María del Carmen Rodríguez is a semi-secret poet. She is also a teacher and translator. He has erudition and quick thinking that, at least for me, is sometimes difficult to follow.
We see each other often. A birthday, a play, some Christmas Eve. I recently came across her unexpectedly (although knowing her work, “unexpected” could be a qualified term): I’ve finished reading Animal lovea tattered text by the French writer and winner of the 2025 Formentor Prize Hélène Cixous, published by La Marca, and I discovered, a fact I had not noticed, that the translation was by Maria del Carmen.
“I felt his pain in every word.” She would tell me later, when I called her and we talked about the book. What would we readers do without good translators? Because Cixous’s writing is brilliant, sophisticated and even fragile. Translating it from French to Spanish required precision goldsmithing; And in case Animal loveA heart capable of feeling the horror and beauty of this world as the heart of Maria del Carmen feels.
Animal love It is a Cixous conference published by Bayard Publishing in France in 2021, and its Spanish version is now part of the collection short (Dedicated to this type of material).
To talk about the relationship between humans and animals, their inconsistency and what it expresses in our case, Cixous goes back to his Algerian childhood and the memory of the dog Phipps, who was subjected to countless abuses. A lovable and unlovable puppy at the same time; A being at the expense of that very human capacity to harm what one loves. Without elaborate metaphors or easy conclusions, the author also talks about Algeria, the country where she was born in 1937 and which she remembers mired in violence and multiple sufferings (the author settled in France in 1955).
To talk about the relationship between humans and animals, their inconsistency and what it expresses in our case, Cixous goes back to his Algerian childhood and the memory of the dog Phipps, who was subjected to countless abuses.
In front of the audience, given the kind of expressions he uses, we assume that we are young, Cixous explains that even though Phipps is now dead, the intensity of the connection with him still remains. “You know, Phipps,” he admits that he regrets never telling him, This is a time of injustice, blind hatred, and deadly misunderstanding“From massacres, from slavery, we are all at the same hearth.”
The facts seem trivial. The father brings home the puppy that little Helen wanted. But the little dog Doesn’t behave according to your expectationsNeither his mother nor any potential neighbors. The dog, who also considered him a brother in a way, “did not allow himself to be caught; he loved us according to him, not according to our commands.” And you must have a lot of kindness – the kind that Cixous’s father had – to accept these kinds of differences without feeling “dark disappointment”, without diminishing love or opening the door to neglect and cruelty, Anesthesia for wounds that may be inflicted on another person.
The author explains to the audience that today she lives with two cats, which she cares for faithfully. But the ghost of Phipps, the scar of what she did to him (or the violence others unleashed on the dog without her, in those years, apparently, caring about him) remains: a wound that won’t heal. “Life is very cruel and we have no other weapon than trying to imagine and think.”He writes from a place that cannot accurately be compared to the “mascot” we are accustomed to.
Cixous was born in a harsh region, in a harsh time, to a Jewish family who saw firsthand the Nazi horror. His approach is strongly moral. He knows what our species is capable of, and from this knowledge he suggests (in a gesture that includes the “Hairy Brothers”, but also humanity): “The ancient terror remains. He who does not save, is killed.”
About The Author
