#J. Bret Maney

[lifeinpoetry]

I don’t live in exile / exile lives in me

— Fiston Mwanza Mujila, from “SOLITUDE 12,” The River in the Belly, tr. J. Bret Maney

#quote #Fiston Mwanza Mujila #poetry #The River in the Belly #out of my collection #SOLITUDE 12 #J. Bret Maney

[morebedsidebooks]

The River in the Belly by Fiston Mwanza Mujila

poetry (let’s say) the dream is all we still have in this time of crisis…

  Born in the far south of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Fiston Mwanza Mujila is a writer and educator who over the last several years, among other honors, has gained prominence for his debut novel Tram 83. (English edition trans. Roland Glasser.) Yet, with an oeuvre that is varied, besides short stories and plays, poetry is the form where he began. A backbone where it might be argued Mujila is also at his most. Readers indeed can thank Asymptote Journal in previous years for publishing some of this poetry in English translation by J. Bret Maney. Now not just excerpts but the whole collection of The River in the Belly is offered from indie publisher Deep Vellum through imprint Phoneme Media. The Congo River, history, violence, exile, nature, man, and bible verses all saturate punchy, jazzy abraded ‘solitudes’ as quick but tugging as a single line or flowing across pages. With a complexity too, as much of Mujila’s writing, the back includes an assortment of notes. An especially helpful aid with the Lingala and Swahili spattered across the work. Those lingua franca among the six languages, Mujila, writes in. Too, the collection originally appeared in a bilingual French/German edition (trans Ludwig Hartinger) in Austria where Mujila has lived for many years. Like in the verve of different languages, some works may survive on the page fine, but I imagine Mujila’s verse best alive when at a poetry slam. However, thanks to the Transnational Literature Series at Brookline Booksmith you can further experience his recitals during a celebratory event of the collection with two of his translators and editor David Shook.

  The River in the Belly by Fiston Mwanza Mujila is available in English translated by J. Bret Maney, in print and digital from Phoneme Media

#poetry #the river in the belly #fiston mwanza mujila #Le Fleuve dans le Ventre #world poetry day #congo river #Francophone Writers From 50+ Lands #Francophone50 #beat the backlist

[penamerican]

Photo by Erik Drost J. Bret Maney, winner of a 2014 PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant, translates an excerpt of Manhattan Tropics by Guillermo Cotto-Thorner. Originally published in 1951, Manhattan Tropics is the first novel of the Puerto Rican mass-migration to New York City, offering a panorama of mid-century life in El Barrio. Nueva York is the city of commotion and mobility. The noise can be so intense that it numbs the senses, and the person who lives in this environment for a long time loses the notion of silence. The torrent of pedestrians and vehicles is endless—streetcars, buses, automobiles, horse-carts, trucks, trains, bicycles, motorcycles, airplanes, and wheelbarrows; fire engines, with their high-powered motors and ear-splitting sirens; the shouts of children and adults; the buzz of conversation of the human swarm on the sidewalks; guffaws, curses, cries; the explosion of a backfiring engine; wheels that bump over the rails and rend all tranquility; the spinning of propellers boring thunderously through space; noise, noise, NOISE: New York. Mankind has won a victory over the horizontal. New York aims overhead, is in perpetual pugilism with space. From the hard rock of Manhattan, man has shot up to conquer the clouds. Strapping buildings, as tall and long as the jíbaro’s hope, dotted symmetrically with windows and bordered with aesthetic detail, to silence the critics—austere, linear, devastating. In summer, they give the impression of macabre furnaces where eyelashes burn, bodies melt down and all feeling contorts and loses its sense. Continue Reading You can also read Maney's essay on translating Cotto-Thorner here.

#Translation #PEN/Heim Translation Fund #Guillermo Cotto-Thorner #J. Bret Maney #Manhattan Tropics

[lifeinpoetry]

I am myself exile myself nausea myself anxiety myself askew …

— Fiston Mwanza Mujila, from “SOLITUDE 12,” The River in the Belly, tr. J. Bret Maney

#quote #Fiston Mwanza Mujila #poetry #The River in the Belly #out of my collection #SOLITUDE 12 #J. Bret Maney

[lifeinpoetry]

I have one foot in hell

— Fiston Mwanza Mujila, “SOLITUDE 24,” The River in the Belly, tr. J. Bret Maney

#quote #Fiston Mwanza Mujila #poetry #The River in the Belly #out of my collection #SOLITUDE 24 #J. Bret Maney

[lifeinpoetry]

the sky weeps crocodile tears it cries, it weeps, it cries, and it stops … it cries, it weeps, it cries, and it stops … it cries, it weeps, it cries, and it stops … the rain … a sheen of poetry to beat back the burning sun of these last days

— Fiston Mwanza Mujila, from “SOLITUDE 39,” The River in the Belly, tr. J. Bret Maney

#quote #Fiston Mwanza Mujila #poetry #The River in the Belly #out of my collection #SOLITUDE 39 #J. Bret Maney

[lifeinpoetry]

SOLITUDE 53

I refuse with my blood I refuse with my cock I refuse with my voice I refuse with my teeth brand my back with your soldering iron from my rotting mouth no syllable shall sound

— Fiston Mwanza Mujila, from The River in the Belly, tr. J. Bret Maney

#quote #Fiston Mwanza Mujila #poetry #The River in the Belly #out of my collection #SOLITUDE 53 #J. Bret Maney