A Q&A with Rodrigo Blanco Calderón and Noel Hernández González, author and translator of Simpatía
With Simpatía longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2024, we spoke to its author and translator about their experience of working on the novel together – and their favourite books
Read interviews with all of the longlisted authors and translators here.
Rodrigo Blanco Calderón
How does it feel to be longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2024, and what would winning the prize mean to you? Would it also have an impact on literature originating from your country?
Being longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2024 is one of those dreams you have as a writer, although deep down you don’t expect them to materialise. Winning the prize would be a life-changing moment. It would mean reaching a vast audience, not just for my novel but for Venezuelan and Latin American literature as well. From an artistic point of view, it’s a recognition that reassures you, saying: ‘Don’t stop, you’re on the right track. We understand what you feel, what you want to tell us, even though we don’t know you or speak your language.’
What were the inspirations behind the book? What made you want to tell this particular story?
Simpatía arose from two simultaneous situations in my life. While living in Paris, to earn some extra cash, I started working as a dog-sitter for neighbours who were away for the weekend. It was the perfect job, because in Paris one feels very lonely and I needed the company of a dog.
Meanwhile, the situation in Venezuela was dire. Because of the mass exodus of Venezuelans, thousands of dogs were being abandoned. It was then that my family in Caracas set up a foundation to rescue abandoned dogs. It was from these two circumstances that the initial image that led me to write the novel emerged: a man abandoning a dog. He leaves the dog to its fate, unaware that another man is watching. The witness then rescues the dog and seeks out the man who abandoned it, killing him in revenge.
How long did it take to write the book, and what does your writing process look like? Do you type or write in longhand? Are there multiple drafts? Is the plot and structure intricately mapped out in advance?
I regard the experience of writing a novel as an almost geological process of sedimentation. It is something that gradually settles over days, weeks, months and years, and then, eventually, turns out to be completed. I’m not saying it’s something unconscious, but it’s such a slow process that sometimes it seems almost spontaneous. My main task is to keep the door of perception open all the time. A time, I must stress, that can last years.
In this respect, the writing of Simpatía was entirely atypical for me. I wrote the first version of the novel in just three months, during my last summer in Paris, in 2018. Over the following months I worked on a second version, a little shorter and with fewer subplots. The book was scheduled for publication in April 2020, but the pandemic forced us to postpone it for a year. This delay allowed me to make a final correction in early 2021.
I always write on the computer. For some reason, I always know how the stories I write begin and how they end, whether these are novels or short stories. What I never know in advance is the relationship between that beginning and that ending. I write in order to uncover that connection, and it is in this process that the structure emerges.
Rodrigo Blanco Calderón
© Emilio MoralesWhat was the experience of working with the book’s two translators, Noel Hernández González and Daniel Hahn, like? How closely did you work together on the English edition? Were there any surprising moments during your collaboration, or joyful moments, or challenges?
Working with Noel and Daniel is always a stimulating and highly enjoyable experience. Typically, they have a complete first draft of the translation and then send me a Word document, several pages long, full of questions. These are the most specific and unexpected questions you could imagine, which reveal a very professional and close reading. Noel and Daniel often spot grammatical errors, minor inconsistencies in character development, inaccurate uses of literary and cultural references, and a long etcetera. In this regard, their work is not only translation, but also involves a final correction. Naturally, I am the prime beneficiary of this work. Thanks to the translators, not only do I end up with an improved version of my novel, but I incorporate many of their questions and observations into my creative process. I would say that thanks to the translators I have become even more aware of the subtleties of language.
Tell us about your reading habits. Which book or books are you reading at the moment, and why?
For me, reading is a ‘bad habit’, an addiction. It’s what I spend most of my day doing. I tend to have a specific book I only read at night, before going to sleep, and in the early hours of the morning, when I wake up. During the day I read things related to my work as a Creative Writing teacher and books I need for my short stories or novels. I have just finished Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov. I’m also reading Jung and the Making of Modern Psychology by Sonu Shamdasani, the new book of short stories by Mariana Enriquez and The Severed Hand by Blaise Cendrars.
What was your path to becoming a reader – what did you read as a child and what role did storytelling play in your younger years? Was there one book in particular that captured your imagination?
The first book I ever read was King Solomon’s Mines by Henry Rider Haggard when I was 10 years old. After that I read many classics of detective literature, such as Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, Raymond Chandler and Earl Stanley Jones. From that period I remember with fondness a version of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle. It was the first book whose ending brought tears to my eyes.
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I remember with fondness a version of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle. It was the first book whose ending brought tears to my eyes
Tell us about a book that made you want to become a writer. How did this book inspire you to embark on your own creative journey, and how did it influence your writing style or aspirations as an author?
The book that made me want to become a writer was La vida exagerada de Martín Romaña by the Peruvian writer Alfredo Bryce Echenique. Back then, Bryce Echenique was my mother’s favourite author, so it was very meaningful to me to be able to comprehend and enjoy him. He made me feel like an adult reader, he ignited in me the desire to be a writer. Most importantly, he showed me that ‘serious’ literature could make you laugh out loud. Ironically, I never managed to write humorous books like his. Mine tend more towards horror and violence. But that’s another story.
Tell us about a book originally written in Spanish that you would recommend to English readers. How has it left a lasting impression on you?
I would recommend the novel Ifigenia by the Venezuelan writer Teresa de la Parra. This year marks the 100th anniversary of its first edition. It is a work ahead of its time, a novel that poses with intelligence, pain and humour the tragedy of being a woman in a country like Venezuela at the beginning of the 20th century. It is the first great Venezuelan novel, a benchmark in Hispanomérica, and one that can be perfectly understood and enjoyed by readers anywhere in the world today.
Do you have a favourite International Booker Prize-winning or shortlisted novel and, if so, why?
There are many great titles, but the one that struck me most was Han Kang’s The Vegetarian. The story of this woman who slowly turns into a tree, or at least feels like one, reminds me of the awe and wonder I felt when I first read Kafka and García Márquez.
Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov translated by Angela Rodel, winner of the International Booker Prize 2023
Noel Hernández González
How does it feel to be shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2024 – an award which recognises authors and translators equally – and what would winning the prize mean to you?
It’s an exciting experience, an absolute thrill. Knowing that your work has been recognised in this manner, that you have contributed to creating a book considered among the best translated into English this year, is a great honour.
For me, having the opportunity to translate a book already feels like hitting the jackpot. Winning such a prestigious prize would be beyond a dream.
How long did it take to translate the book, and what does your working process look like? Do you read the book multiple times first? Do you translate it in the order it’s written?
I co-translated Simpatía with Daniel Hahn, so I suppose we followed a different process compared to a translator working alone.
I completed the initial draft, translating the novel in the order it’s written, and then sent it to Daniel. He worked on it, and then we met in person to address the main challenges. Following that, we kept exchanging new drafts, both finding new elements to correct, adding comments around certain choices, and so forth. We involved Rodrigo towards the end for clarification on specific matters.
All in all, it took us seven months to deliver the manuscript. Then came the editing process, in which we were also involved at some level, but that’s another story.
Aside from the book, what other writing did you draw inspiration from for your translation?
I didn’t actively seek out other texts for inspiration, but I’m sure that whatever I was reading at the time, or I have ever read, influenced my writing to some degree.
While translating Rodrigo’s first novel, The Night, I was obsessed with finding parallels between the noir passages of the novel and the writing in classics of the genre such as The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson and The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain, but not this time around.
Noel Hernández González
What was your path to becoming a reader – what did you read as a child and what role did storytelling play in your younger years? Was there one book in particular that captured your imagination?
I wasn’t an avid reader as a child. Books were something for entertainment, only if there wasn’t anything better on TV. The occasional book you had to read for school, but that was about it. I remember being given The Little Prince by Saint Exupery at a young age and feeling uneasy about it – uncertain about the drawings and the story. It left me feeling uncomfortable and I couldn’t tell why. I still can’t.
Everything changed when I read Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel García Márquez. I must have been 13 or 14. That was the first time that a book stirred something within me. To this day, I can still picture the blue guts of Santiago Nasar under the sunlight.
Tell us about your path to becoming a translator. Were there any books that inspired you to embark on this career?
I never gave much thought to translation, let alone the role of the translator, even though most novels I read during my formative years were translated into Spanish, my first language. But this is not uncommon; the translator tends to remain invisible.
I only began thinking about translation when reading Roberto Bolaño’s work, who I discovered simultaneously in Spanish and English, in the translations of Natasha Wimmer and Chris Andrews. I remember thinking how similar the reading experience was, how recognisable the voice sounded in both languages, and what an accomplishment that was.
My journey towards becoming a translator started when I enrolled in the MA in Literary Translation at the University of East Anglia. I didn’t quite know what to expect from it, aside from that I could, perhaps, combine my love for reading and writing with my knowledge of Spanish and English.
Another important event in my training was attending the BCLT Summer School, organised by the British Centre for Literary Translation and also taking place at the University of East Anglia. I participated for two consecutive years, and it was there that I met Daniel Hahn.
Daniel, always a great supporter of emerging translators, was aware of my interest in translating The Night and asked me to work with him when Seven Stories Press offered him the job.
Daniel Hahn
© John LawrenceI never gave much thought to translation, let alone the role of the translator, even though most novels I read during my formative years were translated into Spanish, my first language
What are your reading habits under normal circumstances? Which book or books are you reading at the moment, and why?
Typically, there is a lengthy novel to immerse myself in for several weeks, and then something a bit lighter that I can pick whenever I have spare time. Recently I have also been listening to audiobooks while I run.
At the moment, I’m reading Way Far Away by Evelio Rosero (translated by Anne McLean and Victor Meadowcroft), Sonic Life: A Memoir by Thurston Moore, a collection of short stories by Clarice Lispecto and another one by Dino Buzzati. In terms of audiobooks, I’m listening to Every Man for Himself and God Against All, by Werner Herzog.
Tell us about a book originally written in Spanish that you would recommend to English readers. How has it left a lasting impression on you?
I would recommend Crimen (1934), a seminal avant-garde text in Spanish by Agustín Espinosa, a leading figure of the surrealist movement of the Canary Islands in the early 20th century.
What strikes me the most about this novel is the remarkable imagery achieved through unusual metaphors, the palpable sense of pre-civil war tension, and how iconoclastic and transgressive it still feels.
For fans of J.G. Ballard: Crimen isThe Atrocity Exhibition but written several decades earlier. Dreams, sex, technology, paranoia, ultraviolence, crucifixion… it’s all there. I would recommend this novel to English readers, but it hasn’t been translated yet.
Do you have a favourite International Booker Prize-winning or shortlisted novel and, if so, why?
One of my favourites is Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin, translated by Megan McDowell, and shortlisted in 2017. It’s a novel that has stayed with me, of which I remember a feeling more than the story itself or its characters. A sun-drenched, sickening and unforgettable feeling.
Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin
- By
- Rodrigo Blanco Calderón
- Translated by
- Noel Hernández González Daniel Hahn
- Published by
- Seven Stories Press UK
A suspenseful novel with unexpected twists and turns about the agony of Venezuela and the collapse of Chavismo. Translated from Spanish by Noel Hernández González and Daniel Hahn.
