Usha

Usha #1

by María Reimóndez, Ivan Sende (Illustrator)

Uxía, Usha para os seus amigos, escribe o relato da súa estancia en Devastana, unha vila do estado de Karnata, na India. A rapaza galega, que acompañaba a súa nai, membro dunha ONG, rememora a vida cotián da súa escola india. Alí amigou con Lakshmi e Deepak, aprendeu canarés, coñeceu novos costumes e lendas, enfrontouse con dificultades imprevistas e, sobre todo, cunha nova visión da vida, ata entón, descoñecida para ela. Usha aprendeu na India que alí o seu nome significa a primeira luz do mencer. Nunca o esquecerá. Usha, novela escrita por María Reimóndez e ilustrada por Ivñan Sende, é un portelo aberto para que os lectores galegos mozos poidan enchouparse da cultura e da visión da vida dunha comunidade popular da India. Unha novela emocionante que interroga e interesa ao lector sobre unha realidade cultural que a maior parte descoñece.

152 pages, Board Book

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

María Reimóndez Meilán was born in Lugo and is a professional translator and interpreter. Her first book published is the poetry collection Moda Galega (Edicións Positivas, 2002). In 2003 she was awarded the Premio de Novela Mulleres Progresistas de Vigo for the novel O Caderno de Bitácora (Edicións Positivas 2004). In 2005 she was short-listed for the awards Premio Merlín de Literatura Infantil for Usha (Edicións Xerais, 2006) and Xerais for O club da calceta (Xerais 2006), which was later awarded the Premio San Clemente and translated into Italian and Spanish, adapted to theatre by Teatro do Morcego and to film by Ficción Producciones.

She has also published six books for children on different Galician counties with Editorial Everest. Recently, she also published Lía e as zapatillas de deporte (Xerais 2008), Premio Frei Martín Sarmiento 2010 and O Monstro das palabras(Xerais 2009) for children, and Pirata (Xerais 2009) for adults. Reimóndez is also a well established literary translator, especially of children’s literature with over twelve books published, besides Erín Moure’s poetry collection Teatriños or the theatre play Kvetch staged in Galician by Teatro do Morcego . In 2011 she published Despois da medianoitea translation of Tamil author Salma’s The Hour Past Mid-Night. In 2009 she was granted the translation award Plácido Castro for her translation of A historia de Mary Prince, unha escrava das Illas Occidentais. In 2012 her first book as an essayist will be published in co-authorship with Olga Castro – Feminismos is an overview of feminist theories around the world. Already in 2010 Reimóndez published a chapter on the symbolic violence of literary criticism against Galician women writers in the volume Violencias visibles, violencias invisibles with the Feminario de Investigación Feminismos e Resistencias. (Icaría 2010). Also in 2010 she was writer-in-residence at Bangor University (Wales, UK), where she lectured on translation, writing and literature and she also did a reading of Pirata in London. She has also been invited to the University of Stirling and Munich and in 2011 she was one of the guests of the artist’s house Villa Waldberta in Munich, invited by the Instituto Cervantes of the city for their Autumn cultural programme.

Reviews

[Lara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tuve que leerlo por el instituto. Todos me decían que era muy aburrido, pero yo no creo que fuera para tanto. Fue una lectura tan normal como otra cualquiera. Pasó por mí sin pena ni gloria.