A recent issue of The New York Review of Books (October 22, 1998) celebrated its 35th anniversary. It was a thick edition with several essays touching upon matters related to Latin America.

In it you'll find a new essay written by Alma Guillermoprieto titled "Fidel in the Evening," prompted by her reading of three new books about the Cuban leader: a book-length interview, a memoir authored by one of his daughters, and a life story of one of Fidel's oldest comrades in arms. Unfortunately all three of these books have not yet been translated; however Guillermoprieto's review can stand on its own.

The account told by Castro's daughter fascinates the essayist if for no other reason then its confirmation of the fictional treatment of the Castro family relationships in Wendy Gimbel's Havana Dreams, a book that Guillermoprieto has already enthusiastically endorsed.

But the story told by Fidel's long-time friend and revolutionary, "Benigno" (Daniel Alarcón Ramírez,) is the account that provides Guillermoprieto with the most substance and takes up the bulk of her reflections. The book is co-authored/ghostwritten/edited with the collaboration of Elisabeth Burgos-Debray, whose name you may recognize in connection with her similar role in the writing of I, Rigoberta Menchú. This invisible woman, whose husband was Régis Debray, is surely herself quite a story, but so far she has remained in the shadows. In any event Burgos-Debray and Guillermoprieto describe a man whose revolutionary commitment was once total and highly placed. He accompanied Che in the Congo, was one of three men with Che in Bolivia who managed to escape, and whose doubts about Fidel have gradually overtaken him.

In this same issue you'll also find a review of Complete Fictions, a new collection of Borges' imaginative works. (I think they're short stories, although there was some mention of a few essays.) It surprises me to think that this hadn't already been done. J. M. Coetzee, the reviewer, indicates that all but four of the stories had been previously published as well as translated. Nevertheless, to have gathered them all in one place isn't a minor contribution.

Finally, you will also discover a review written by Clifford Geertz commenting on a pair of new anthropological writings. Geertz is one of a handful of the most influential anthropologists alive today and has frequently been immersed in the theoretical issues of his field. By and large this is what concerns him when discussing these two books.

One of these books is a field study of a now vanished tribe in Paraguay. Chronicle of the Guayaki Indians (1998) was written by Pierre Clastres (1937-1977) well over two decades ago, but it's just now being made available in English. Why there was such a long delay proves to be a more interesting story than the book itself.

You may remember that on one prior occasion I have made note of the American writer, Paul Auster, whose popularity in the Southern Cone caught me by surprise. Auster is not particularly well known here (although this is slowly changing); why would translations of his novels appeal to Argentines? Although I've read only one, I would hazard a guess that part of Auster's southern success has to do with the existing audience that both Borges and Bioy Casares nurtured with their tales of the fantastic. Auster's novels seem to be pure--fully imaginative inventions. This is a taste that I have acquired in fits and starts, however two recent films (directed by Wayne Wang) made from an Auster short story have left me whistling in admiration. These films, "Smoke" and "Blue in the Face," both star Harvey Keitel. The movies also feature an urban environment that Bioy Casares in particular had portrayed in much the same symbolic fashion. These are gritty, realistic cityscapes that simultaneously have the quality of stage sets for the dramatic actions of the characters who dwell there. Auster's New York isn’t a site of economic oppression, political strife, nor even an alienating industrial monster, only scenery for a play, sometimes melancholy, sometimes mysterious, usually humdrum.

Since Auster's work on those films he has composed an autobiographical collection of essays about his long struggle to become a writer, a period down and out in New York. His introduction to Chronicle of the Guayaki Indians is a moving postscript to those essays. Auster translated Clastres' study over twenty years ago. As is too frequently true in the world of New York publishing, the manuscript was accepted, Auster's editor disappeared, the firm went belly up, the only copy of his translation was lost, Clastres died and... well, you get the drift.

The commentary that Geertz provides in The New York Review of Books is neither uninteresting nor unimportant and is rightfully trained on Clastres' book (which, unfortunately, is not that gripping). But Auster's introduction is on another plane, a pampas further down in the mind's hemispheres.

I don't know if the Hispanic Heritage Awards carry a monetary prize, but in terms of sheer publicity within the Hispanic community there probably isn't anything approaching this recognition. The 12th annual ceremony, held in October at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, was aired nationwide on many NBC stations. This year's honoree for literature was Luis Rodríguez, author of Always Running. The event was attended by Vice President Gore and his wife, Tipper, who invited all of the winners home to chat.

Although Sammy Sosa received the lion's share of the adoration of Hispanic baseball fans, Cuban Americans know Orlando Hernandez is the ace who carried the Yankees to the world's championship. El Duque's performance in the fourth game of the American League championship series lifted a team that was on the verge of collapsing. When he took the mound the Yanks were down 2 games to 1 against Cleveland. After Hernandez' win the momentum swung the other way. Manger Joe Torre was so impressed by that crucial outing he chose to start Hernandez in game 2 of the World Series instead of Andy Pettitte. Pettitte may have won the final game in that sweep against the Padres but Hernandez had already done the heavy lifting.

Last week Sosa flew home to the Dominican Republic. He received a hero's welcome and a medal from his country's president. He announced new projects to aid victims of Hurricane Jorges and plans to help rebuild his country.

Hernandez doesn't get to go home, but Castro did permit his family to fly to New York for the celebration on Broadway. Yesterday, the Cuban Americans of Union City, New Jersey honored El Duque with his own parade and their mayor handed over the keys to the city.

A Gesture

'They've got him!" I wanted to race out into the street and wave the Union Jack when I heard the news late on Saturday, October 17, 1998. "The British have put Pinochet under arrest!" That murdering scum will be extradited to Spain and stand trial. Let's see if that Prussian military costume can protect him now.

What a shock this story was. Not some fiction in an author's imagination, but the headlines of Sunday papers all around the world. Not even a memory in my mind, but a living present, an actual set of events taking place right at that moment on the other side of the Atlantic.

And what was the first hue and cry from the newly democratic Chilean government? A formal and vigorous protest.

But there, across the street from Pinochet’s hospital room, the exiled Chileans living in London screamed "Assassin!" and danced in glee.

My God, it has actually come to pass in our lifetime... and his.

Several of the reporters who covered the story about the enslavement of deaf Mexicans came up against individuals not unlike Ildefonso, the hero of Susan Schaller's A Man Without Words, people whose modes of communication were so stunted and incomprehensible that these journalists resorted to the term "gestures" to describe these primitive signs. The word seemed to spring up spontaneously in their articles, independent of each others' observations, outside of any formal knowledge of training for the deaf or any deep consideration of the nature of symbolism. This proto-speech of gestures is a crude physical phenomenon, a movement of parts of the body, head and hands, that nevertheless seems to convey a semblance of symbolic meaning or intent; vague and ill defined, but still indicative of something.

Pinochet is unlikely to have given much thought to the precursors of sign language. His use of the word "gesture" in the interview with Jon Lee Anderson referred to the second definition of the term found in most dictionaries, an understanding derived from realms of sophisticated rules and order like the diplomatic sphere or the courts. In those contexts a "gesture" is a formal sign, still highly nuanced and subject to diverse interpretation, but unmistakable as evidence that the other party is engaged in the act of negotiations... or judgment. It was quite a gesture Spain and England have made.

Late this afternoon the British courts accepted Pinochet's claim of immunity. It remains to be seen what sort of gesture has been performed. Was his arrest an ambiguous physical movement made by deaf people who live outside the common bonds of communication? Or a diplomatic and judicial overture made by those who fashion our political and legal morality?

-October 28, 1998

© Copyright 2003 Eric Metcalf