Rushdie’s Confidential Translator

The translator, The Five Lives of Miranda, is published by Fernando Parra Nogueras, Madrid publisher Funambulista, and editor Max Lacruz, son of the great Mario Lacruz, editor of the Spanish edition of The Satanic Verses of Salman Rushdie, and a Fernando preface, at a given moment he It clarifies the ups and downs that made me consider not publishing the novel. Fortunately, Parra Nogueras managed to bring to light the novel that García Márquez never wrote. This novel legendaryly depicts the designs of three characters associated with Rushdie’s book: the so-called translator who calls himself JL Miranda (a woman who is dead has always been suspected); Salman himself under the guise and identity of Joseph Anton; and a radical Islamist whose aim is to kill the author. With these straw braids, Parra builds a novel around freedom of expression, guilt, fear and identity.

Parra Nogueras surprised us again. One of the characteristics of the Tarragona writer living in Alicante is that he does not find a place for himself. He is always looking for new narrative horizons, as he has already shown in both his first book, Blinds, published by the same publisher, and his second book, El anthropoide, published by Candaya. Language is very important in Fernando’s work, and it is another character in him. The construction of his work lays the foundations of language, actions pass through that prism. There is a certain Borges tradition in this. The word is a compass that guides us, as in the Hebrew alphabet, where each letter has an action or intention that can cause an emotion. As with her shutters, Parra Nogueras plays with shapes. He uses the same monologue when analyzing situations or playing pseudo-cards. This allows the novel to provide different visions, prisms that help the reader understand the story as a polyhedral whole.

The Five Lives of the Translator surprises Miranda at first because while it may seem like we’re dealing with a detective novel, it’s a real thing. Fernando masterfully drives us into fanaticism and fear. A terrible thing that Rushdie had to live with for so many years that resulted in the deadly attack by a fanatic on August 12, 2022. This caused Fernando to doubt whether to bring the business to light for fear of being treated as an opportunist. Fortunately, some authors convinced him otherwise, otherwise we would all have lost the opportunity to read. Parra Nogueras kept this work in a drawer for at least two years, so it was luck and illogicality that created the fatal coincidence.

Both Parra’s and my generation may have been obsessed with very similar things, and I think Rushdie’s fatwa was one of them. We were kids back then and saw it as a fairy tale. We couldn’t understand what was going on, how a man could be threatened for writing a book. Perhaps this influenced the work of Parra Nogueras, because he seeks truth in every book, but not of a character, but of Machado: «Your truth? There is no truth; / and come with me to look for him. / Keep yours». This is Parra’s literature, literature that seeks truth in every sentence, every word, because every word, every phrase is so chosen and creates an inner rhythm.

Las cinco vidas del traductor reached the top with Miranda Parra. Those of us who read it are firmly convinced that he will not stay here. He will discover other ways of saying it, but always the word will come first. Fernando will not settle in one place, he is a literary explorer, a stone carver seeking perfection. With this third book, Fernando Parra Nogueras once again showed us great solvency as a narrator. We look forward to your next work with the same surprise we received this one.