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Contributor

Sylvia Sasson Shorris

Contributor

Sylvia Sasson Shorris

Sylvia Sasson Shorris is the author of Talking Pictures: With the People Who Made Them and co-editor of While Someone Else Is Eating: Poets and Novelists on Reaganism and In the Language of Kings: An Anthology of Mesoamerican Literature Pre-Columbian to the Present.

Articles by Sylvia Sasson Shorris

The Sarima’s Mission
By Miguel Angel Oxlaj
I can still hear that echo and feel the great terror that came over me at that moment.
Translated from Spanish by Sylvia Sasson Shorris
From “The Death of the Philosopher”
By Vicente Herrasti
What fate does the future hold for me? Jason asked, intrigued.
Translated from Spanish by Sylvia Sasson Shorris
The Serpent of the Green Mountain
By Agustin Jimenez Garcia
In the old days, inside the Green Mountain, there lived a giant serpent who acted as if it were the master of the place, rixxo.
Translated from Zapoteco by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris
Laziness
By Lázaro Márquez Joaquín
If I kill this deer, I will have money to buy a chicken.
Translated from Purépecha by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris
The One Who Went to Learn to Lie
By Victor de la Cruz
There was someone in the old days, they say, who wanted to learn to lie.
Translated from Zapoteco by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris
Alux
By Santiago Domínguez Aké
It is said that the alux is a clay doll that guards the farmer's field, scaring away thieves and making jokes to all the people who pass by or stop to rest near the place where he lives.
Translated from Yucatecan Maya by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris
My Encounter with Xtabay
By Wenceslao Yeh & Marcos Xiu Cachon
Take care, teacher, do not walk around alone, because the spirits could grab you.
Translated from Yucatecan Maya by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris
A Traveler’s Tale
By Jesús Salinas Pedraza
How awful, how awful!
Translated from Ñahñu by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris
Who Are We? What Is Our Name?
By Victor de la Cruz
To speak, to say yes to the night; / To say yes to the darkness.
Translated from Zapoteco by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris
“I am like a solitary star”
By Pancho Nácar
I am like a solitary star
Translated from Zapoteco by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris
Poverty
By María Luisa Góngora Pacheco
May you get what you ask for! answered the old man, and left satisfied.
Translated from Yucatecan Maya by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris
“I am like an otter”
By Pancho Nácar
I am like an otter
Translated from Zapoteco by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris
Escape From Death
By Ismael García Marcelino
Who could be following me? It must be the wind in the fields that is causing this noise.
Translated from Purépecha by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris
Juan and Xtabay
By Miguel Angel May May
Juan hardly remembered how he got to his house, but when he got there he did not go to sleep immediately.
Translated from Yucatecan Maya by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris
Echeverría
By Enrique Pérez López
He left his village because he despaired of the life that he was living
Translated from Tzotzil by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris
The Paths
By Juan Gregorio Regino
All paths arrive at the only road that exists.
Translated from Mazateco by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris
No One Dies, Life Only Changes
By Juan López Palacios
What are you doing out in the street so late at night?
Translated from Náhuatl (Aztec) by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris
The Moon and the Feather
By Humberto Ak’abal
The moongave me a feather.In my handit felt like singing.The moon laughedand told meto learn to sing.For the next poem in this sequence, click here.
Translated from Spanish by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris
Dreamhouse
By Auldárico Hernández
The power of your soul Comes from the stars
Translated from Yucatecan Maya by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris
Memories
By Gerardo Can Pat
I asked permission of your father. He did not want togive it.
Translated from Yucatecan Maya by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris
The Story of Naxá
By Juan Gregorio Regino
The campesinos prepared their whetstones and machetes while their wives prepared posole and filled their gourds with water.
Translated from Mazateco by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris
Origins of the Indians in the New World
By Fray Gregorio García
In that time...there appeared, there was visible a god who was named 1-Deer
Translated from Zapoteco by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris
Opening Poem of the Cantares Mexicanos
By Unknown
Earl Shorris and Sylvia Sasson Shorris prosent a new translation of this Classical Náhuatl poem from the sixteenth century.
Translated from Náhuatl (Aztec) by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris
School
By Briceida Cuevas Cob
And the ants that sing, laugh, dance / and play in circles, began to cry.
Translated from Yucatecan Maya by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris
Six Variations on Love
By Victor Terán
Love / comes and goes like the night.
Translated from Zapoteco by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris
The Lemon Seller
By Natalia Toledo Paz
To travel the seas of silence / becoming nothing in the foam...
Translated from Zapoteco by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris
Chants
By Juan Gregorio Regino
The voice of the wise man reaches far, the singer, the cleanser of pains.
Translated from Spanish by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris
The Sacvi of Chinango
By Lorenzo Hernandez Ocampo
If we do not preserve our language, the time will come when we will lose what we know and who we are.
Translated from Mixteco by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris
Chatty Girl
By Javier Castellanos
Only your little words know how to cure me.
Translated from Zapoteco by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris
Marías Mazahuas
By Fausto Guadarrama López
Where do you go, Marías, where do you go?
Translated from Mazahua by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris
Learn
Dreams and Memories of a Common Man
By Marcos Matías Alonso
They squeezed us and they piled us up to fill up the city, to live like ants, like crazed lizards in the middle of trash.
Translated from Náhuatl (Aztec) by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris
Learn
A rebozo photographed in black and white.

By Mónica Morales. License: CC by 2.0 Access at: https://flic.kr/p/rP5TJ

Purépecha Mother
By Gilberto Jerónimo Mateo
This poem from an indigenous Purépecha author celebrates the heroism of a seemingly ordinary woman.
Translated from Purépecha by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris
Learn
Nothing Remains Empty
By Juan Gregorio Regino
There is a place in the Universe / where the memory of time / is recorded.
Translated from Mazateco by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris
Learn
The Owl
By Briceida Cuevas Cob
The owl is here. / He perches on the wall. And meditates.
Translated from Yucatecan Maya by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris
The Indigenous Literature of the Americas
By Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris
Guest editors Earl Shorris and Sylvia Sasson Shorris introduce WWB's issue of writing from the indigenous languages of the Americas.
The Ash Vendors
By Rita Molina Elias
The masked man, seeing the other men running, chose to follow them, without realizing that he would frighten them even more.
Translated from Purépecha by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris
The Zapotec Language
By Francisco de la Cruz
They say that the ancient Zapotecs came downfrom the clouds. The center of the sky was their home.
Translated from Zapoteco by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris
El Temascal
By Librado Silva Galeana
Once the bath house has been constructed, a godfather is sought out and a priest is summoned.
Translated from Náhuatl (Aztec) by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris
Twelve Poems by Humberto Ak’abal
By Humberto Ak’abal
K'iche' (Mayan) poet and author, Humberto Ak'abal from Guatemala writes 12 poems of nature, life, loss, and remembrance.
Translated from K'iche' by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris
La Pesicola
By Gabriel Pacheco
“As you see, that was how our Creator lived, He who created everything and He who created man. He never walked like men. While he lived on earth, He always kept himself holy. He never sinned despite…
Translated from Náhuatl (Aztec) by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris
Memories
By Humberto Ak’abal
Now and thenI walk backwards.It is my way of remembering.If I only walked forward,I could tell youabout forgetting.This last poem in this sequence was originally published in Guchachi 'Reza' 'Iguana…
Translated from Spanish by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris
“Will nothing of my earthly fame endure?”
By Miguel León-Portilla
Will nothing of my earthly fame endure?Not even flowers, not even songs!What can my heart do?In vain we have sprung forth,we have come to be on earth.Let us enjoy ourselves, my friends,let us embrace…
Translated from Spanish by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris
“O, giver of life”
By Miguel León-Portilla
Your shadow falls on those who must live on earth.
Translated from Spanish by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris