Fabio Morábito's intriguing Mother Tongue features 84 two-page short shorts in a genre-defying collection combining personal musings, polyglot challenges, and literary references. As with his earlier fiction translated from the Spanish, Morábito reunites with poet/professor Curtis Bauer, who provides another seamless translation.
The pieces here are as diverse as Morábito's own background; he was born in Egypt, raised in Italy, and has been Mexico-based since age 15. Morábito opens and ends with betrayal: in "Scrittore Traditore," betraying his "numbskull" first love at age seven leads him to understand his "vocation would be to write books"; in the final, titular "Mother Tongue," becoming that writer comes at the cost of betraying his first language, as "the most foreign foreigner [who] writes in another language." In between, Morábito considers writing schedules, the habit of underlining in books, a "stupid dictionary" that isn't, and the rewards and complications of "monstrous linguistic diversity." He examines mythological Greece's Odysseus, Helen, and Troy while contemplating--often irreverently--esteemed writers and their literary achievements, including Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina (he reads it piecemeal as a "trial run" during bad-back heat-pack applications and doctor visits), Gregor Samsa (because "Kafka clings to a name as a castaway to a plank"), and Jack London (who eschews names to keep readers distanced from his characters).
Almost half of the contents previously appeared in various prestigious journals, and the collection was first published in Mexico in 2014. Without a distinct narrative thread here, each piece easily stands alone. As a book, it can be savored in small portions or enjoyed in chunks, even as a single-sitting whole. As delightful as it is erudite, Morábito's Mother Tongue entertains and illuminates. --Terry Hong