Abstract
Rather than view translation as a compromise at best, a failure at worst, and always derivative and secondary, I explore the practice of literary translation as one of engagement: with the text, with the Other, and with the world. I will discuss the nature of this engagement as dynamic, electric, life-affirming, an encounter and a dialogue that offers an opportunity for both unification and separateness, freedom and intimacy. From this perspective of the personal, I will reach into the realm of the “political,” the broader context within which translators work—the power differentials, the objective material conditions—and the specifics of my own translating relationship: between Latin American Spanish and North American English. My understanding of that relationship—which could be framed as the theory behind my practice—influences what I want to translate—passionate engagement—and how I translate: how I approach the object of desire. I will read from and discuss several of my most recent translations, texts that in themselves explore questions of language and power: the power of language to subvert, and the dis-harmonious and unequal association of languages and cultures in this “globalized” world, where issues of separateness and unification are often a matter of survival.
Highlights
I was fortunate, in a skewed kind of way, to get a rather stark insight into one aspect of the translator’s so-called worldview, namely my own, when I saw my name on the website dedicated to “The Translator as Theorist?” conference accompanied by that one little word “translator.” What better place to start, I thought, than with my own attitude toward myself and my work
This is a rather prosaic, mundane way to look at things
When I first started thinking and reading in preparation for this talk, I noticed that translators are often described as being caught in the clutches of a series of paradoxes that get translated into dilemmas through our work
Summary
I was fortunate, in a skewed kind of way, to get a rather stark insight into one aspect of the translator’s so-called worldview, namely my own, when I saw my name on the website dedicated to “The Translator as Theorist?” conference accompanied by that one little word “translator.” What better place to start, I thought, than with my own attitude toward myself and my work. Moving away from paradigms of domination and submission, which are necessarily gendered, to the best of all possible worlds, we http://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/TC
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