Welcome to Litsy!

this novel follows china iron, the spouse of the famous gaucho martín fierro, and her journey with her companions liz and rosa through the pampas of argentina. there are discussions of colonialism/imperialism, sexuality, and gender. and i live for found families in books, so i enjoyed this.
this is the first book i‘ve read published in south america! if anyone has some more recs for south american authors, please share! #translatedfiction #lgbt

This was quite the adventure story.

China Iron leaves her home and on her way she meets English woman Elizabeth. Together they travel to Elizabeth‘s land.

The afterword in my edition also put this story into a context especially some of the names mentioned in the story that has a special meaning in Argentinean literature/ culture.

About family and to create your own.

#foodandlit #Argentina

China Iron is married to Martin Fierro, hero of Argentina's gaucho epic poem, when she heads out to travel the vast pampas. She is accompanied by a puppy, Estrella, & Liz a Scottish woman traveling to meet her husband. I was immediately pulled in by China Iron's compelling narrative voice & Cámara's punchy yet lyrical chapters. A memorable revisionist western that ends with a mystical vision.

I started this one today & am now about halfway through. Really enjoying this revisionist western story of famed gaucho Martin Fierro's partner China Iron as she strikes out to travel the pampas with her dog Estrella & Scottish companion Liz.

She was my North and I was the quivering needle on a compass: my whole body was pulled towards her, dwarfed by the strength of my desires. It was under the sway of that force that I began to feel, and now I think perhaps it‘s always that way, that you feel the world through others, through your bond with others.

China Iron, mother of 2 by the time she‘s 14, embarks on a joyous Pippi Longstocking-ish picaresque journey through 19th-century Argentina, discovering the nature of Spanish colonialism, British imperialism, and her own pansexual self along the way. At journey‘s end is a way of harmonious connection with her beloved land: the ways & knowledge of the Indigenous peoples. #Translation by Fiona Mackintosh & Iona Macintyre. #LGBTQ

Our leaves—those of our yvyra, our whole jungle—give off an aura of wondrous vegetable sanctity.

Mushrooms are important to us, they‘re for eating during ceremonies, never alone, because mushrooms are gifts to us from the very belly of the earth, and life and death are in that tyeguy, all mixed up together, one producing the other. You emerge changed from mushrooms, the same but different, mushrooms give people divine perspectives and these perspectives from beyond life and death can be terrifying. Or liberating.

It doesn‘t seem right, there are hardly any birds in the pampas and the few we have are low-flying or can‘t fly at all. You get flamingos like clouds of shrill pink on the horizon. You get ñandús that run faster than horses, their strong elastic legs scything the ground and raising the dust. The ñandús connect pampa and sky.
(Internet photo: I had to look up ñandús)

I took off my dress & the petticoats & put on the Englishman‘s breeches & shirt. I put on his neckerchief & asked Liz to take the scissors & cut my hair short. My plait fell to the ground & there I was, a young lad. Good boy, she said to me, then pulled my face towards her & kissed me on the mouth.

I, having lived wholly inside the dust, having been little more than one of the many forms that dust took there, having been contained in that atmosphere—the earth of the pampa is also the sky—started to feel it, to notice it, to hate it when it made my teeth gritty, when it stuck to my sweat, when it weighed down my hat. We declared war on the dust, all the while knowing that we were fighting a losing battle: we come from dust.

The smell of near-black tea leaves torn from the green mountains of India that would travel to Britain without losing their moisture, and without losing the sharp perfume born of the tears Buddha shed for the world‘s suffering, suffering that also travels in tea: we drink green mountains and rain, and we also drink what the Queen drinks. We drink the Queen, we drink work, we drink the broken back of the man bent double as he cuts the leaves […]

Trying to polish off a few books before Jan 1st (I have a bad habit of putting a book down half way through and moving on to shiny new books...)

The land ends abruptly there, as if England had been cut off from the rest of the world with an axe, as if the land had been forcibly condemned to an insularity which those of us who live there, we, the British, darling, try to overcome by dint of force, making ourselves the centre, organising the world around us, being the motor, market and matrix of all nations.

Just watched a wonderful online event of the Edinburgh festival: translators Fiona Mackintosh and Iona Macintyre talk with Argentinian writer Mariana Enriquez about Gabriela Cabezón Cámara‘s The Adventures of China Iron. And now I‘m even more keen to read the book than I was before. ?

That was quite surprising.

Of the books I‘ve read this year:
Just 1 ownvoices book with LGBTQIA+ author & characters (Salt Slow)
3 books with LGBTQIA+ characters (may or may not be own voices)
2 books by LGBTQIA+ authors (either mentioned in blurb or in the text)
And a strong showing from the International Booker longlist!!

Still working my way very slowly through the #bookerinternational2020 shortlist. This is a vibrant queer retelling of the Argentine epic/poem of Martin Fierro, as told by his young wife, who names herself China Josefina, as she embarks on her own epic journey across the pampas, learning about the world, seeing everything through new eyes. Beautifully descriptive, witty, sometimes explicit, usually over-the-top, and ending in some sort of utopia.

Reading on my phone in my jammies when I would normally be commuting #morningreadingview #telecommuting #EarlGrey #floof

Found this book on Scribd this morning and was immediately drawn to the beautifully written description.

3.5â­�ï¸� I was not familiar with the classic poem about the gaucho Martin Fierrro that this story was based upon before reading the book. The book focuses on Fierro‘s wife, who makes only brief appearances in the poem. The landscape descriptions were vivid and I enjoyed the writing, but I got a little tired of the lengthy landscape sections by the end of the book. #hoopla #bookerinternational2020

On the basis that every gaucho needs his poncho, so every gaucho should partake of the puncho ✌�✌�✌�✌�✌�