librarian, promoter and director of the Cultural Extension of the Venezuelan National Library (1976-2001), conducted the narrative workshop of the School of Letters of the Catholic University Andrés Bello (1990-2005), was coordinator of the narrative workshop of the Centre for Latin American Studies Rómulo Gallegos on two occasions, and was guest lecturer at the University of Colorado Boulder (1996). He has been juror in several domestic and international literary competitions, and in 2015 he was made Doctor of Literature Honoris Causa by the Catholic University Cecilio Acosta of Maracaibo. He is the author of El mago de la cara de vidrio (1973); Los topos (1975); Mascarada (1978); Los platos del diablo (1985, winner of the Municipal Prize for Literature); El cocodrilo rojo (short stories, 1987); Si yo fuera Pedro Infante (1989, winner of the National Council of Culture Award the following year); Diario del enano (1995); El round del olvido (2002, winner of the Municipal Prize for Literature); Las kuitas del hombre mosca (2005); Contraespejismo (2007); El último fantasma (2008); En torno al oficio de escritor (essay, 2014); Contigo en la distancia (2014).

Patriotic Stuff’ is an extract of the novel Las Kuitas del hombre mosca (Caracas: Alfaguara, Editorial Santillana, 2010).

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Liliana Lara

Liliana Lara (Caracas, 1971) is a Spanish teacher and lecturer. She is the author of the collections of short stories Los jardines de Salomón,winner of the narrative prize of the XVI Literary Biennial José Antonio Ramos Sucre in 2007, andTrampa – jaula (finalist of the Oswaldo Trejo short-story prize organised by Equinoccio in 2012). In 2013 her book Abecedario del estío earned her a place among the finalists of the XIII Cross-Genre Prize of the Foundation for Urban Culture. Her articles and short stories have appeared in regular publications and anthologies in Venezuela, Mexico, Poland and Germany. She presently lives in Israel.

The Body’ was originally published as ‘El cuerpo’ by the Venezuelan online portal Prodavinci in 2009.

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Gisela Kozak Rovero

Gisela Kozak Rovero (Venezuela, 1963) is a novelist, short-story writer, essayist and academic researcher. She holds a PhD and undergraduate degree in letters (Letras) and is a lecturer at the Central University of Venezuela. Her books include Venezuela, el país que siempre nace; Ni tan chéveres ni tan iguales: el cheverismo venezolano y otras formas del disimulo; En rojo; Todas las lunas; Latidos de Caracas; Literatura asediada; Rebelión en el Caribe Hispánico; Pecados de la capital; La catástrofe imaginaria. She has published opinion pieces in the national press and papers in specialised academic publications. She has taken part in international events, conducted seminars and delivered conferences at Stanford University, the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO, Dominican Republic), the Université de Paris VIII and Mexico’s Universidad Nacional Autónoma (UNAM). She has also been a guest researcher of the DADD at the Latin American Institute of Berlin. Her critical and creative writing has been recognised with a number of domestic and international awards.

Passion’ was originally published as ‘La pasión’ in the collection of short stories En rojo (Caracas: Editorial Alfa, 2011).

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Freddy Gonçalves Da Silva

Freddy Gonçalves Da Silva (Caracas, 1981) was one of those children who would hide under the covers with a torch to read until the small hours of the morning. These days he just switches the lights on. He holds an undergraduate degree in letters (Letras) and a master’s degree in children’s and young adults’ literature. He is a promoter of books and an academic at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and Bogota’s Academy of Writers. He worked at Banco del Libro and was the creator of the youth jury of books Librogénitos. For eleven years he worked as scriptwriter for various television channels and he recently was coordinator of literature marketing at the Colombian publishing house SM. He has published the novels Arañas de casa (2015) and María Diluvio (2014), as well as a number of research papers for several specialised publications. He is the creator and director of the online YA literary magazine PezLinterna and its blog Elhabatonka.

Chasing Rabbits’, originally ‘Cacería de conejos’, is a previously unpublished short story.

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Miguel Gomes

Miguel Gomes (1964) is the author of, among others, the works of fiction Visión memorable (1987); De fantasmas y destierros (2003); Un fantasma portugués (2004); Viviana y otras historias del cuerpo (2006); Viudos, sirenas y libertinos (2008); El hijo y la zorra (2010); and Julieta en su castillo (2012). He has been the recipient of the Caracas Municipal Prize for Literature for Un fantasma portugués and has twice won the yearly short story prize awarded by the Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional. As a critic he has written extensively about the essay in Latin American and about various poets and fiction writers. He studied in the University of Coimbra (Portugal), the Central University of Venezuela, and completed his PhD at StonyBrookUniversity in New York. Since 1989 he lives in the USA, and currently is a lecturer at the University of Connecticut.

 Christina Cries at Three O’Clock’ won the 2010 El Nacional short story prize and was published as ‘Lorena llora a las tres’ in the collection Julieta en su castillo (Caracas: Artesano Editores, 2012).

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Salvador Fleján

Salvador Fleján (Caracas, 1966) holds an undergraduate degree in letters (Letras) from the Central University of Venezuela. He is the author of the collections of short stories Intriga en el Car Wash (2006) and Miniaturas salvajes (2012), the collection of crónicas Ruedalibre: Crónicas inoxidables (2014) and the book of crónicas and short stories Tardes felices (2016). His work has been printed in a number of domestic and international media outlets and his fiction is included in several anthologies both in the country and abroad. He has been awarded various literary prizes in Venezuela and has been a member of the jury of the yearly short story competition by the newspaper El Nacional, as well as of those by the Association of Venezuelan Authors and Composers (SACVEN) and the Metropolitan Polyclinic, among others.

Intrigue in the Car Wash’ was published in the collection of short stories Intriga en el Car Wash (Caracas: Random House Mondadori, 2006).

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Victoria de Stefano

Victoria de Stefano (Rimini, Italy, 1940) read philosophy at the Central University of Venezuela (UCV). She worked in the university’s Institute of Philosophy and taught aesthetics, contemporary philosophy and theory of dramatic structures in the UCV’s faculties of Philosophy and Art. She is the author of the novels El desolvido (1970), La noche llama a la noche (1985), El lugar del escritor (1992), Cabo de vida (Planeta, 1994), Historias de la marcha a pie (1997), which merited her the Municipal Prize for Best Novel and was a finalist of the Rómulo Gallegos Prize, Lluvia (2002), Pedir demasiado (2004), and Paleografías, (2010), which earned her the 2012 Critics’ Award. She is also the author of the essays Poesía y modernidad, Baudelaire, (1984), winner of the Municipal Prize for Best Essay in 1984, and La refiguración del viaje (2005).

On a Bad Day in 1979’ is an extract of her novel Historias de la marcha a pie (Caracas: Todtmann Editores, 1997; El otro, el mismo, 2005).

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Héctor Concarri

Hector Concari (Montevideo, Uruguay, 1956), holds a degree in philosophy. He is film critic in the magazines Encuadre, CineOja, Imagen , the newspaper TalCual and various publications of the Cinemateca Nacional de Venezuela. He is the author of the novel De prófugos y fantasmas and the collections of short stories Fuller y otros sobrevivientes and Yo fui el chofer de John Dillinger, all published in Venezuela. Presently he is a columnist in the Venezuelan daily newspaper El Nacional

Blanes in Flashback’ was originally published as ‘Blanes en flashback’ in the collection of short stories Yo fui el chofer de John Dillinger (Caracas: Mondadori, 2008).

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Doménico Chiappe

Doménico Chiappe (Peru, 1970) grew up in Venezuela, where his family moved in 1974. He has lived in Madrid since 2002. He holds a doctorate in humanities from Madrid’s Universidad Carlos III, and focused his thesis multimedia narrative. He has published the novels Tiempo de encierro (2013) and Entrevista a Mailer Daemon (2007), the short-story book Los muros (2011), the collection of crónicas Cédula de identidad (2014) and the multimedia works ‘Hotel Minotauro’ (2013-2015) and ‘Tierra de extracción; (1996-2007). As a researcher he focuses on journalism, photography and digital literature. He has published the essay Tan real como la ficción. Herramientas narrativas en periodismo (Laertes, 2010) and is working on La visión multimedia. Apuntes para una narrativa electrónica (2015-2016). In Venezuela he was cofounder of the newspaper TalCual and the magazine Primicia, and he worked in El Nacional. He is a contributor for the magazines El Estado Mental, ‘Fronterad’ and Letras Libres. He works as publishing coordinator and teaches journalism at www.domenicochiappe.com.

The Long Road to Nowhere’ first appeared as ‘Largo viaje inmóvil’ in Cédula de identidad (Caracas: La Guaya, 2014) later published as Largo viaje inmóvil. Crónicas de Venezuela (Madrid: Círculo de Tiza, 2016).

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Israel Centeno

Israel Centeno (Caracas, 1958) is a writer of long and short fiction, creative literature instructor and cultural promoter. He has published approximately fifteen works in Venezuela, Spain and the United States. He was awarded the Consejo Nacional de la Cultura (CONAC) Prize and the Municipal Prize of Caracas in 1992 for his first novel, Calletania, and in 2003 won the short story competition of El Nacional for Según pasan los años. His work has been included in anthologies in Venezuela, Spain and Slovenia. His collection of short stories Bamboo City and his novel El Complot (The Conspiracy) have been translated into English and published in the USA. He has translated into Spanish the works Peru by Gordon Lish, El Jardín/Constance (The Front Yard) by Constance Fenimore Woolson, Un inconveniente (The Pitfall) by Mary Cholmondeley and Diario de un hombre de éxito (The Diary of a Successful Man) by Ernest Dowson, all of them published in Spain by Editorial Periférica. He lives in Pittsburgh, where he was writer-in-residence at City of Asylum.

The Expedition of the Dolls’ is included as ‘La expedición de los muñecos’ in the collection of short stories Según pasan los años (New York: Sudaquia, 2012).

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Rodrigo Blanco Calderón

Rodrigo Blanco Calderón (Caracas, 1981) is a writer, editor and university lecturer. He has published the short-story collections Una larga fila de hombres(2005),Los Invencibles(2007) andLas rayas(2011). His short stories have earned him recognition both in Venezuela and abroad. In 2007 he was selected for the group Bogotá39, which gathered the best Latin American writers under the age of thirty-nine. In 2013 he was guest author in the international writing programme of the University of Iowa. In 2014 his short story ‘Emunctories’ was included in issue number forty-six of McSweeneys magazine, titled Thirteen Crime Stories from Latin America. Presently he is completing a doctorate in linguistic and literary studies at the Université Paris XIII. The Night (2016) is his first novel.

Clown’ was first published as ‘Payaso’ in Las rayas (Caracas: Punto Cero, 2011).

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Guillermo Parra

Guillermo Parra is a poet and translator. His most recent translation is Air on the Air: Selected Poems of Juan Sánchez Peláez (Black Square Editions, 2016). He has also published a translation of José Antonio Ramos Sucre, Selected Works (University of New Orleans Press, 2012), which was included by World Literature Today in their list of ‘75 Notable Translations 2012’. He presently lives in Clearwater, Florida.

For Crude Words, Guillermo translated 'The Expedition of the Dolls' by Israel Centeno and an except of the prologue to Eduardo Sánchez Rugeles' novel Liubliana.

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Christina MacSweeney

Christina MacSweeney'stranslations of Valeria Luiselli’s Faces in the Crowd (Coffee House Press, 2012), Sidewalks (Coffee House Press, 2013) and The Story of my Teeth (Granta, 2015) have received critical acclaim. Her work has appeared on such platforms as Words without BordersMcSweeney’sQuarterly Conversation, A Public Space and Litro Magazine, plus the anthology México20 (Pushkin Press, 2015), and she contributed an introductory text on Mexican literature for the LBF Market Focus Guide, 2015. Her translations of Daniel Saldaña París’s Among Strange Victims and Eduardo Rabasa’s A Zero Sum Game are forthcoming from Coffee House Press and Deep Vellum in 2016.

For Crude Words, Christina translted the chapter 'A Bad Day in 1979', taken from Victoria de Stefano's novel Historias de la marcha a pie.

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Lucy Foster

Lucy Foster is a translator from Spanish and French. She worked in editorial at Sceptre, the literary imprint of Hodder and Stoughton, for several years and before that lived on the west coast of Mexico, working as a dancer and in an art gallery. Lucy is doing a PhD in the literary and visual culture of the Mexican coastline, which fortunately necessitates quite frequent return trips to the beach.

For Crude Words, Lucy translated ‘Chasing Rabbits’ by Freddy Gonçalves da Silva.

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Ollie Brock

Ollie Brock has translated authors such as Isabel Allende and Javier Montes, one of Granta’s Best Young Spanish-Language Novelists. His reviews have appeared in the New Statesman, the Times Literary Supplement, Modern Poetry in Translation and TIME International. He lives and works at the London Buddhist Centre, where he is training to join the Triratna Buddhist Order.

For Crude Words, Ollie translated ‘The Tent’ by Federico Vegas.

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Dave Swift

Occasional stand-up comedian and perennial experimental bass guitarist Dave Swift first studied Spanish under José Amodia at Bradford University in 1967. Subsequently, he has lived, laughed and somehow avoided having the shit kicked out of him in Spain, France, Mexico and Hungary. He currently resides in London with his imaginary family and even-more-imaginary friends.

For Crude Words, Dave translated 'Intrigue in the Car Wash' by Salvador Fleján and 'The Long Road to Nowhere' by Doménico Chiappe.

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Katie Brown

Katie Brown has an unhealthy obsession with Venezuelan literature. She has recently completed a PhD on ‘The Contested Values of Literature in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela’ at King’s College London, and now teaches Spanish and Latin American culture at the University of Bristol. She runs www.venezuelanliterature.co.uk, posting news, information about published translations and her own translations, and has also contributed to the Palabras Errantes translation project.

Katie is one of the co-editors of Crude Words.

For Crude Words, Katie translated ‘Clown’ by Rodrigo Blanco Calderón, ‘Blanes’ by Héctor Concari, ‘The Body’ by Liliana Lara, ‘The Villagers’ by Carolina Lozada, an excerpt from Juan Carlos Méndez Guédez’s novel The Briefcases, and ‘Literary Solutions to the Death of My Mother-in-Law’ by Slavko Zupcic.

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Jethro Soutar

Jethro Soutar is a translator of Portuguese and Spanish. He has translated crime fiction from Argentina and Brazil for Bitter Lemon Press and novels from Equatorial Guinea for And Other Stories, picking up an Independent Foreign Fiction Prize shortlisting along the way. He is a co-founder of Ragpicker Press and co-editor of The Football Crónicas.

For Crude Words, Jethro translated the excerpt ‘Patriotic Stuff’ taken from Eduardo Liendo’s novel Las Kuitas del hombre mosca.

For The Football Crónicas.Jethro translated ‘The Goal in the Back of Beyond’  by Mario Murillo, ‘A Grenade for River Plate’  by Juan Pablo Meneses, Lucha Libre versus Football’ by Wilmer Urrelo Zárate, ‘The Mexican Pelé’ by Agustín del Moral Tejeda, Football and Plague’  by Diego Trelles Paz, and ‘The Big Family’  by Vinicius Jatobá. 

 

Jethro has translated a number of short stories for Words Without Borders: http://wordswithoutborders.org/contributor/jethro-soutar

And written on the art of translation here: http://wordswithoutborders.org/dispatches/contributor/jethrosoutar

He wrote on translation and activism for the Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2014/feb/27/translating-dangers-author-under-threat

And for PEN:

A Granta podcast of a discussion between Jethro and Vinicius Jatobá (a The Football Crónicas author) can be found here: http://www.granta.com/New-Writing/Granta-Audio-Vinicius-Jatoba-and-Jethro-Soutar

And his translations for Granta here: http://www.granta.com/Contributors/Jethro-Soutar

Jethro also wrote a piece on Brazilian footballer Garrincha for the Guardian:  http://www.theguardian.com/football/2009/may/22/seven-deadly-sins-football-lust-garrincha-brazil

His book reviews for the Independent can be found here 'reviews', and he has reported on the Semana Negra crime fiction festival in Spain for Booktrust

http://www.booktrust.org.uk/news-and-blogs/blogs/booktrust/394 

and Vintage: http://www.vintage-books.co.uk/blog/from-the-international-writing-blog/NoirWeek/

 

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Robin Patterson

Robin Patterson translates from Portuguese and is currently working on his first book-length translation, Nosso Musseque by the Angolan novelist José Luandino Vieira, to be published by Dedalus Books. He is a member of the And Other Stories Portuguese reading group and has translated samples for a number of publishers, authors and literary agencies. Robin has participated in several literary translation summer schools and was mentored by Margaret Jull Costa as part of the British Centre for Literary Translation’s 2013 mentorship programme. He once lived with a couple of ardent Arsenal fans in the shadows of the old Highbury stadium and so considers himself an honorary Gooner, at least when they’re winning.

Robin Patterson translated ‘Congressman Romário: Big Fish in the Aquarium’ (‘Peixe no aquário’) by Clara Becker for The Football Crónicas.

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Rachael McGill

Rachael McGill writes drama and prose and translates from French, German and Spanish. Her translations of the plays Marieluise and Time of the Tortoise by Kerstin Specht are published by Oberon. Translations of short stories and journalism by Mexican, German, Algerian and Senegalese writers are published in Mauerreise/Wall Journey (Steidl, 2010). She is boycotting the World Cup.

Rachael McGill translated ‘The Goal-Begetting Women of the Andes’ (‘Las bombarderas de los Andes’) by Marco Avilés for The Football Crónicas.

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Chris Lloyd

After graduating in Spanish and French, Chris Lloyd lived in Catalonia for over twenty years, besides brief spells in Bilbao and Madrid, where he worked as a teacher, in ELT publishing and as a translator. Now living in Wales, he works as a freelance translator and writer. He translates mainly academic and arts texts and has written a number of travel books for Rough Guides. He now writes the Elisenda Domènech series of crime novels set in Catalonia, the first of which, City of Good Death, was published in 2015.

For Crude Words, Chris translated an excerpt from Francisco Suniaga’s novel The Other Island.

For The Football Crónicas, Chris translated ‘Football’s Strangest Kidnapping’ by Álex Ayala Ugarte.

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Montague Kobbé

MONTAGUE KOBBÉ is a German citizen with a Shakespearean name, born in Caracas, in a country that no longer exists, in a millennium that is long gone. He is the author of the novel The Night of the Rambler and the bilingual collection of flash fiction Tales of Bed Sheets and Departure Lounges / Historias de camas y aeropuertos. He has kept a column in Sint Maarten’s The Daily Herald since 2008 and has translated over twenty photography books with Spanish publisher La Fábrica. His new novel, On the Way Back (Akashic, 2016) tackles issues of racial and social prejudice in Anguilla with a large dose of humour.

Montague is co-editor of Crude Words.

For Crude Words he translated Halfway There’ by Miguel Hidalgo Prince, ‘Passion’ by Gisela Kozak, ‘A Country Poles Apart’ by Boris Muñoz, ‘The Princess of Escurrufiní’ by Ednodio Quintero, ‘Any Old S’ by Carlos Sandoval, and ‘One of Many Possible Shortcuts’ by Jesús Miguel Soto.

For The Football Crónicas he translated ‘San Martín de Brooklyn Eye the Play-Offs’ by Hernán Iglesias Illa.

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Rosalind Harvey

Rosalind Harvey’s translation of Juan Pablo Villalobos’s debut novel Down the Rabbit Hole was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and the Oxford-Weidenfeld prize. Her co-translation of Enrique Vila-Matas’s Dublinesque was shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction prize and has been longlisted for the Dublin IMPAC award. Her latest translation is Villalobos’s Quesadillas, with And Other Stories. She lives in Bristol and organises translation-related events around the country, and tries to avoid football as much as possible.

Rosalind Harvey translated ‘Queens Football’ (‘El fútbol de Las Regias’) by Alberto Salcedo Ramos for The Football Crónicas.

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Tim Girven

Currently the Latin American editor for a commercial publication, Tim Girven has been engaged with Latin America for twenty-five years. He is a former Latin American editor of Index on Censorship and reviews’ editor for Travesia: A Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies. In addition to having published in a diverse array of print media, he also works in radio and has produced a series of radio programmes on Latin American subjects for the London-based Resonance104.4fm. Tim is a founder of Ragpicker Press and co-editor of The Football Crónicas and Crude Words.

For Crude Words, Tim translated Alberto Barrera Tyszka’s foreword ‘To Read a Country’, Albinson Linares’ ‘The Living Ruins of the Tower of David’, Roberto Martinez Bachrich’s ‘While the Blood Dries’, Willy McKey’s ‘A Chronicle of Scarcity’, and Héctor Torres’ ‘What Do They Call Those Born in Chivacoa?’.

For The Football Crónicas, Tim translated ‘Run, Ghiggia, Run’  by Leonardo Haberkorn, and ‘Loyalty Card’ by José Pérez Reyes.

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Ruth Clarke

Ruth Clarke is a translator working from Spanish, French, and Italian into English. She holds a degree in modern European languages from the University of Durham and a master’s in translation studies from the University of Sheffield. Ruth has translated work by authors from Benin to Venezuela, and her translation of Cristina Caboni’s best-selling debut novel The Secret Ways of Perfume will be published in 2016.

For Crude Words, Ruth translated ‘Christina Cries at Three O’clock’ by Miguel Gomes and ‘Variations on Goodbye’ by Leonardo Padrón.

For The Football Crónicas, Ruth translated ‘Costa Nica: The Central American Dream’ by Surya Lecona Moctezuma.

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Jonathan Blitzer

Jonathan Blitzer is on the editorial staff of The New Yorker and Words Without Borders. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Prospect, The New Republic and The Nation, among other places. When you tell him “football”, his first thought is – and may always be – of the pig-skinned sort, but he likes soccer just fine too.

Jonathan Blitzer translated ‘The Team That’s Always Robbed’ (‘Este equipo siempre pierde por afano’) by Pablo Corso for The Football Crónicas.

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