Vision of the Children of Evil by Miguel Ángel Bustos

In her article "Translating the unspeakable: On the fragments of Visión de los hijos del mal by Miguel Ángel Bustos", translator Lucina Schell discusses the fragmentary structure of Bustos' poems and explains her translation choices and strategies: “To rewrite Bustos with literal fidelity in English would be plagiarism—and like plagiarism, it would lack the force of the original. To succeed my attempt must be incomplete, the tension between my English and the Spanish creating sparks just like the tension contained in the nucleus of the fragment itself”¹⁾ Using Donald Revell's analysis of poetic fragments, she describes her grammatical choices for translating Bustos' fragments into English in terms of clause structure, punctuation marks, word preferences, transformations, and omissions to better illustrate the irony and juxtaposition of the fragments.

Bustos is what is known as a poète maudit.²⁾ He was also a Surrealist who combined his art with his poetry.³⁾ His visual art reflected the dark themes expressed in his poetry.⁴⁾

Miguel Ángel Bustos was born of Spanish and German immigrant descent on August 31, 1932 in Buenos Aires, Argentina⁵⁾ (Wikipedia). He was also considered white Creole.⁶⁾ Bustos studied at the University of Buenos Aires (Wikipedia). Bustos would then travel through Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, and Peru from 1960 to 1963 (Wikipedia).

Miguel Ángel Bustos's poetry was inspired by his travels through 1960 and 1963 and his acquaintance with Jacobo Fijman (Wikipedia). He attracted the attention of the Argentinean military regime through his outspoken political views and journalism at Nuevo Hombre.⁷⁾ Neuvo Hombre openly spoke out against the regime at the time.⁸⁾ Bustos was involved with the Communist Youth Federation and sympathized for China and the Cuban Revolution (Wikipedia).

Military police belonging to the then-current Argentinean regime arrested Bustos on May 30, 1976 and Bustos disappeared (“Miguel Ángel Bustos”). It was not until 2014 that Bustos's fate would be discovered with his remains (“Miguel Ángel Bustos”). Supposedly in June June 20, 1976, Bustos was executed by a firing squad (“Miguel Ángel Bustos”).

Link to Bustos's Artwork

About Vision of the Children of Evil

Vision of the Children of Evil, a bilingual edition translated by Lucina Schell, is a compilation of “Fantastical Fragments” (1965) and “Vision of the Children of Evil”(1967).⁹⁾ The latter has a fragmentary structure and is divided into 8 parts (“Hospice of Sacré Coeur”, “Verbal Islands”, “Fragments”, “Mount Calvary”, “Christmas in the hells”, “Childhood Hallucinations”, “Vision of the Children of Evil”, and “In Gloriam”), each one preceded by an epigraph and the whole book by one that introduces the idea of vision as illumination and light (luz):

Cuando me iluminan veo lejanos no-yo
de los sueños, Orbes cerrados, eternida-
des encarnadas. Luz detenida por hue-
sos, lengua, sangre, manos en espera de
la muerte también llamada Verja de la
Luz. Luz que cae en el gran Océano de la Iluminación Total.

Definition of Omphalos

• “The centre, heart, or hub of a place, organization, sphere of activity, etc.” ¹⁰⁾

Form

Bustos uses prose poetry along with nightmarish elements for the book's poems.¹¹⁾

Themes

• Death - Bustos's poetry reveals a fear of going into a divine light into nothingness (Sequeira). Bustos's poetry reflects gnostic views of death.¹²⁾ Bustos sees this as the death of self.¹³⁾ Writers, such as Arturo Desimone, believed that his poems prophesied his death.¹⁴⁾ While Bustos's perceptions of death are shaped by myticism, they could have also been influenced by his suicide attempt and an extended stay at a neuropsychiatric hospital (Wikipedia).

• Darkness/Evil - Bustos sees himself as a child of evil and his poems his visions.¹⁵⁾

• Political - Some critics read Bustos's work as political considering his death from political circumstances.¹⁶⁾

Desimone, Arturo. “Was Miguel-Ángel Bustos the Argentinean poet who prophesied his own death? Medium, 2 April 2018, https://medium.com/anomalyblog/was-miguel-%C3%A1ngel-bustos-the-argentinean-poet-who-prophesied-his-own-death-59a6c6435048.

“Miguel Ángel Bustos.” Latin American Literature Today, https://latinamericanliteraturetoday.org/lal_author/miguel-angel-bustos/.

“Miguel Ángel Bustos.” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_%C3%81ngel_Bustos#:~:text=Miguel%20Angel%20Ram%C3%B3n%20Bustos%20(Buenos,dictatorship%20on%20May%2030%2C%201976..

Sequeira, Jessica. “Light Detained by Bones: Miguel Ángel Bustos’s “Vision of the Children of Evil,” translated from Spanish by Lucina Schell.” Reading in Translation, 29 Apr. 2019, https://readingintranslation.com/2019/04/29/light-detained-by-bones-miguel-angel-bustoss-vision-of-the-children-of-evil-translated-from-spanish-by-lucina-schell/.

Schell, Lucina. “Translating the unspeakable: On the fragments of Visión de los hijos del mal by Miguel Ángel Bustos.” Latin American Literature Today, issue 12, https://latinamericanliteraturetoday.org/2019/11/translating-unspeakable-fragments-vision-de-los-hijos-del-mal-miguel-angel-bustos/.

“Vision of the Children of Evil Miguel Ángel Bustos, Translated by Lucina Schell.” Coimpress, https://www.coimpress.com/books/bustos_vision.shtml#:~:text=Simultaneously%20prophetic%20and%20blasphemous%2C%20Vision,first%20debuted%20in%20the%201960s.

Estrella Isabel Koira. “From 'the Symbolic Wood' to the Mythic Interpretation of Evil. A Reading of Vision de Los Hijos Del Mal by Miguel Angel Bustos.” Teoliterária: Revista Brasileira de Literaturas e Teologias 3.6 (2015): 47–63. Print.