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Earlier today, published an interview between Jeremie Davies, senior editor at Dalkey Archive Press, and Spanish-language translator Steve Dolph. Over the course of the summer, the two corresponded in a great discussion about the great Argentine author Juan José Saer. Here, Part I of the interview, Steve talks about what it’s like to read and translate Saer (three Saer novels translated by Steve are , including the latest, and Saer’s final work, .

Below is the beginning of the interview, title “Who’s Who in La Zona“ÌÇÐÄ´«Ã½”be sure to follow Asymptote’s posts to catch Part II of the interview.

Would you mind sharing how you first became involved with Juan José SaerÌÇÐÄ´«Ã½™s work, as reader or translator? I mean, was he an extant enthusiasm even before your association with Open Letter?

I canÌÇÐÄ´«Ã½™t really say when as a common reader I first came to know Saer, but I was aware of his work well before the translation project came along. I know I had seen the translations from SerpentÌÇÐÄ´«Ã½™s Tail even before I became seriously interested in translation at all. In the constellation of contemporary Latin American novelists, he figures prominently as a kind of anti-Márquez, insofar as the mythical place he most often visits in his fictionÌÇÐÄ´«Ã½”the city of Santa FeÌÇÐÄ´«Ã½”is strongly affected by globalization, and fractured. In Márquez the force of history is basically recognizable, and solid, which produces a more or less reliable narrative memory and sense of place. The opposite is the case in Saer. Everything is in doubt, especially the narrativeÌÇÐÄ´«Ã½™s ability to recreate a reliable sense of place. But for me that sense of contrast only came much later, when IÌÇÐÄ´«Ã½™d been working on the translations for a while. Before that, he was just another monster in the vast bestiary of Latin American fiction. It took a happy accident for me to get to work on his writing in translation.

In 2008 I had just come off editing Calque and was looking for a book project and shopping around some poems and stories IÌÇÐÄ´«Ã½™d translated. Out of the blue Suzanne Jill Levine contacted me, asking if IÌÇÐÄ´«Ã½™d be interested in translating one of SaerÌÇÐÄ´«Ã½™s novels for Open Letter, because she was busy and couldnÌÇÐÄ´«Ã½™t do the project. I read the bookÌÇÐÄ´«Ã½”Glosa, which was published in English as The Sixty-Five Years of WashingtonÌÇÐÄ´«Ã½”sent Open Letter a sample, and because I loved the writing I asked if they were planning to do more than the one. It turned out they were planning three, and I signed up to do them all, sight unseen.

For the entire interview, go .