Papalotero
Author: Martin Boyd
Publisher: Editorial Ink
Mexico City, 2012

Review by Brian Kennedy

Martin Boyd describes Papalotero as an “intercultural love story“, and the novel certainly offers an incisive and frequently comical picture of the clashes of cultural perspectives that inevitably occur in cities as richly multicultural as Toronto. But I would argue that the clash of values explored in Papalotero is something even more essential, something that transcends cultural boundaries: a clash between the basic human desire to control and regulate life, and the courage to embrace it, to truly live it and love it, recognizing it as the extraordinary accident – or miracle – that it really is.

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Found in Translation: How Language Shapes our Lives and Transforms the World
Authors: Nataly Kelly, Jost Zetsche
Publisher: Penguin
New York, 2012

Review by Martin Boyd

Imagine a room full of junior high school students talking about their plans for the future. What career paths do they envision themselves taking? “I’m going to be a lawyer,” says Daniel. “I think probably a veterinarian,” offers Maria. “Definitely an actress,” affirms Eva. But would any of these bright-eyed youths declare an interest in becoming a translator? Continue reading →

The Whirling of the Serpent: Quetzalcoatl Resurrected
Author: José Luis Díaz
Translated by Martin Boyd
Publisher: Antares
Toronto, 2009

Review by Tania Hernández Cervantes

If you want to understand the origins of a nation, look at the myths that give it life. Myths, like symbols, the ideological, utopian dreams of individuals and of peoples, describe us. If it were not so, national flags would have no meaning. Quetzalcoatl is one of those myths which, in spite of the rationalism of the modern era, survive in Mexico’s collective imagination. Quetzalcoatl is the bird with green, white and red feathers. It is the Mesoamerican myth of the dual god, bird and serpent. The Mexican flag bears its colours, and in the centre is an image of an eagle devouring a serpent, an indisputable allusion to Quetzalcoatl.

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