True, there is one reader out there, a voice in the wilderness, who has already declared with the ardor of a broken heart that she does not care: to her, this living testament, this book, of Raymundo’s world, is enough.
She insists: It is the world of words that creates the world of things.
But not for us.
We wish to peruse for ourselves Raymundo’s childish Spanish script, his Chabacano escapades, his incidental Visayan locutions, his Latin vulgarity, his schoolboy codes, his English lapses, his Tagalog tricks. Or is it possible that the Translator, the pseudonymous Mimic, has had us in the trap of her infernal arts all along, and history is only a blind alley of her imagination?
I hope not.
530 A student in my course, Psych 401: The Writer on the Couch, has written a thesis, unfortunately full of run-ons so I’m not including it in my bibliography, in which she posits that, in the way that Mark David Chapman, perhaps, would have been incapable of including in his own timeline of universal incidents the death of the first Beatle, Raymundo Mata was not capable of explicitly conjuring the death of the writer whose identity he had embraced.
Translator’s Postcard
[sent from an island in the South China Sea]
Mi noamla: ra puada vimgoes am at
References
Spanish passages from the following texts occur in translation in Entry #22 and Entry #46 (English translations by the author):
P. Jacinto (Jose Rizal). Memorias de un estudiante de Manila: autobiografía escolar inédita del Dr. Jose Rizal Mercado, durante el périodo 1861–1881. Manila: s.n., 1949.
Rizal, Jose. Makamisa. In The Search for Rizal’s Third Novel Makamisa, by Ambeth Ocampo. Pasig: Anvil, 1992.
English translation of Voltaire’s Candide taken from:
Voltaire. Candide. http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/4650
The following are some books consulted in the writing of this novel:
Agoncillo, Teodoro. Revolt of the Masses: The Story of Bonifacio and the Katipunan. Quezon City: University of the Philippines, 1996.
________. The Writings and Trial of Andres Bonifacio. Manila: Manila Bonifacio Centennial Commission, 1963.
Aguinaldo, Emilio. My Memoirs. Trans. from the Tagalog Mga Gunita by Luz Colendrino-Bucu. Manila, 1967.
________. Saloobin/Sentiments. Trans. and ed. Emmanuel Franco Calairo. Dasmariñas, Cavite: Cavite Historical Society, Inc., 2002.
Almario, Virgilio S. Panitikan ng Rebolusyon(g 1896). Quezon City: University of the Philippines, 1993.
Alvarez, Santiago. The Katipunan and the Revolution. Trans. from the Tagalog Ang Katipunan at ang Himagsikan by Paula Carolina Malay. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila, 1992.
Anonymous. Doctrina Cristiana. Ed. Edwin Wolf II. Facs. of the copy in the Lessing Rosenwald Collection, Library of Congress. http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/16119
Anonymous. Minutes of the Katipunan. First English Edition. Manila: National Historical Institute, 1996.
Bellessort, Andre. One Week in the Philippines. Trans. from the French by E. Aguilar Cruz. Manila: National Historical Institute, 1987.
Borromeo-Buehler, Soledad. The Cry of Balintawak. Quezon City: Ateneo De Manila, 1998.
Calairo, Emmanuel. Cavite El Viejo: Kasaysayan, Lipunan, Kultura. Dasmariñas, Cavite: Cavite Studies Center, 1998.
________. Cavite in Focus: Essays in Local Historiography. Dasmariñas, Cavite: Cavite Historical Society, Inc., 2001.
________. Liping Kabitenyo. Dasmariñas, Cavite: Cavite Studies Center, 1999.
Camagay, Luisa. Working Women of Manila in the 19th Century. Quezon City: University of the Philippines, 1995.
Castro, Modesto de. Pag Susulatan nang Dalauang Binibini na si Urbana at ni Feliza. http://www.archive.org/details/pagsusulatannang15980gut.
Churchill, Bernardita Reyes and Francis A. Gealogo (eds.) Centennial Papers on the Katipunan and the Revolution. Manila: Manila Studies Association and National Commission for Culture and the Arts, 1999.
Churchill, Bernardita Reyes (ed.) Revolution in the Provinces. Quezon City: Philippine National Historical Society Inc., 1999.
Coates, Austin. Rizal—Filipino Nationalist and Patriot. Manila: Solidaridad, 1992.
De la Costa, Horacio (ed. and trans.). The Trial of Rizal. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila, 1996.
De los Santos, Epifanio. The Revolutionists: Aguinaldo, Bonifacio, Jacinto. Manila: National Historical Institute, 2000.
Duc d’Alencon. Luzon and Mindanao. Trans. from the French by E. Aguilar Cruz. Manila: National Historical Institute, 1986.
Guerrero, Leon Maria. The First Filipino. Pasig: Anvil, 1998.
Guevara, Antonino [Matatag]. History of One of the Initiators of the Filipino Revolution. Trans. from the Spanish by Onofre D. Corpuz. Manila: National Historical Institute, [1988].
Joaquin, Nick. A Question of Heroes. Pasig: Anvil, 2005.
Lacan, Jacques. Écrits: A Selection. Trans. from the French by Alan Sheridan. New York and London: W.W. Norton, 1977.
Mabini, Apolinario. The Philippine Revolution. Vol. II. Trans. from the Spanish La revolucion filipina. Manila: National Historical Institute, n.d.
Majul, Cesar Adib. Apolinario Mabini, Revolutionary. Manila: Trademark, 1998.
Marche, Alfred. Luzon and Palawan. Trans. from the French by Carmen Ojeda and Jovita Castro. Manila: Filipiniana Book Guild, 1970.
Medina, Isagani. Ang Kabite sa Gunita: Essays on Cavite and the Philippine Revolution. Quezon City: University of the Philippines, 2001.
________. Cavite Before the Revolution: 1571–1896. Quezon City: University of the Philippines and Cavite Historical Society, 2002.
Nakpil, Julio. Julio Nakpil and the Philippine Revolution. Filipiniana Reprint Series Book 26. Manila: Academic, 1964.
Nobus, Dany (ed.). Key Concepts of Lacanian Psychoanalysis. New York: Other Press, 1999.
Ocampo, Ambeth. Aguinaldo’s Breakfast. Pasig: Anvil, 1993.
________. Bones of Contention. Pasig: Anvil, 2001.
________. Bonifacio’s Bolo. Pasig: Anvil, 1995.
________. Looking Back. Pasig: Anvil, 1990.
________. The Search for Rizal’s Third Novel Makamisa. Pasig: Anvil, 1992.
________. Rizal Without the Overcoat. Pasig: Anvil, 2000.
Quibuyen, Floro C. A Nation Aborted: Rizal, American Hegemony, and Philippine Nationalism. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1999.
Ricarte, Artemio. Memoirs of General Artemio Ricarte. Manila: National Heroes Commission, 1963.
Rizal, Jose. El Filibusterismo. Trans. from the Spanish by Maria Soledad Lacson-Locsin. Makati: Bookmark, 1996.
________. Letters between Rizal and Family Members. Manila: National Historical Institute, 1993.
________. Miscellaneous Writings. Manila: National Historical Institute, 1992.
________. Noli Me Tangere. Tercera Edición. Manila: Librería Manila Filatelica, 1908.
________. Noli Me Tangere. Trans. from the Spanish by Maria Soledad Lacson-Locsin. Makati: Bookmark, 1996.
________. “The Philippines a Century Hence.” In Political and Historical Writings. Volume VII. Centennial Edition. Manila: National Heroes Commission, 1964.
Rizal, Jose and Ferdinand Blumentritt. The Rizal-Blumentritt Correspondence. Volumes I-II. Manila: National Historical Institute, 1992.
Rogers, Annie G. The Unsayable: The Hidden Language of Trauma. New York: Random House, 2006.
Ronquillo, Carlos. Ilang Talata Tungkol sa Paghihimagsik nang 1896–1897. Trans. and ed. Isagani Medina. Quezon City: University of the Philippines, 1996.
Schumacher, John. The Propaganda Movement, 1880-1895. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila, 1997.
Scott, William Henry. Prehispanic Source Materials for the Study of Philippine History.
