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Contributor

Sylvia Sasson Shorris

Contributor

Sylvia Sasson Shorris

Sylvia Sasson Shorris is the author of Talking Pictures: With the People Who Made Them and co-editor of While Someone Else Is Eating: Poets and Novelists on Reaganism and In the Language of Kings: An Anthology of Mesoamerican Literature Pre-Columbian to the Present....

She has published articles in The Nation, Chicago Tribune, Fork Roads, and Review (a publication of the Center for Inter-American Relations), and has been a translator in Mexico for Luis Montes Film Distribution, and in New York for 20th Century-Fox Film Corporation.

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Articles by Sylvia Sasson Shorris

The Sarima’s Mission

By Miguel Angel Oxlaj

I can still hear that echo and feel the great terror that came over me at that moment.

Translated from Spanish by Sylvia Sasson Shorris

The Indigenous Literature of the Americas

By Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris

In late August, Mexico City and Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico signed an agreement to teach Náhuatl language and culture to Nahua (Aztec) students in Santa Ana Tlacotenco in the high southern…

From “The Death of the Philosopher”

By Vicente Herrasti

What fate does the future hold for me? Jason asked, intrigued.

Translated from Spanish by Sylvia Sasson Shorris

The Moon and the Feather

By Humberto Ak’abal

The moongave me a feather.In my handit felt like singing.The moon laughedand told meto learn to sing.For the next poem in this sequence, click here.

Translated from Spanish by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris

School

By Briceida Cuevas Cob

Note: This poem was originally written in Yucatecan Maya.And the ants that sing, laugh, danceand play in circles, began to cry.She was born a woman, one on whom theythrew boiling water when she appearedin…

Translated from Spanish by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris

Six Variations on Love

By Victor Terán

Note: These poems were originally written in Zapoteco.ILovecomes heavylike a weight one cannot long carrywithout cursing.IILoveis a feather in the air.Although it is also the sun.It rises and falls.Comes…

Translated from Spanish by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris

Chants

By Juan Gregorio Regino

Note: This poem was originally written in Mazateco.IFour hundred zontles in the distance.Four hundred leagues toward infinity,light, darkness, shapes.The voice of the wise man reaches far,the singer,…

Translated from Spanish by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris

Marías Mazahuas

By Fausto Guadarrama López

Where do you go, Marías, where do you go?

Translated from Spanish by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris

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The Owl

By Briceida Cuevas Cob

Note: This poem was originally written in Yucatecan Maya.The owl is here.He perches on the wall. And meditates.Whose death does he announceif no one lives in this village?The fossils of the peopledo not…

Translated from Spanish by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris

Nothing Remains Empty

By Juan Gregorio Regino

There is a place in the Universe / where the memory of time / is recorded.

Translated from Spanish by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris

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A rebozo photographed in black and white.

By Mónica Morales. License: CC by 2.0 Access at: https://flic.kr/p/rP5TJ

Purépecha Mother

By Gilberto Jerónimo Mateo

This poem from an indigenous Purépecha author celebrates the heroism of a seemingly ordinary woman.

Translated from Spanish by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris

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The Serpent of the Green Mountain

By Agustin Jimenez Garcia

Note: This piece was originally written in Zapoteco.In the old days, inside the Green Mountain, there lived a giant serpent who acted as if it were the master of the place, rixxo. The serpent was so old…

Translated from Spanish by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris

Laziness

By Lázaro Márquez Joaquín

Note: This piece was originally written in Purépecha.There once was a man who was very poor, but also indolent. He tried hard to survive, by cutting firewood in the countryside and by selling it, in order…

Translated from Spanish by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris

The One Who Went to Learn to Lie

By Victor de la Cruz

Note: This poem was originally written in Zapoteco.There was someone in the old days, they say, who wanted to learn to lie. That’s what he told his father, who answered, “I will send you to…

Translated from Spanish by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris

My Encounter with Xtabay

By Wenceslao Yeh & Marcos Xiu Cachon

Note: This piece was originally written in Yucatecan Maya. It comes from a very small publication in a part of the Yucatán peninsula still very close to the area dominated by groups that remain organized…

Translated from Spanish by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris

A Traveler’s Tale

By Jesús Salinas Pedraza

Note: This piece was originally written in Ñahñu.A traveler felt hungry and stopped at a house, asking if they would sell him some food. The lady of the house said yes, that she would give him some food,…

Translated from Spanish by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris

La Pesicola

By Gabriel Pacheco

“As you see, that was how our Creator lived, He who created everything and He who created man. He never walked like men. While he lived on earth, He always kept himself holy. He never sinned despite…

Translated from Nahuatl (Aztec) by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris

Poverty

By María Luisa Góngora Pacheco

Note: This piece was originally written in Yucatecan Maya, and was probably adapted from the oral tradition. The Maya to Spanish translation was done in a collaboration with Miguel Angel May May, Santiago…

Translated from Spanish by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris

Escape From Death

By Ismael García Marcelino

Note: This piece was originally written in Purépecha.Don Nicolas used to get up early every day to the sound of the birds singing. Although the cold bothered his eyes, he quickly got dressed, and before…

Translated from Spanish by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris

Juan and Xtabay

By Miguel Angel May May

Note: This piece was originally written in Yucatecan Maya. The author, Miguel May, is a personal friend. He lives in Mérida, Yucatán. His family still lives in a small town not far from the city. Although…

Translated from Spanish by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris

Echeverría

By Enrique Pérez López

Note: This piece was originally written in Tzotzil. The village of Chamula, where Tzotzil is spoken far more frequently than Spanish, has maintained much of its Tzotzil Maya language and tradition.It…

Translated from Spanish by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris

No One Dies, Life Only Changes

By Juan López Palacios

Note: This piece was originally written in Náhuatl.We only change the way we live…. Thus it is explained in the tale of the experience of two people who lived through the following revelation.“When…

Translated from Spanish by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris

The Story of Naxá

By Juan Gregorio Regino

Note: This piece was originally written in Mazateco.Naxá, the daughter of Ts’uí and Sa, was deeply in love with a young campesino named Xungá, who lived in one of the most humble huts in the village.…

Translated from Spanish by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris

Opening Poem of the Cantares Mexicanos

Earl Shorris and Sylvia Sasson Shorris prosent a new translation of this Classical Náhuatl poem from the sixteenth century.

Translated from Spanish by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris

The Sacvi of Chinango

By Lorenzo Hernandez Ocampo

Note: This poem was originally written in Mixteco.This is what our ancestors said, this is what our elders told us: that we lived in peace with our fellow men in this world, because we were all made of…

Translated from Spanish by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris

Dreams and Memories of a Common Man

By Marcos Matías Alonso

They squeezed us and they piled us up to fill up the city, to live like ants, like crazed lizards in the middle of trash.

Translated from Spanish by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris

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Memories

By Humberto Ak’abal

Now and thenI walk backwards.It is my way of remembering.If I only walked forward,I could tell youabout forgetting.This last poem in this sequence was originally published in Guchachi 'Reza' 'Iguana…

Translated from Spanish by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris

The Ash Vendors

By Rita Molina Elias

Note: This piece was originally written in Purépecha.There once was a man who had gone to a city to sell ashes; upon arriving he spread out his “merchandise” in the town square and there he…

Translated from Spanish by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris

“Will nothing of my earthly fame endure?”

By Miguel León-Portilla

Will nothing of my earthly fame endure?Not even flowers, not even songs!What can my heart do?In vain we have sprung forth,we have come to be on earth.Let us enjoy ourselves, my friends,let us embrace…

Translated from Spanish by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris

“O, giver of life”

By Miguel León-Portilla

Your shadow falls on those who must live on earth.

Translated from Spanish by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris