The
topic for this issue was Cecilia Vicuña’s idea originally.
And it was she who brought us to the word “translucinación,”
a word made up by Andrés Ajens to describe how translation
is a form of reading and writing that creates new work, new conversations.
Translucinación is, like dialogue (the topic of Chain 9),
a cross-cultural encounter loaded with hope and yet always in
danger of going wrong. While translation, post-Walter Benjamin,
is no longer presumed to contain or clarify another language (or
its accompanying culture), what interested us was the relentless
utopian drive within any act of translation. For no matter what
translation does, it still represents the need for one culture
to speak and learn about another through the other culture’s
words.
As
we edited this issue, we thought about these issues: What happens
to a language when it is brought into English (or any other tongue)?
What gets lost and what is added? How can a translation present
its alterations with consciousness? How can a translation be shown
as the creation of something new rather than a distortion of an
original? Can translation be an act of dialogue rather than an
act of imperialistic plunder?
We
didn’t want an issue that just collected works from around
the world. And as we edited, we avoided fake translations, machine
translations, homophonic translations, and oulipo-inspired translation
procedures. We believe these methods do have some value (and we
have included a few examples of such translations to represent
the many that were submitted to us), but we wanted an issue that
explored how translation might be a starting point for something
that remained in explicit dialogue with the original work while
at the same time transforming this work into something new. As
we worked on this issue, Ammiel Alcalay and Larry Venuti sent
us some emails that pushed us hard to think about the ethics of
translation, an ethics of remaining attentive to what a work from
another culture has to say. We like to think of translation as
a collaborative act with many options. The translator might choose
to remain intimate with the original and attempt a reproduction
that emphasizes meaning or s/he might choose to spin off and explore
intent or sound or any other aspect of the work. But we wanted
work that made it clear that the translator and the author both
matter. The translator is not just an invisible worker who only
deserves a name in italics at the end of the piece. The translator
is a visible creator who also has a responsibility to be in dialogue
with the author and to not treat the original work as a completely
knowable object, or as simply an interesting excuse for word play.
Because we see translation as the result of such a rigorous conversation,
we decided to put the author and translator names beside each
other.
We
also decided to include, whenever possible, the work in the original
language (there are several exceptions where either the translator
refused or it just didn’t make sense). We are very grateful
to the translators for providing the originals, for obtaining
permission to reprint them, and for their help with typesetting
them. If the original piece was previously published, the translators
have made all reasonable efforts in good faith to obtain permission
from copyright holders. Any permission omissions will be corrected
in future issues. Deirdre Kovac, who typeset this issue, also
deserves our thanks for her patient and attentive work with so
many different fonts and languages.
—JO
& JS
