Review
“A new En (Edith Grossman )
“This edition of Roja’s Celestina wins, to use baseball parlance, the triple crown. . . . a fresh, vibrant translation.”--Choice
(
Choice )
Winner of the 2010 Lewis Galantiere Award sponsored by the American Translators Association.
(Lewis Galantiere Award
American Translators Association 20101101)
"Celestina is an immensely difficult text to translate and Margaret Sayers Peden does not disappoint. She delivers the most thoughtful and incisive translation to date, with a text that seems to echo the minds and feelings of these beguiling characters from fifteenth century Salamanca. Full of wit and pathos, longing and laughter, readers will be enthralled by the nuanced tones of this new rendering. A brilliant tour de force accompanied by an elegant, intelligent and enlightening Introduction by Roberto González Echevarría. González Echevarría’s notion of broken bodies as pieces of a Picasso painting/puzzle will resonate with us for a long time."—Frederick A. de Armas, University of Chicago
(Frederick A. de Armas )
"Margaret Sayers Peden offers a faithful, elegant, and eminently readable translation of Celestina. She does not call attention to the act of translation but combines her art with that of Rojas. Roberto González Echevarría provides a brief but rich introduction."—Edward H. Friedman, Vanderbilt University
(Edward H. Friedman )
“The new translation by Margaret Sayers Peden serves up the freshness and naughtiness of the text while inviting a new generation of readers into the rich melodrama of a book that, although it is a classic, draws readers in not ‘because it is good for them,’ but rather because it is fun.” —Monica Szurmuk, PRI’s “The World”
(Monica Szurmuk
PRI's The World )
About the Author
Fernando de Rojas (1475–1541) was born in Toledo, Spain. He worked as a lawyer and served as mayor of Talavera for some time. Celestina is his only published work. Margaret Sayers Peden is professor emerita of Spanish at the University of Missouri and the translator of major works by Octavio Paz, Pablo Neruda, Isabel Allende, and others. Roberto González Echevarría is Sterling Professor of Hispanic and Comparative Literature, Yale University.
