Allison A. deFreese
Photo courtesy of Allison DeFreese
Bio
Poet and literary translator Allison A. deFreese is based in the U.S. Pacific Northwest. She holds an MFA and MA from the University of Texas at Austin’s James A. Michener Center for Writers, and an MA in Spanish translation from the University of Texas at Brownsville (now UTRGV). Her translations include María Negroni's Elegy for Joseph Cornell, and her work has also appeared in Asymptote, Arkana, Borderlands, Crazyhorse, New England Review, New York Quarterly, and Waxwing.
Project Description
To support the translation from the Spanish of Green Fires of the Spirits by the Mexican poet Verónica González Arredondo. Set in the desert terrain where she spent her childhood, the poetry of González Arredondo (b. 1984) explores themes of immigration, femicide, perilous border crossings, and the disappearances of countless girls and women from Central America in the harsh landscapes near the U.S./Mexico border. Poems from her book I Am Not That Body, translated into English by Allison A. deFreese and published as a chapbook in 2020, follow a family with a young daughter on their journey across the deserts of Northern Mexico, riding on top of the "Death Train" to travel north from Guatemala toward the United States. Green Fires of the Spirits is set in the same landscape and narrated by a girl who sees all too clearly the beauty and horrors of this environment. This collection has not yet appeared in English.
My work as a literary translator has focused on equity, inclusion, and social justice. With translations representing only around three percent of all books published in the U.S., there are entire regions of the world whose literary voices are seldom seen by North American readers of English. I translate poetry by Mexican, Central American, and South American writers who have sometimes faced challenges even publishing in the original language, including works by women, indigenous, and immigrant writers. I’m also drawn to experimental work, hybrid literature, and pieces that defy traditional classifications of genre, yet enhance our experience of what is possible creatively and imaginatively.
Even before March 2020 and the new social distancing restrictions, literary translation involved isolation and solitary concentration, while submitting poetry or experimental writing in translation for publication has always meant taking a leap of faith. In fact, this year four publishers with whom I was collaborating on translations for release in 2021 announced indefinite publication delays. What joy and elation, then, to hear that my collaborations around Verónica González Arredondo’s work have been selected for an NEA Translation Fellowship, and that translation and poetry will continue!
As per the young narrator of González Arredondo’s poem “The Beast:”
don’t sleep,
they told me,
but no one ever said:
don’t dream.
Verónica González Arredondo’s lyric and socially conscious poems create a bridge toward mutual awareness and have already eliminated many borders and barriers. And my literary translations of her work give me hope of international understanding and a more empathetic future.