Mischief in “La Cenizosa”: An Unpublished Creole Fable by Judith Ortiz Cofer

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Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Every quotation attributed to Ortiz Cofer in this essay comes from a personal interview the author conducted on 27 May 2008, in English, and continued on 26 October 2010, at the University of Georgia, Athens. I am thankful to John Cofer, who provided me with the unpublished versions of Ortiz Cofer's adaptations of “La Cenizosa.”

2. We choose to translate la maña as “mischief,” rather than identifying it with the traditional trickster archetype, to emphasize the intelligence motivating the characters to engage in mischievous behavior.

1. Entrevista realizada en inglés el 27 de mayo del 2008 y retomada el 26 de octubre del 2010 en la Universidad de Georgia, Athens, Georgia. Todas las referencias a mi conversación con Ortiz Cofer provienen de esta fuente. “…translations of fábulas criollas with lots of poetic license involved”

2. Agradezco enormemente a John Cofer, quien me facilitó versiones inéditas.

3. “I grew up in an oral tradition. I first heard the one about María Sabida from my grandmother, and she changed it over the years. Sometimes it was bloody, or other times sanitized depending on what point she was making. Of course, because of the Juan Bobo stories, someone will call you Juan Bobo or Juana Boba at some point of your life. I was really enamored and interested in how much these little stories reveal.”

4. “This is not the Disney version, let me tell you. There is not a prince there, there is only mondongo and a talking goat.”

5. “I am fascinated by the fact that this was probably told by a woman to a woman because there is a talking cabrita [a goat] and mondongo [tripe]. It is so puertorriqueño!”

6. “Of course, that is from my feminist side. The hadas have babies, and call each other sisters; that I added.”

7. “The story of the Puerto Rican Cinderella is rather violent and does not really come to closure.”

8. “One of the reasons for translation is to make wisdom available in a new form.”

9. “You know how you eat sherbet in between courses, to clear your palate. My translations of these stories are like the clearing of my palate. I work on them when I don't have the energy to do anything else, I work on them when I finish a book, so it has been many, many years and there are only five or six. I figured that they may be valuable to a different generation.”

10. “I have a little legacy, it may not be a major one, but I basically feel that wherever I go to do readings, someone says to me, ‘You wrote about my life.’ That means a lot to me. There are other people living lives, and they actually consider themselves Puerto Ricans, but they are not in Old San Juan, or in San Germán, or in Hormigueros. One Puerto Rican woman in Vermont was practically in tears because she basically can't go back culturally or any other way. How can you say, “No, you are writing just for immigrants. How can you be writing for Puerto Ricans in Vermont?”