{"id":59664,"date":"2025-05-09T10:00:39","date_gmt":"2025-05-09T15:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.publicbooks.org\/?p=59664"},"modified":"2026-01-16T20:10:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T02:10:18","slug":"that-in-between-time-fernanda-trias-and-heather-cleary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.publicbooks.org\/that-in-between-time-fernanda-trias-and-heather-cleary\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThat In Between Time\u201d: Fernanda Tr\u00edas and Heather Cleary"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fernanda Tr\u00edas\u2019s Pink Slime<\/em><\/a> (Mugre rosa<\/a><\/em>) was first published in Spanish in October 2020, several months into a global pandemic that had bent our world into something uncannily similar to the one imagined in the Uruguayan writer\u2019s fourth novel. Here, an environmental disaster that begins as red algae bloom in the oceans has produced a toxic wind that kills most living creatures. As the plague spreads, the protagonist chooses to remain in her coastal city, caring for a boy with a rare genetic disorder. Published in an English translation by Heather Cleary<\/a> as the pandemic waned, Pink Slime<\/em> continues to push against the limits of genre categories, balancing on that delicate edge between science fiction and literary realism.<\/p>\n

In dialogue with Cleary\u2014a prolific translator of contemporary Latin American fiction who is also a critic and scholar of translation\u2014Tr\u00edas unfolds the many different ideas explored in Pink Slime<\/em>, including the ethical complexities of writing about illness and disability, the difficult intimacies of mothers and daughters (and other potentially toxic relationships), how it is that we experience time and memory, and what it means to live with the looming threat of ecological collapse. \u00a0Pink Slime<\/em>, like Tr\u00edas\u2019s other novels, is also interested in the narrative potential of confined spaces, which constrain the movement of plot and allow for new possibilities in building characters\u2019 psychological depth. The conversation also gets into the question of time and narrative tense when it comes to narrating the experience of disaster\u2014a question that was crucial for the novelist as much as the translator. Together, Tr\u00edas and Cleary also get into the intricacies of translation, including word choice, sound, rhythm, breath, and how to make jokes work across languages.<\/p>\n