Ready, Set, Go
Ready, Set, Go is Ana Patete's translation of Prontos, listos, ya (2010, Puntocero), a novella written by the Uruguayan author and screenwriter Inés Bortagaray. It chronicles the inner meditations and sporadic external interactions of a young girl in the backseat of a car on her way to a beach town with her family. The story is told in first person and oscillates between the girl’s precocious observations about life, death, family, Catholicism and love whilst balancing her tender and, at times, hilarious naiveté.
PRAISE FOR READY, SET, GO
An original and dazzling road novel that invites us, alongside its protagonist, to traverse the imagination's landscape, the language of dreams, and the rituals of childhood. Everything in it, beginning with the journey itself, is an entrance to another astonishing trajectory, the constant flow of verbal intuition: that which opens itself up naturally to the children’s gaze, and that, with the passing of time (that other journey), some of us achieve preserving in our adult intimacy. In her aesthetic discoveries, Inés Bortagaray has best conserved the narrative tradition of Felisberto Hernández and Mario Levrero, rigorous in its inquisitiveness, its ludic strength, and its rich and inimitable strangeness.
– Carlos Yushimito, author of Lecciones para un niño que llega tarde (Lessons for a Child Who Arrives Late)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Inés Bortagaray (1975, Salto, Uruguay) is a writer and screenwriter. She published Ahora tendré que matarte (a Flexes Terpines collection, directed by Mario Levrero), and Prontos, listos, ya (Ready, Set, Go) (translated into Portuguese by Cosac Naify). Some of her stories and non-fiction work has appeared in Bogotá Contada (Libro al Viento, Colombia); Pequeñas resistencias 3, una antología del nuevo cuento sudamericano (Páginas de Espuma); Número Cero, el perro, and Zoetrope: All Story, among other journals and anthologies. Other stories by Bortagaray have also appeared in projects such as Suelta, Los Noveles, Nuestra aparente rendición, Palabras errantes: Latin American Literature in Translation, Altaïr, and El futuro no es nuestro.
Bortagaray has worked as a film screenwriter for directors from Uruguay, Argentina, and Brazil. She obtained the Special Jury Prize at the 2016 Sundance Festival for her screenplay of Ana Katz’s Mi amiga del parque (My Friend from the Park).
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR
Ana Patete was born and raised in New York City, having moved to Puerto Rico in her adolescence. She attended Brown University, where she received a BA in Hispanic Studies. She has spent time in Argentina and Uruguay, where she unearthed her zeal for literary translation and medialunas.
Cover image by Gerardo Cedeño Garza
