Ghost Novel

Krystell Guevara Barrales was born in Puebla, Mexico, where she completed her secondary studies at El Colegio Americano. In 2003, she won first place in the Jaime Sabines poetry contest at Colegio Americano. In the same year, she obtained first place in the Jorge Ibargüengoitia, Shorty Story Competition at the same institution. In 2004, she took both first and second place in the same contests. After initiating her university studies in Hispano-American Literature at the University of the Américas Puebla, she transferred to McGill University in Montreal in 2006, in the Hispanic Studies program, and in 2007 she moved to York University in Toronto, where she is currently studying.

How can I return again to that blank sheet,
when the past is a ghost novel,
where recollections are malignant spirits,
and memory is a haunted house?

The poltergeist appears in every chapter
which bear the titles: “Years”, “Months”, and “Weeks”.
To be alive is to be the cursed link,
by which the dead filter into everyday life.

The protagonists of the story are a collection
of ex-lovers, ex-friends, and past illusions.
The future is written by the deceased,

who build existence and finish it off.
How can I return again to that blank sheet,
if the ink has been stolen by ghosts?

Translated by Martin Boyd