Table Of ContentThe Routledge Handbook of Latin
American Literary Translation
The Routledge Handbook of Latin American Literary Translation offers an understanding of trans-
lation in Latin America both at a regional and transnational scale. Broad in scope, it is devoted
primarily to thinking comprehensively and systematically about the intersection of literary
translation and Latin American literature, with a curated selection of original essays that
critically engage with translation theories and practices outside of hegemonic Anglo centers.
In this introductory volume, through survey and case-study chapters, contributing au-
thors cover literary and cultural translation in the region historically, geographically, and
linguistically. From the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries, the chapters focus on issues
ranging from the role of translation in the construction of national identities to the challenges
of translation in the current digital age. Areas of interest expand from the United States to the
Southern Cone, including the Caribbean and Brazil, as well as the impact of Latin American
literature internationally, and paying attention to translation from and to indigenous lan-
guages; Portuguese, English, French, German, Chinese, Spanglish, and more.
The first of its kind in English, this Handbook will shed light on different translation
approaches and invite a rethinking of intercultural and interlingual exchanges from Latin
American viewpoints. This is key reading for all scholars, researchers, and students of literary
translation studies, Latin American literature, and comparative literature.
Delfina Cabrera is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Portugiesisch-Brasilianische Institut of
the Universität zu Köln. She is an active literary translator and the author of Las lenguas vivas:
Zonas de exilio y traducción en Manuel Puig.
Denise Kripper is an Associate Professor of Spanish at Lake Forest College (USA) and the
Translation Editor at Latin American Literature Today. She is an active literary translator and the
author of Narratives of Mistranslation: Fictional Translators in Latin American Literature.
Routledge Handbooks in Translation and Interpreting
Studies
Routledge Handbooks in Translation and Interpreting Studies provide comprehensive over-
views of the key topics in translation and interpreting studies. All entries for the handbooks
are specially commissioned and written by leading scholars in the field. Clear, accessible, and
carefully edited, Routledge Handbooks in Translation and Interpreting Studies are the ideal
resource for both advanced undergraduates and postgraduate students.
The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Media
Edited by Esperança Bielsa
The Routledge Handbook of Conference Interpreting
Edited by Michaela Albl-Mikasa and Elisabet Tiselius
The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Methodology
Edited by Federico Zanettin and Christopher Rundle
The Routledge Handbook of Audio Description
Edited by Christopher Taylor and Elisa Perego
The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Memory
Edited by Sharon Deane-Cox and Anneleen Spiessens
The Routledge Handbook of Sign Language Translation and Interpreting
Edited by Christopher Stone, Robert Adam, Ronice Quadros de Müller,
and Christian Rathmann
The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Religion
Edited by Hephzibah Israel
The Routledge Handbook of Translation, Interpreting, and Bilingualism
Edited by Aline Ferreira and John W. Schwieter
The Routledge Handbook of Latin American Literary Translation
Edited by Delfina Cabrera and Denise Kripper
For a full list of titles in this series, please visit https://www.routledge.com/Routledge-
Handbooks-in-Translation-and-Interpreting-Studies/book-series/RHTI.
The Routledge Handbook
of Latin American
Literary Translation
Edited by
Delfina Cabrera and Denise Kripper
Designed cover image: © Getty Images | dimapf
First published 2023
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 selection and editorial matter, Delfina Cabrera and Denise Kripper;
individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Delfina Cabrera and Denise Kripper to be identified as the
authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual
chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other
means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and
recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Cabrera, Delfina, 1984–editor. | Kripper, Denise, editor.
Title: The Routledge handbook of Latin American literary translation /
edited by Delfina Cabrera, Denise Kripper.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2023. |
Series: Routledge handbooks in translation and interpreting studies |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022040257 | ISBN 9780367689247 (hardback) |
ISBN 9780367689254 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003139645 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Translating and interpreting—Latin America. | LCGFT: Essays.
Classification: LCC PN241.5.L29 R68 2023 |
DDC 418/.02098—dc23/eng/20221019
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022040257
ISBN: 978-0-367-68924-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-68925-4 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-13964-5 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003139645
Typeset in Bembo
by codeMantra
Contents
Acknowledgments xiii
Contributors xiv
Delineating a Latin American Approach to Literary Translation 1
Delfina Cabrera and Denise Kripper
Introduction 1
Content Overview 4
Pedagogical Applications 9
Further Reflections 9
Works Cited 10
PART I
In Translation: Linguistic & Cultural Diversity Within the Continent 11
1 Philology and Translation on the Way to a New World: Andrés Bello,
Translator 13
Juan Antonio Ennis
Introduction 13
Philological Foundations for a New Order: Transcription and Translatio 16
Translating for the New World: The London Reviews 19
Conclusion 25
Works Cited 26
Further Readings 28
2 From Romanticism to Modernism: Translating Heine in Spanish America 30
Andrea Pagni
Introduction: First Translations of Heine in Buenos Aires and
Montevideo (1836–1838) 30
Heine’s Lyrical Self Travels to Spanish America 32
Translating Heine in the Contact Zone: Spanish American
Exile in New York 34
v
Contents
Ways of Translating Heine 37
Conclusion: Heine and His Spanish American Translators at the
Outset of Modernization 42
Works Cited 44
Further Readings 47
3 Translation and Transculturation: José Martí, Helen Hunt Jackson,
César Vallejo 48
Esther Allen
Introduction 48
A Tentative Genealogy 49
Jackson, Martí, Vallejo 53
Macrotexts 56
Conclusion: Transculturation 61
Works Cited 63
Further Readings 64
4 José María Arguedas: Decolonizing Translation 65
Fanny Arango-Keeth
Introduction 65
Methodological Approach 71
Corpus 72
Conclusion 80
Works Cited 82
Further Readings 83
5 The Woven Threads of L iterary Translation in the Greater Caribbean 84
Mónica María del Valle Idárraga
Introduction: A Colonial Legacy Embodied by Language 84
Beyond Colonial Monolingualism, a Literature Born in Translation 86
Beyond National Language 88
The Voices of Creole and Vernacular Languages Are Heard 89
The Publishing Market and the Search for Circum-Caribbean Connections 95
Conclusion 99
Works Cited 99
Further Readings 101
6 Translation and A nthropophagy from the Library
of H aroldo de Campos 102
Max Hidalgo Nácher
Introduction: The Library of Haroldo de Campos as a Space for
Criticism and Creation 102
vi
Contents
The Translation Space and the Worlds of the Library 103
Networks, Voyages, Textual Galaxies 106
Toward a Poetics of Translation 109
Transcreation and Transculturation: Uses of the Library 112
Translation as a Parodic Space 114
Conclusion 115
Works Cited 115
Further Readings 116
7 Resisting Translation: Spanglish and Multilingual
Writing in the Americas 118
Sarah Booker
Introduction 118
Spanglish and Hybrid Languages 120
Hybridity in Action 124
The (Un)translatability of Spanglish 131
Conclusion 135
Works Cited 136
Further Readings 137
8 Approaching Literary Self- Translation in the United States and Latin
America 138
Marlene Hansen Esplin
Introduction 138
Self-Writing 142
Intralingual Translation 145
Interlingual Translation 147
Conclusion 150
Works Cited 152
Further Readings 153
PART II
In & Out of Latin America: Reception of Translated
Literature 155
9 José Salas Subirat and the First Ulysses in Spanish 157
Lucas Petersen
Introduction 157
A Young Man from the Outskirts 158
The Path to Ulysses 159
An Adventurous Publisher 162
The (Hypothetical) Story of a Translation 165
vii
Contents
Critics and Interrupted Revisions 168
The “Problem of Language” 170
Conclusion: Crossed Tensions 174
Works Cited 175
Further Readings 176
10 Jorge Luis Borges’s Theory and Practice of Translation 177
Efraín Kristal
Introduction 177
Translation as a Creative Art 178
Borges the Translator 179
A Case Study: Max Beerbohm’s “Enoch Soames” 183
Commonalities and Differences 185
From Parody to Fantastic Literature 188
Conclusion: “August 25, 1983” 190
Works Cited 191
Further Readings 192
11 The Boom of the Latin American Novel in French Translation 193
Gersende Camenen
Introduction 193
Before the Boom 195
The 1960s: A New World and New Actors in Publishing 197
The Boom in the Cadre vert Collection of Le Seuil 198
Two Translators of the Boom: Albert Bensoussan and
Laure Bataillon 200
The Boom in the French Press 205
Conclusion 207
Works Cited 208
Further Readings 210
12 Chinese Translation of Latin American Literature (1950–1999) 211
Teng Wei
Introduction 211
Beginnings: A Literature of Resistance 212
Highly Politicized Translation (1950–1970) 213
Depoliticized Translation (1980s) 215
Translation Entering the Global Market (1990s) 218
Conclusion 219
Works Cited 220
Further Readings 221
viii
Contents
13 Octavio Paz, Thinker of Translation: Versioning Matsuo Bashō and
Fernando Pessoa 222
Christian Elguera and Daisy Saravia
Introduction 222
Sendas de Oku Translated by Paz: Diffusing the Haiku in
Latin America 224
Octavio Paz in a Labyrinth of Ideologies and Norms: Modernizing
Alberto Caeiro’s Poetry 230
Conclusion 238
Works Cited 238
Further Readings 240
14 “Tequio literario”: Translating Indigenous Literature as
Communal Labor 241
Paul M. Worley and Ellen Jones
Introduction 241
From Individual Craft to “Tequio Literario” 242
Self-Translation and Translingualism in Indigenous Texts 244
The Politics of Translating into English 249
Literary Translation as “Tequio Literario” 251
By the Community, For the Community 251
Respect for Oral Versions of the Text 253
Translating Translingually 254
Publication in Multiple Complementary Versions 255
Reciprocal Labor 256
Conclusion 256
Works Cited 257
Further Readings 259
15 Killing Bill: Shakespeare in Latin America 260
Heather Cleary
Introduction 260
The Art of Transfiguration 265
Lear, Ready for Her Close-Up 268
Into the Woods 270
Conclusion 274
Works Cited 275
Further Readings 276
ix
