Contemporary Spanish American fiction in English: Who is translating whom?

Abstract

Writing, we know, is men's work; translating is women's. Or is it not so? This study investigates the power relations between writers and translators, men and women, and colonisers and colonised, approaching its subject matter from three distinct angles. On an abstract level, that of translation theory, however basic, it considers the roles of the writer and translator, with the powers and limitations implicit in their relative positions. On an historical plane, it highlights some moments and periods of the past that have contributed to the present hierarchised and, in my view, unbalanced state. And to bring our knowledge up to date, it incorporates an empirical study into the contemporary Spanish American novel, my own primary area of research. Looking at the entire range of narrative fiction in English translation, this study draws some perhaps surprising conclusions regarding the question posed in my subtitle: Who Is Translating Whom?