Francisco Macías, who received his MA in English from Colorado State University in 2011, has just produced a new translation — Something Pains the Wind. The original work, Algo le duele al aire, is by the award-winning Mexican poet Dolores Castro Varela, who was recently awarded Mexico’s highest honor, the Mexican Government’s National Prize for Arts and Sciences in the area of Linguistics and Literature. The project was made possible through a grant awarded to Libros Medio Siglo by the Mexican government and various Mexican cultural institutions, including the Mexican Secretariat of Foreign Affairs; the National Council for Culture and Art (Conaculta); the National Fund for Culture and Art (Fonca); the General Directorate of Publications (DGP), in collaboration with the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM); the National Chamber for the Mexican Publishing Industry (CANIEM); and the International Book Fair of Guadalajara. The collection depicts the pain and angst of a country that is torn and bleeding, a victim of violence. When speaking of the work, Castro shares that she is “aghast with what is happening; this emotion is manifested in the book in the form of a choir of voices that are awakened before the tragedy. However, these voices are not cries; they do not emerge as an affront to the barbarism, nor do they wield the intention to lay blame. They are simply the expression of the distress of the innocent people who live this most unfortunate moment.” The poetry interweaves the poetic voice with the tragedies witnessed. The wind is the central character, which is anthropomorphized. The sufferings of the wind are interpreted by the narrative voice that aims to articulate what it is that pains the wind. This is the second translation that Francisco has produced for this poet.
