Malafri sees snow falling

I received the news of the death of the translator Joachim Malafre, like everyone else: with horror. I got up and took a copy ofUlysses De Goes, which I dedicated to him from May 5 to May 22, when I had the honor of presenting him at a conference he gave in the Corte Library in Palma. A year later, day after day, at the Reus Reading Center, Joaquim Malafre gave me the gift of attending a presentation of one of my books, hosted by Magda Barceló. These are two happy moments from what I think I should call my life as a writer, if there is such a thing.

Malafri's tremendous translation ofUlysses First published in 1981, it reminded Catalan culture of something it already knew, at least since Carles Riba translated the book.Epic Homer said: The best translations are no less good than the most important original works. They all constitute the tradition, the heritage of literature, and therefore of language. Objectively speaking, the Catalan language would not be what it is without the influx of translations from languages ​​around the world that feed it. The translation works of Joaquim Malafre shine with a very strong light in the Catalan literature of our time.

Since many have already talked about this, I can stop the – unnecessary – gloss and give the reader the joy and chills of the last page of the story The deadWritten by Joyce, translated by Malafri. She says like this:

“Generous tears filled Gabriel's eyes. He had never felt that from any woman, but he knew that this feeling must be love. Tears flooded his eyes, and in the partial darkness he imagined he saw a young man standing under a luscious tree. Other figures were nearby. His soul had approached the region inhabited by great numbers of the dead. He was conscious, but could not account for his shifting and wavering existence. One's identity had dissolved into a gray and imperceptible world: even the solid world, where these dead had risen and lived for a time, was dissipating and disappearing.

“Soft taps on the glass made him move towards the window. Snow has begun to fall again. He looked sleepily at the flakes and silver and shadow falling obliquely in the lamplight. It was time for him to begin the journey west. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was widespread throughout Ireland. It fell all over the dark central plain, over the treeless mountains, it fell lazily on the marshes of Allen, and, to the west, lazily, into the turbulent black waves of the Shannon. It also fell over every part of the secluded hole on the hill where Michael Fury was buried. There was a fine accumulation of it on the twisted crosses and tombstones, on the little net spears, on the barren hedgerows. His soul faded little by little as he heard the snow falling softly across the universe, in a soft fall, like a descent to its final end, upon all the living and the dead.