The frog who wanted to be a authentic frog 

Since I published the two stories "Faith and the Mountains" and "The Dinosaur" by Augusto Monterroso, I have not been able to rest. Outside Latin America, these mini-stories (translated) have generally not been received as well as I had hoped or expected. "Depressing", or "what is he trying to say?", or "how do you interpret these stories?". I was speechless, even disappointed, and almost willing to try quick and reassuring interpretations. I didn't. The stories simply belong entirely to the reader, I cannot imagine that Monterroso had seen it otherwise. A testament to this might be "The monkey who wanted to write satire" ("El mono que quiso ser escritor satírico").

To my great relief, there was an approving reaction after all, "hilarious"! But the immediatly following comment "so self-reflective... amazing for such a religious country", arroused my resistance: as if such a "religious" country were a homogeneous one, made up only of "simple-minded believers", and even more, as if self-reflection were something objective that was only possible in "enlightened" and perhaps even "democratic" circles.

Nevertheless, this "approval" (which is always important to me!), has made me reconsider translating and publishing this text by Augusto Monterroso.

The frog who wanted to be an authentic frog

[Mini-story - Full text].
Augusto Monterroso

Once upon a time there was a frog who wanted to be an genuine frog, and every day he tried hard to be one.

In the beginning he bought a mirror in which he looked at himself for a long time in search of his longed-for authenticity. Sometimes he seemed to find it and sometimes he didn't, depending on the mood of the day or the hour, until he got tired of it and stowed the mirror in a trunk.

Finally he thought that the only way to know his own essence was to be found in the opinion of people, and he began to comb his hair and dress and undress himself (when he had no other option) to find out if others approved of him and recognized in him a genuine frog.

One day he noticed that what they admired most about him was his body, especially his legs, so he began to do squats and leaps to improve them, and he felt that everyone applauded.

So he kept on making efforts until, willing to do anything to be considered an authentic frog, he would let them tear his legs off, and they eat them, and he could still hear - with bitterness - when they said, what a good frog, he tastes like chicken.

END

Original: much appreciated, thanks Casa digital "CIUDAD SEVA" del escritor Luis López Nieves

Translation: This time I did it "myself", of course again with help of many sources, because my aging brain depends on connecting more and more with the "Cloud", including discussing with other people. Therefore this is not an official translation.

Augusto Monterroso was born in Honduras, son of a Honduran and a Guatemalan, and spent his youth in Guatemala. He was marked by life under the totalitarian regime of dictator Jorge Ubico, the October Revolution of 1944 and subsequent democratization efforts in Guatemala, for whose first democratically legitimized government he also worked in the diplomatic service until the government of Jacobo Árbenz came to an end with his overthrow in 1954. After a brief exile in Chile, where he worked for Pablo Neruda's Gazeta de Chile, he eventually went into exile in Mexico, which became his home. According to the Wikipedia, his stories are influenced by Jorge Luis Borges and Franz Kafka (The Metamorphosis).

PS: Personally, I find in his short stories not only an ironic malice, but even more a desperate tenderness.

PS2: Thank you for daring to live with (my) contradictions and teaching me to endure them, even "risking" life. A risk that almost promises me something like security.

Songs - also - "belong" to the listener.