{"id":19598,"date":"2025-07-09T14:06:14","date_gmt":"2025-07-09T14:06:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/letrasenlafrontera.org\/?p=19598"},"modified":"2025-07-09T14:06:15","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T14:06:15","slug":"cosecha-de-verano-summer-harvest-un-fragmento-de-la-novela-breve-de-isaura-contreras","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/letrasenlafrontera.org\/index.php\/2025\/07\/09\/cosecha-de-verano-summer-harvest-un-fragmento-de-la-novela-breve-de-isaura-contreras\/","title":{"rendered":"Cosecha de verano\/Summer Harvest: un fragmento de la novela breve de Isaura Contreras"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><em>Unas p\u00e1ginas de la premiada novela\u00a0<\/em>Cosecha de verano<em>\u00a0de la escritora mexicana y profesora de literatura hispanoamericana en la Universidad de Tejas en San Antonio, Isaura Contreras. La edici\u00f3n biling\u00fce de la novela, con traducci\u00f3n de Rebecca Bowman, lleva el sello de Bric-a-Brac, de San Marcos, Tejas.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">Cuando las tardes se iban con una olla en la cabeza y andar desali\u00f1ada era culpa de mam\u00e1; cuando recorr\u00eda el pueblo con una vara en las manos y el miedo m\u00e1s grande era un perro amarillo; cuando pod\u00eda correr sobre terrones que no se deshac\u00edan y trazaba caminos bajo las matas de un trigal. Cuando aprend\u00ed a contar. Cuando tuve al profesor, y lo recuerdo: en su silla frente a los otros \u00bfcincuenta?, decirme que yo era linda, su nariz en mis mejillas, mis piernas en sus rodillas, sus manos entre mi falda. Entonces, mi abuela enferma del pecho, pap\u00e1 dice que muere pronto, mam\u00e1 piensa en los vestidos, yo a veces en el gorri\u00f3n. La abuela construy\u00f3 la jaula, ella misma puede entrar, abre una portezuela, dos pasos y est\u00e1 en el mismo espacio del animal; le habla en un lenguaje inventado de cari\u00f1os, el pajarillo vuela en c\u00edrculos asustado por verla, a poco se calma y se posa en un rinc\u00f3n cantando desesperado, y la abuela da un espanto con su nariz filosa, sus ojos vidriosos, su risa chillante, a pausas. Perdida en la contemplaci\u00f3n, yo o alguien, a veces todos, la vemos traslucir por el alambrado, su postura inm\u00f3vil, sus muecas t\u00edmidas; manotea intentando tocar con sus dedos el ave, y le conversa en secreto, le cuenta de todos, y hasta de m\u00ed: muchos a\u00f1os despu\u00e9s en una ciudad lejana. Lo dej\u00f3 t\u00eda Saura, eso pensamos, lo dej\u00f3 la noche de su huida, lo dej\u00f3 por coraje, para recuerdo nuestro. La adoraci\u00f3n de la abuela: t\u00eda Saura y el p\u00e1jaro, la misma cosa. Fue entonces lo del abuelo: sus caminatas incesantes por el jard\u00edn y el pasillo, las vueltas por la casa, sus palabras sin sentido, sus besos a la pared, su bilis derramada, \u00bfera eso? Y el abuelo la cosa m\u00e1s tierna: el abuelo comiendo nueces, el abuelo y su intento de no perder la memoria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">\u2248<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">When the afternoons went by with a pot on my head and if my hair and clothes were messy it was Mama\u2019s fault, when I\u2019d run around town with a stick in my hands and my biggest fear was a yellow dog, when I could race across the dirt without it crumbling and trace paths under the stalks of a wheat field. When I learned how to count. When I had a teacher, I remember him: we\u2019re in his chair in front of the other kids, maybe fifty, he\u2019s telling me I\u2019m pretty, his nose is on my cheeks, my legs are on his knees, his hand within my skirt. Then my grandmother sick in her chest, Papa says that she\u2019ll die soon, Mama\u2019s mind is on the dresses, mine\u2019s on the sparrow. Grandma built a cage, she can get in herself, she opens the little door, two steps and she is in the same space as the animal; she speaks to it in a made up language of endearments, the little bird, scared, flies in circles when it sees her, eventually it calms down and settles in a corner singing desperately and Grandma frightens it with her sharp nose, her glassy eyes, her shrill, jagged laughter. Lost in contemplation, I or someone, sometimes all of us, see her revealed through the wire, her still stance, her shy expressions, her outstretched hand, trying to touch the bird, she tells it about everyone, even about me: many years later, in a city faraway. Aunt Saura left it behind, or so we thought, she left it there the night she ran away, she left it out of anger, so we\u2019d remember her. The apple of Grandma\u2019s eye: Aunt Saura and the bird, the bird and Aunt Saura. And then there was Grandpa, his endless wandering in the garden, hallways, and around the house, words without meaning, kisses for the wall, traces of rage, was it that? And Grandpa so tender, Grandpa eating nuts, Grandpa struggling not to lose his memory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Unas p\u00e1ginas de la premiada novela\u00a0Cosecha de verano\u00a0de la escritora mexicana y profesora de literatura hispanoamericana en la Universidad de Tejas en San&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":19602,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[309,209],"tags":[],"coauthors":[312],"class_list":["post-19598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-novela","category-revista"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/letrasenlafrontera.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/9781961136038.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/letrasenlafrontera.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/letrasenlafrontera.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/letrasenlafrontera.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/letrasenlafrontera.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/letrasenlafrontera.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19598"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/letrasenlafrontera.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19641,"href":"https:\/\/letrasenlafrontera.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19598\/revisions\/19641"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/letrasenlafrontera.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/letrasenlafrontera.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/letrasenlafrontera.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/letrasenlafrontera.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19598"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/letrasenlafrontera.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=19598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}