Translated from Spanish by Juan G. Sánchez Martínez

Mario Castells is an Argentinian writer, critic and translator. A member of GESP-UBA (Social Studies on Paraguay Group), he specializes in Latin American literature, particularly Paraguayan literature of Guarani expression. He coordinates the Poets in Native Languages Panel ​​at the International Poetry Festival of Rosario. He has published: Rafael Barrett: el humanismo libertario en el Paraguay de la era liberal (2010); El mosto y la queresa (2012); Lenguaje. Poesía en idiomas indígenas americanos (2014), a compilation of poetry by Liliana Ancalao, Juan Chico, and Leko Zamora; Trópico de Villa Diego (2014); Diario de un albañil (2021); La selva migrante: Carlos Martínez Gamba y el exilio de la lengua guaraní (2022); and Plata y escama (2024). His work has been translated into English and Portuguese. Buenos Aires, Mbairy Mbáire, his first book of poems in Guaraní is forthupcoming. 

These poems come from two of my books: Buenos Aires, Mbairy Mbáire and Cuadernos del largo derramadero (in press). They describe my relationship with the river. The Plata River watershed is made up of many rivers that are one and the same, a branching of rivers that flow into the Plata estuary. My life is linked and intertwined with all of them: in these waters converge the myth of origin and that of the end. The end of the world will come about through the jagua rovy, the blue jaguar, who will devour the world by starting from the Paraná guasu, the Plata River, which is an open cemetery where hundreds of comrades were thrown from planes to their death during the last military dictatorship (1976-1982). I was born in Rosario. I have lived all my life on the banks of the Paraná, on the banks of the river. My parents —Paraguayan exiles— are from the area where the Paraná and Paraguay meet, a territory that bears the name of Ñeembucú. I currently live in the Tigre Delta.