Translated by Andrew McDougall
THIS OR THAT
Just now
On the balcony
I heard the next-door neighbour
I don’t know where this is headed
I didn’t understand what he meant
But I remembered my mother
Yesterday
In the kitchen
To my father
This is going from bad to worse
There’s a man on the television
Who is always saying
This is a disgrace!
Like that, with an exclamation mark
So I went to the dictionary
But it was no use
What is a demonstrative pronominal?
I asked my sister
Piss off
Was her reply
I insisted
What is this that everyone is talking about
Which is a disgrace
And going from bad to worse
And no one knows where it’s headed
It must be your tongue, kid
My sister is a bore
Always talking rubbish
I went back to the balcony
Our neighbour was still on the phone
Or perhaps talking to himself
I made a note every time he said the word
This can’t be real
This is unbearable
This is even worse than I thought
This is ridiculous
This is shit
This is too much!
This is awful
This won’t do
This must be seen
To be believed
This is bollocks
This is a fresh hell
This won’t end well
This is shameful
This will never be fixed
This
Never
Crossed
My
Mind
Who expected
Such a thing?
I deleted the last phrase
As it didn’t have the word
This
And then I remembered a book
That my mum was reading
The other day
If this is a man
Maybe that’s what this is
This is a man
Could it also be a woman?
I better ask my grandad
He’s the only one who listens
To my questions
But now we can’t go there
Because of the quarantine
And don’t know what that is either
But I guess it has something to do with
This
Gabriela graduated in Psychology and lives in London since 2004. In 2013 her debut novel Uma Outra Voz won the Prémio LeYa (LeYa, 2014, Prémio PEN Primeira Obra 2015). She published the children's book A Vaca Leitora (D. Quixote, 2016) and the poetry collection Aves Migratórias (On y va, 2019). She contributed to a number of poetry and short story anthologies. She manages the online bookshop Miúda Books, dedicated to children's books written in Portuguese. She is the mentor of this project, together with Nuno Gomes Garcia.
Andrew was born in Glasgow and studied Portuguese and English literature at the University of Edinburgh. He has also lived in Sussex, Lisbon, Coimbra, Logroño, Vitoria-Gasteiz and Norwich, where he completed an MA in Literary Translation at the University of East Anglia. His work has included co-translating a book by José Eduardo Agualusa. He translates from Portuguese and Spanish.
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