In the foreground a small gray booklet is titled Translating Manuel Becerra. In the background is an artist's book which folds out and upward like an accordion. The pages are white with black type.

Manuel Becerra. La escritura de los animales distintos / Writings on the Other Animals. Translated by Kathleen Archer. Iowa City: Song Bridge Project, 2021. Includes booklet Translating Manuel Becerra. Iowa Authors Collection [PQ7298.412.E244 E73 2021], Special Collections & Archives.

Note from co-curator Nataša Ďurovičová:

Translator Kathleen Archer begun working with Manuel Becerra on his poems in IWP’s International Translation Workshop course. After his return to Mexico, the two completed the manuscript, which also became the core of Kathleen’s thesis for her MFA in Literary Translation degree. Subsequently, she and Manuel collaborated with a book designer at the University of Iowa Center for the Book to craft this “aleatory” form, in which the order of the original and the “secondary” English-language version of the poems are somewhat downplayed. And the manuscript was published by Song Bridge Project, a small Iowa City-based press led by MFA in Literary Translation alum William Blair, specializing in Latin American poetry. Put together, this is another instance of the “centripetal” way in which non-Anglophone poetry has over the decades found its way into contemporary American literature through the “handmade” gateway of Iowa’s small presses and book art.

In the foreground a small gray booklet is titled Translating Manuel Becerra. In the background is an artist's book which folds out and upward like an accordion. The pages are white with black type. This photo shows the book's height within the display case.

Manuel Becerra. La escritura de los animales distintos / Writings on the Other Animals. Translated by Kathleen Archer. Iowa City: Song Bridge Project, 2021. Includes booklet Translating Manuel Becerra. Iowa Authors Collection [PQ7298.412.E244 E73 2021], Special Collections & Archives.