Pirata

by María Reimóndez

A Mark Read levoulle moito tempo atopar o seu lugar. Mais aquí está, na cuberta do 'Williams'. Despois da guerra en Flandres, da súa infancia como criado, das súas aventuras na mariña mercante, á fin atopou a súa identidade como pirata. Mais se cadra a súa busca non está completa, se cadra aínda lle queda moito por contar. Na súa historia falta aínda a coraxe de Anne Bonney e as preguntas que nin sequera Madame Ébano foi capaz de contestar. Están todas aínda abertas no mar.

Pirata é unha novela que fala da busca de identidade, da loita atroz pola liberdade en tempos difíciles e da esperanza de poderse sentir no fogar, mesmo nos lugares máis insospeitados. No marco real do século XVIII as súas personaxes deixan no mar estelas que falan das múltiples posibilidades da vida.

(From publisher's description)

340 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

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

[Gloria Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Profondo romanzo storico sulle figure di Mary Read e Anne Bonn(e)y, anche se definirlo tale è riduttivo. Il punto di questo romanzo infatti non è tanto la storia della pirateria in quanto tale, ma la storia (e non solo quella dell'epoca descritta) vista dal punto di vista delle donne, che ai tempi trovavano la libertà solo arruolandosi in navi nemiche delle varie bandiere. Ma non solo storia vista dal punto femminile, ma anche viaggio nella scoperta di loro stesse, che porta a spogliarsi di tutte le convenzioni e costrizioni a cui le donne sono sempre sottostate. Delicato, nonostante la materia trattata, questo romanzo dovrebbe essere letto da tutt*.
Piccolo neo è la resa troppo moderna dei dialoghi, che però potrebbe anche essere "colpa" del traduttore.

[maría · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5 ⭐️

malia que non son o público obxectivo nin da novela histórica nin das historias de piratas e nunca lería este libro por vontade propia, sorprendeume un montón. se ben é certo que me custou bastante lelo porque non acababa de engancharme, remateino cunha moi boa sensación. a construción da identidade de xénero do personaxe principal pareceume brillante e gustoume moito, e eu creo que iso foi máis ben o que me fixo rematar o libro con tan bo sabor de boca e o que me fixo darlle a puntuación que lle dou, porque a historia en si non me marabillou e o xeito de narrar tampouco.

[Bea Vázquez Díaz · Rating 5 out of 5]

María ten unha maneira de narrar que fai que conectes coas súas personaxes dende o comezo. Fala de temas sociais, sempre dende unha perspectiva de respecto á diversidade, mostrándonos outras realidades ás que, quizais, non esteamos habituadas porque se saen da norma social predominante.
Coñecer a historia de personaxes tan extraordinarias como as deste libro a través da súa man foi unha marabilla, dende logo.

[Xabier P. Igrexas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un relato valente, narrado coa potencia da sinxeleza. Malia se ambientar noutras latitudes, espaciais e temporais, a historia é plenamente vixente e contemporánea. O seu verdadeiro protagonista é a identidade. O dereito a termos identidade de noso. A sermos quen quixermos ser.

[Yoli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Piratas queer, non sei a que estades agardando.

[Xabier Cid · Rating 3 out of 5]

'Pirata' is a very good novel. My background when approaching this book was some kind of friendship with the author mingled with a knowledge quite deep of the ideological frame of her literature. Besides, her first adult novel, "O club da calceta", had received a very warming welcome by the readers (several reprints in some months) but a friend of mine have said to me it was a strongly biased novel (and I trust her opinion quite a lot).

'Pirata' is a very good novel. The full story of Mark Read, and, in particular, the first 52 pages of this novel, are a wave of fresh writing, a brilliantly paced plot and one of the more wonderful beginnings from the recent Galician literature. I could feel my eyes giving off sparks when I got that page.

'Pirata' is a very good novel, but it could be really great with only a few changes, because after that page 52 it's difficult to determine if the novel intends to proof a thesis, or if it's the thesis what shows itself under a fiction shape. My starting point is sharing the same view about freedom and gender than the narrator, even on those hot edges marking the legitimate use of violence against the patriarchal system (under the appearance of males, slave-owners, racists and so on). But, as a reader, I find annoying that this conflict was presented in such a flat perspective, where the three main female characters are so perfect (some times it is hard to understand who is speaking) and solid, and that the narrator repeats the ideological statements again and again despite those views are already perfectly clear and evident just because the fiction undergoing is extremely good and striking.