by Cora Siré
Discover Luscano posters, reflecting the government’s efforts to attract tourists, depict the country’s landscapes, beaches and inland waterfalls, subtropical vegetation and wildlife, and the colonial architecture of the capital. Vestiges of the Spanish conquest can be seen in the baroque design of the Cathedral of Luscano, the intricate marble carvings at the Royal Cemetery, the ironwork of the balconies in the old port, and the ivied buildings of the University of Luscano established by Franciscans in 1825. But the innocence of two children playing on the beach and waving at seafaring newcomers five centuries ago has long been lost. If there’s music to be heard in the plazas and cafés, murals to be seen on the walls by the stairs to the old port, and poetry to be read in the bookstores, it is because some element of the human spirit – involving a deep connection to the land and sea and sense of community – passed on by generations of indigenous peoples has miraculously transcended a violent history. At dusk, if you stand on the beach by the Bay of Luscano and listen carefully, you might hear a faint drumming underlying the creeping tide, the trilling songbirds in the palmettos, and the guffawing of swamp-bound frogs. Some say it is the heartbeat of doom, others the murmur of hope.
Copyright © 2002 University of Luscano, 442 Avenida Reconquista, Luscano.
Selected Bibliography
Among the many books I consulted in writing the novel, the following were particularly important to my research.
Delmira Agustini & Latin American Poets
Selected Poetry of Delmira Agustini — Poetics of Eros edited and translated by Alejandro Cáceres, Southern Illinois University Press, 2003.
Delmira Agustini — Poesías completas, edición Magdalena García Pinto, Cátedra, Madrid, 2000.
Pasión y gloria de Delmira Agustini — Su vida y su obra by Clara Silva, Editorial Losada, S.A., Buenos Aires, 1972.
The FSG Book of Twentieth-Century Latin American Poetry edited by Ilan Stavans, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2011.
The Oxford Book of Latin American Poetry — A Bilingual Anthology edited by Cecilia Vicuña and Ernesto Livon-Grosman, Oxford University Press, New York, 2009.
Argentina & The Dirty War
The Flight — Confessions of an Argentine Dirty Warrior by Horacio Verbitsky, translated by Esther Allen, The New Press, New York, 1996.
The Argentina Reader edited by Gabriela Nouzeilles & Graciela Montaldo, Duke University Press, 2002.
Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number by Jacobo Timerman, translated by Toby Talbot, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1981.
The Real Odessa — How Péron Brought the Nazi War Criminals to Argentina by Uki Goñi, Granta Books, London, 2002.
I Remember Julia — Voices of the Disappeared by Eric Stener Carlson, Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1996.
A Lexicon of Terror — Argentina and the Legacies of Torture by Marguerite Feitlowitz, Oxford University Press, New York, 1999.
Nunca más — Informe de la Comisión Nacional sobre la Desaparición de Personas, Editorial Universitaria de Buenos Aires, 1984.
The Story of the Night by Colm Tóibín, McClelland & Stewart, Toronto, 1997.
Chile & Pinochet
Roberto Bolaño: The Last Interview & Other Conversations, with an introduction by Marcela Valdes, translated by Sybil Perez, Melville House Publishing, New York, 2009.
Desert Memories — Journeys Through the Chilean North by Ariel Dorfman, National Geographic, Washington, D.C., 2004.
Diary of a Chilean Concentration Camp by Hernán Valdés, translated by Jo Labanyi, Victor Gallancz, London, 1975.
The Condor Years — How Pinochet and His Allies Brought Terrorism to Three Continents by John Dinges, The New Press, New York, 2004.
Additional Sources
God’s Spies — Stories in Defiance of Oppression edited by Alberto Manguel, Macfarlane Walter & Ross, Toronto, 1999.
La fiesta del chivo by Mario Vargas Llosa, Taller, República Dominicana, 2000.
Surviving the Long Night — An Autobiographical Account of a Political Kidnapping by Sir Geoffrey Jackson, Vanguard Press, New York, 1973.
Other Authors & Works Cited
Jorge Luis Borges from “The Guardian of the Books,” Jorge Luis Borges — Selected Poems edited by Alexander Coleman, Penguin Books, New York, 2000; page 283.
Jean-Paul Sarte from Huis Clos, Meredith Publishing Company, New York, 1962; pages 91 & 45.
Pablo Neruda from “Maybe We Have Time,” Pablo Neruda — Isla Negra — A Notebook, translated by Alastair Reid, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 1981; page 337.
Paul Valéry from “Le Cimetière marin” (The Seaside Cemetery, 1920), A Survey of French Literature — Volume II: The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries by Morris Bishop, Harcourt, Brace and World Inc., New York, 1965; pages 266–268.
César Vallejo from “Los heraldos negros,” The FSG Book of Twentieth-Century Latin American Poetry, edited by Ilan Stavans, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2011; page 102.
Shabistari from “The Secret Rose Garden — The Written Faith,” The Essence of Sufism by John Baldock, Eagle Editions, London, 2004; page 204.
Federico García Lorca from “Lament for Ignacio Sánchez Mejías,” Federico García Lorca — Collected Poems, edited by Christopher Maurer, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2002; pages 825–826.
Canadian Charter of Rights & Freedoms, www.laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/charter, Sections 9 & 12.
Polynational War Memorial, www.war-memorial.net.
Acknowledgements
My journey into the works and life of Delmira Agustini (1886–1914) began over a decade ago when I was invited by Dr. Lady Rojas Benavente to a recital in Concordia University on International Poetry Day. A student recited “The Intruder” (the alexandrine sonnet introducing Part II of the novel). Who was this poet who, in 1907, dared express such eroticism? My research led me to many books, notably the following bilingual collection and source for the Agustini poems cited in the novel: Selected Poetry of Delmira Agustini — Poetics of Eros, edited and translated by Alejandro Cáceres, Southern Illinois University Press, 2003.
Since then it’s been an adventure, creating an imaginary country, sketching maps, inventing streets and landmarks, and spending years with my cast of characters. Drawn from my encounters in the region, Luscano is an amalgam of Uruguay, Argentina and Chile in miniature. Creating its history afforded temporal liberties justified, I believe, by worrisome trends such as the rise of state surveillance and the silencing of dissent witnessed today, not only in Latin America.
The novel is dedicated to my late parents, with gratitude for the books my mother championed, the violin music my father brought to our house and their indefatigable joie de vivre. Displacement and suffering never extinguished my parents’ compassion and capacity to love.
Heartfelt thanks go to my publisher, the extraordinary Karen Haughian and her team at Signature Editions, for their dedication in editing the novel and bringing it to life.
I also wish to acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts which was instrumental in allowing me to complete the novel.
I’m grateful to many family members and friends for their insights and inspiration.
And to my beloved Otokar Pogacnik, infinite gratitude for his unwavering devotion to our motto: amor & cachondeo.
About the Author
Cora Siré is the author of a novella, The Other Oscar (Quattro Books, 2016), and a collection of poetry, Signs of Subversive Innocents (Signature Editions, 2014). Her fiction, essays and poetry have appeared in magazines such as Geist, The Puritan, Montreal Serai, Arc Poetry and the Literary Review of Canada as well as in numerous anthologies. She lives in Montreal.
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