The Jacarandas Whisper
AUTHOR
Alberto Ruy-Sánchez
TRANSLATOR
Rhonda Dahl Buchanan
World Literature Today's 75 Notable Translations of 2025
In The Jacarandas Whisper, Mexican writer Alberto Ruy-Sánchez pays homage to the amazing jacaranda trees that transform Mexico City into a purple spectacle heralding the arrival of spring.
Mexican writer Alberto Ruy-Sánchez adds yet another “secret garden” to his opus of wonder, this time focusing his attention on the jacaranda trees that transform Mexico City into a purple spectacle heralding the arrival of spring.
The book is carefully structured into six sections of lyrical poems that reflect upon the paradoxical nature of the jacaranda trees, their immortal yet transient character, their origin myths, their multicultural history of migration, and the lessons they offer on the human condition. The book closes with a final “Resounding Coda” that celebrates the jacaranda’s power of communication: “She whispers things when silent, / and says even more if you listen.”
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Rhonda Dahl Buchanan, Professor Emerita of Spanish at the University of Louisville, has translated fiction by authors from Latin America and Spain. She received an NEA Literature Fellowship in 2006 for the translation of the Mexican writer Alberto Ruy Sánchez’s novel Los jardines secretos de Mogador. Her translations of Ruy Sánchez’s novels The Secret Gardens of Mogador: Voices of the Earth and Poetics of Wonder: Passage to Mogador were published by White Pine Press. Her other published translations include works by the Argentine authors Mempo Giardinelli, Tununa Mercado, Ana María Shua, and Perla Suez, and the Spanish poet Fernando Operé.
Alberto Ruy-Sánchez is an award-winning writer and editor who has authored thirty-two books of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. His works have been translated into fifteen languages. He has received international acclaim forQuinteto de Mogador, a series of five novels that explore the many facets of desire while extending a cultural bridge between his native Mexico and Morocco. His previously translated works in English include The Secret Gardens of Mogador: Voices of the Earth and The Poetics of Wonder.