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The Turquoise Ring and Other Stories
The nine stories gathered here as The Turquoise Ring and Other Stories, written by the Costa Rican born Rafaela Contreras, were originally published in newspapers in El Salvador and Guatemala during the short period between 1890-91, but never appeared in book form during the author’s lifetime. Composed in an almost fairytale-like style, with approaches that suggest a proto-modernismo, in some ways her work anticipates the literary line which her husband, Rubén Darío, would explicitly develop, but it also contains elements that might have taken a different direction had she lived longer, dying as she did at the early age of twenty-three, in 1893.
The present edition, translated by Jessica Sequeira, is the first English language offering of Contreras’s stories, which range from fables to prose poems, from the exotic to the supernatural, and are both entertaining and moving by turns, embarking on unusual and subtle forays into different realms of human experience, in the author’s own tones.
The present edition, translated by Jessica Sequeira, is the first English language offering of Contreras’s stories, which range from fables to prose poems, from the exotic to the supernatural, and are both entertaining and moving by turns, embarking on unusual and subtle forays into different realms of human experience, in the author’s own tones.
- GenresFiction
102 pages, Paperback
First published August 20, 2019
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July 4, 2021• THE TURQUOISE RING AND OTHER STORIES by Rafaela Contreras, translated from the Spanish by Jessica Sequiera, 1890/2019.
#ReadtheWorld21 📍Costa Rica
The Turquoise Ring and Other Stories gathers 9 tales, largely moralistic stories like the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen ("The Waters Nymphs" reminded me of "The Little Mermaid"), Mark Twain's tales like "The Prince and the Pauper", and The Brothers Grimm "Rumpelstiltskin" to varying degrees.
Enjoyable and swift reading, it has been awhile since I've read stories/tales like this.
Rafaela Contreras wrote under the pseudonym "Stella", and published her short stories in a newspapers in the late 19th-century. She was married to her childhood friend, the hailed modernist poet Rúben Darío of Nicaragua. Contreras died in surgery at age 23, leaving behind Darío and an infant son.
There's a great introductory essay on Contreras and Darío by translator, Jessica Sequiera. It was actually by following Sequiera's translation work that I found this volume. I read another of her translated story collections in early 2020 (of Bolivian writer Liliana Colanzi's OUR DEAD WORLD) and came upon her translation Contreras' 19th century stories and knew it would be a great addition to RTW21's reading list.
#ReadtheWorld21 📍Costa Rica
The Turquoise Ring and Other Stories gathers 9 tales, largely moralistic stories like the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen ("The Waters Nymphs" reminded me of "The Little Mermaid"), Mark Twain's tales like "The Prince and the Pauper", and The Brothers Grimm "Rumpelstiltskin" to varying degrees.
Enjoyable and swift reading, it has been awhile since I've read stories/tales like this.
Rafaela Contreras wrote under the pseudonym "Stella", and published her short stories in a newspapers in the late 19th-century. She was married to her childhood friend, the hailed modernist poet Rúben Darío of Nicaragua. Contreras died in surgery at age 23, leaving behind Darío and an infant son.
There's a great introductory essay on Contreras and Darío by translator, Jessica Sequiera. It was actually by following Sequiera's translation work that I found this volume. I read another of her translated story collections in early 2020 (of Bolivian writer Liliana Colanzi's OUR DEAD WORLD) and came upon her translation Contreras' 19th century stories and knew it would be a great addition to RTW21's reading list.
January 31, 2021
Outstanding!
What I loved so much was the way she can romantically describe anything— a pain, a pleasure, a season, a song... It reminded me of what I love so much about L.M. Montgomery’s writing (Anne of Green Gables, et al.).
Here are some examples of what I mean:
Page 67 from ‘Winter Song’
“It is cold and it rains and snows. At the theater, at the ball, where thousands upon thousands of lights shine. In the hearths the fire burns; the music vibrates in triumph, and in the midst of playful laughter, one dances the waltzes that give vertigo, while illusions fly and twirl about like mad butterflies. Some eyes shine black and deep, others blue and tender; and rosy lips quiver, murmuring sweet words.
And one hears the rain fall, and under the street lights one sees the snow like a silver sheet, and one says meanwhile, ‘How lovely!’
How lovely! Yes, seen thus Winter is beautiful. But how horrible when it is felt in the heart and reigns in the soul, and brings us the cold that kills. It passes and Spring returns, and still, it does not go away.
But when the roses do not whither and the butterflies do not stop flying, in the garden of daydream, it is splendid to see the roofs turn white, and the trees without leaves and the leaden sky. Joyful, the rhythmic sound of the rain caresses the ear.
Blessed are you, old Winter!”
Page 41 from ‘Violets and Doves’
“He saw in the eyes of Arminda, in her curly locks, in her rosebud mouth, in her waist of a nymph, the image of happiness, the count of his dreams, his aspirations, his hopes.
She, on that clear brow, across which there seemed to cross lightning flashes of inspiration, in that brilliant gaze, saw the clarity of a celestial body and the tenderness of a great heart, her faith, and her future.”
Page 95 from ‘Delirium, or Sonata’
“The music that quivers in my ears has those notes of a harp, and is gentle and brings a memory wrapped in its harmony! Yes, it is the same: on its mysterious wave roll its confused echoes, the sweet notes of that loving voice.”
What I loved so much was the way she can romantically describe anything— a pain, a pleasure, a season, a song... It reminded me of what I love so much about L.M. Montgomery’s writing (Anne of Green Gables, et al.).
Here are some examples of what I mean:
Page 67 from ‘Winter Song’
“It is cold and it rains and snows. At the theater, at the ball, where thousands upon thousands of lights shine. In the hearths the fire burns; the music vibrates in triumph, and in the midst of playful laughter, one dances the waltzes that give vertigo, while illusions fly and twirl about like mad butterflies. Some eyes shine black and deep, others blue and tender; and rosy lips quiver, murmuring sweet words.
And one hears the rain fall, and under the street lights one sees the snow like a silver sheet, and one says meanwhile, ‘How lovely!’
How lovely! Yes, seen thus Winter is beautiful. But how horrible when it is felt in the heart and reigns in the soul, and brings us the cold that kills. It passes and Spring returns, and still, it does not go away.
But when the roses do not whither and the butterflies do not stop flying, in the garden of daydream, it is splendid to see the roofs turn white, and the trees without leaves and the leaden sky. Joyful, the rhythmic sound of the rain caresses the ear.
Blessed are you, old Winter!”
Page 41 from ‘Violets and Doves’
“He saw in the eyes of Arminda, in her curly locks, in her rosebud mouth, in her waist of a nymph, the image of happiness, the count of his dreams, his aspirations, his hopes.
She, on that clear brow, across which there seemed to cross lightning flashes of inspiration, in that brilliant gaze, saw the clarity of a celestial body and the tenderness of a great heart, her faith, and her future.”
Page 95 from ‘Delirium, or Sonata’
“The music that quivers in my ears has those notes of a harp, and is gentle and brings a memory wrapped in its harmony! Yes, it is the same: on its mysterious wave roll its confused echoes, the sweet notes of that loving voice.”
September 12, 2020
Almost unbearably short, the collection is the entirety of prose extant by the author, and includes symbolist style fairy tales, an Arabesque fable, a few prose poems, and some gloriously individual pieces that more closely reflect the author's homeland of Central America. These last ("The Gold and the Copper" and "Humanzor") recall little I've read of fiction of the period, and to me are most reminiscent of the stories of Rodrigo Rey Rosa, a Guatemalan author of a century later.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews