Translation Rights TQE / And May the Earth Tremble to the Core

Mexicanos al grito de guerra

El acero aprestad y el bridón

Y retiemble en sus centros la tierra

Al sonoro rugir del cañón

Mexicans in war cry

prepare your blade and bridle

and may the earth’s core tremble

at the cannons’ resonant rumble

Francisco González Bocanegra and Jaime Nunó

                             Mexican National Anthem

After his novel Amor Propio (Self-Esteem), we published Gonzalo Celorio’s…  Y retiemble en sus centros la tierra (And May the Earth Tremble to the Core)…  a novel in which two of the author’s recurrent themes - art and life- converge.

Juan Manuel Barrientos, head of the Literature Department, is approaching the historical centre of Mexico City. Partying the previous night has caused him a terrible hangover, but he has already made arrangements to meet his seminar students in the famous Salón La Luz to visit the city’s most emblematic colonial buildings. He waits and waits, but they never show up. When he finally realises that his students will not make it to the appointment, he decides to scour the landmarks of the artistic landscape on his own, as if he were worshipping the Stations of the Cross. Resigned to the spectres that torment and follow him, he stops in several bars, discovering not only the city’s architecture, but also a desolate internal landscape inhabited by his father, his stepbrother Angel, and Alejandra, his sole, ill-fated passion. Increasingly drunk —and lucid— he begins to understand that this descent into hell will inexorably lead him to meet his tragic fate in front of the metropolitan cathedral.

Gonzalo Celorio (Mexico, 1948) studied Spanish language and literature at the Faculty of Philosophy and Arts of the Autonomous National University of Mexico, where he is professor of Latin American Literature since 1974. He has also taught at the Iberoamericana University and in Mexico School. He is a member of the National System of Art Creators and is a number member of the Mexican Academy, which is follower of the Spanish one. Celorio has published ten books. Besides novels, his writings include essays, literature and architecture. His work has been translated to English, French, Italian and Portuguese. Gonzalo Celorio has obtained Prizes such as Two Oceans Prize in Biarritz, France (1997), or IMPAC-Conarte-ITESM Prize (1999).