Transcreation and Self-Translation in Contemporary Latinx Poetry
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2229134 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Rachel Galvin (0000-0001-9279-4263, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 49 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 28-54 |
| Publication date | 2022-09-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Critical Inquiry (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0093-1896 • E-ISSN: 1539-7858 |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1086/721169 |
| OpenAlex | W4292656063 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 13 |
This article argues that a recent wave of creative self-translations by Latinx poets marks a significant turn in Latinx literary history. In contrast to the conventional view of translation as a derivative, subsidiary craft, these self-translations serve as a creative practice (for composing innovative literature), a trope (for cultural and linguistic multiplicity and self-decolonization), and a theoretical framing (attuned to colonial relationships and power differentials between languages and cultures). What does this reconceptualization of self-translation mean for Latinx poetry and for translation studies? What are its contexts and antecedents, its aesthetic forms and modes of inventiveness, its social and theoretical implications? I consider these questions in relation to the work of two Puerto Rican poets, Urayoán Noel and Raquel Salas Rivera, arguing that their practices are illuminated by the decolonial theory of “transcreation,” or creative translation, developed by Haroldo de Campos. Their poetry is related to but distinct from the tradition of Spanglish and code-switching in Latinx poetry, for English and Spanish coexist in their self-translations in novel ways that do not necessarily correspond to ordinary speech patterns. At the same time, traditional values in translation are supplanted by an emphasis on creativity, criticality, and the translator’s discernable presence. I contend that transcreative self-translation reflects, critiques, and queers the process of transculturation ongoing in the US and its colonies on linguistic, cultural, and social levels
Aesthetics · Art · Craft · Creativity · Foregrounding · Linguistics · Literature · Poetry · Sociology · Transculturation · Visual arts · Anthropology · Cultural and Social Studies in Latin America · Latin American and Latino Studies · Latin American Literature Studies · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology
| Citations per year | 0.5 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2024 - 2024 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |