Not many of you know that, apart from doing my usual job as a teacher of English, I am a writer. That´s right. I have published 6 books already. The first one appeared back in 2009. The title is "Pura Suerte", a collection of 15 short stories published by Ediciones Altazor. Then last year, Altazor again (they don´t learn, do they?) printed 3 children´s books. "El perro Patitas", "El gigante del viento" and "El delfín de arena". You can see the reviews here at Libros Peruanos.
This year, I published two ebooks: a short collection of chronicles titled "La fábrica de huecos: crónicas gastronómicas del Perú" in Kindle Editions and a book of micro stories (in the US they called them diffferent names: flash fiction, sudden fiction, short shorts) with Evisto Editorial, titled "La eternidad del instante". The plan is to have it printed too, hopefully soon. I´ll let you know.
Last week, it was announced that one of my short stories had been selected among the winners of the Concurso Internacional de Cuento Breve Latin Heritage Foundation in Washington, DC. The contest attracted over 500 works from all over Latin America and Spain. The final selection has only 30 writers, among them myself, the only Peruvian in the lot. The book with the winners is already available in Amazon with the title "Los ojos de la Virgen". That same foundation had already published an anthology of micro short story writers of Latin America in a book called "Al este del arco iris". Nine of my short shorts are in the collection.
Finally, some three weeks ago, Letralia, the oldest and most respected electronic literary magazine of Latin America, published in Venezuela, turned 15 years old. To celebrate, they asked all the writers that had ever appeared in the magazine (I have had 4 stories published there) to submit works for an anniversary ebook. The editors selected 35 works (only 3 Peruvians in the final list). My short story "Salinger es actor de cine" was selected. The ebook "La poética del reflejo" is a free download.
But "la cabra tira al monte" (how do you say that in English? If you know, please enlighten us!), so being myself a teacher of English (always will be), I have tried my hand at translating my own stories. Tough work, I must say, and don´t forget I am the author of the pieces. The final result is some 19 sudden fiction stories that, if plans go as planned (???), will be published in a book and ebook. Still, I have a lot of translation to do, but in the meantime I wanted to share the first steps that these stories are taking in another language. It is difficult to find English speakers who will be willing to comment on short stories (even in Spanish it is hard), so I thought that maybe among my colleagues who read this humble blog and all those teachers in ELTeCS, there might be some who will take a few minutes to read them and, if I am lucky enough, give me an impression. What´s more, if you want to use them in class, be my guest! (Just let me know).
So, here are two short shorts. I hope you like them.
Cesar Klauer
Extreme measures
I had spoken so well of that Chinese restaurant that now I could not take it back, I couldn´t risk it: the boss´s retaliation was not in my plans.
While it crawled little by little onto a visible spot, sweat sprinkled my forehead, neck and hands, soon it would be in the open. What would I say then? I thought of the most elaborate excuses, all with the objective of hiding what could not be said out loud: It was my neck on the line!
Then, I decided to take an extreme measure. Hadn´t Nicholas Cage done it in Vampire´s Kiss? I sighed trying to brave myself up. I took the fork, aimed, stuck it right in the middle (it crunched a little).
I quickly put the cockroach in my mouth. Nobody noticed.
Fly, fly away
He was standing on the highest rock, the dim rumor of the ocean, the seagulls reflected in his eyes. How beautiful were they! How elegantly they flew! Their clear profile cut against the bright blue sky, breathing from the clouds, being caressed by the sun. From down below, they were spots moving around but up there they were imposing figures, masters of the sky. He wanted to be like them and share the open space, float in the air. He saw down the cliff how the white foam bathed the rocks and got ready to leap off. Pitty. Penguins can´t fly.
