Jorge Luis Borges in Turkish: Magical Realism in a Politically-and-Poetically Motivated Literary Field

Abstract

Jorge Luis Borges in Turkish: Magical Realism in a Politically-and-Poetically Motivated Literary Field Ceyda Elgül This article traces the multiple encounters of Jorge Luis Borges with Turkish readers in light of the publishing policies and social dynamics surrounding the region in the second half of the twentieth century. Although the first translation of his work into Turkish appeared as early as 1955, Borges became popular in Turkey during the 1980s, concurrently with many other Latin American authors, some of whom were participants in the magical realist literary stream. The article mainly investigates the positions of the Turkish translations of Borges and other Latin American writers within the 1980s literary repertoire that reflects the state of cultural production following the Turkish coup d’état in 1980. The revival of the fantastic genre by local writers during the same time period also illuminates the topic of Latin American magical realism in Turkish. Therefore, this article examines the activities of literary agents, namely the translators, editors, and critics, who acted as representatives of Borges and other Latin American authors in Turkey, in addition to mentioning the local representatives of magical realism. In order to present a holistic view, before embarking on this 1980s literary network, the study explores the initial translation of Borges into Turkish, published in a literary review in the 1950s, which seems to suggest an alternative context for the writer that carries traces of the golden age of the short story in Turkey. It concludes with a discussion of the state of Borges and Latin American literature in Turkish after the 1980s, with references to published translations and articles by local critics that delved into these particular subjects. [End Page 53] Jorge Luis Borges’s initial and subsequent appearances in Turkish could be regarded as extensions of the journey of his literature in Europe. By the 1950s, French publisher Roger Caillois had introduced several of Borges’s works into French. In particular, the volumes Ficciones (Gallimard, 1951) and Labyrinthes (Gallimard, 1953) initiated the journey of Borges in Europe. In 1959, his works appeared in Italian (L’Aleph, Feltrinelli, 1959) and German (Labyrinthe, Carl Hanser Verlag, 1959) (Irby and Yates); and in 1961, he received the Prix Formentor, followed by the publication of his two major English-language translations, Ficciones (Grove Press, 1962) and Labyrinths (New Directions, 1962). The 1960s witnessed Borges’s first translations into many other European languages, such as Swedish (Biblioteket I Babel, 1963), Dutch (De Aleph en andere verhalen, 1964), Norwegian (Labyrinter, 1964), Portuguese (História universal da infâmia, 1964), Polish (Fickje, 1972), Greek (Anthologia, 1979), and Czech (Brodiova zpráva, 1979). Following the 1980s, the rest of the world encountered Borges through translations into Slovak (1980), Polish (1980), Albanian (1981), Hebrew (1982), Catalan (1983), Danish (1983), Romanian (1983), Hungarian (1984), Russian (1984), Slovenian (1984), Estonian (1987), Arabic (1987), and Bulgarian (1989).1 The above list refers to the first translations of Borges’s works that appeared in book form. In many of these regions, translations of his poems, stories, and/or essays had been published in periodicals before the appearance of these translated books.2 This was also the case in Turkey. In 1955, a translation of the short story “La escritura del dios” appeared in the journal Yenilik, under the Turkish title “Tanrının Yazdığı Yazı” (The Writing of the God). The story was originally published in the Argentine paper Sur, then included in the short story collection El Aleph in 1949. It might be surprising to see Borges in a Turkish literary journal at a time when he was barely recognized in Europe and North America. However, the literary setting of 1950s Turkey may account for this early encounter between an Argentine writer and Turkish readers. The 1950s cannot be examined separately from Turkey’s transition to a multi-party regime, after which the country witnessed the implementation of a liberal democracy model that exhibited close ties with the USA. The economic and political developments of this era require more detailed elaboration that would exceed the scope of this article. However, the liberal environment promised by the political diversification of the 1950s can still be related to Borges’s...