Someone has got to play the party pooper; the race to know Cuba before it is ruined by capitalism is a bit grotesque. And here in Cuba Counterpoints, we all are functioning as kind of go-betweens, as we always have, before we thought we needed to step out into the public, as go-betweens in the seconds before just about everyone (read U.S. Americans) can get to know first-hand the “out-of-gaze” island.
And yet, despite this problematic admission, I think it is important to own this role, as Cubanists, to radicalize our intermediary role, cracking it apart, whenever possible. Translation can help to enact this process, since competing contexts reside in singular words that refuse to consolidate knowledge–registers that are not always heard within the mainstream U.S. media. I want to address what translation means for a “besieged island,” as a mode of severing the effects of the U.S. embargo on knowledge and to explore the transforming task of the translator with regard to the island’s “opening,” or the U.S.’s opening to Cuba. Honest reckoning with knowledge entails discomfort, misunderstanding, and even a few “dislikes.” Sharing with each other and our readers how we come to translate what we translate is sometimes personal but is also part of knowledge networks that link us to distinct and sometimes overlapping circuits of power. It is crucial to put these questions in dialogue with issues of how knowledge and ideas from other places get translated into Cuba now and in the past.
To begin, I have decided to initiate readers with just one question about translation and Cuba directed at Kristin Dykstra, whose work is featured in this issue, along with poetry by Juan Carlos Flores. Kristin’s dedication to creating a dialogue between the Cuban space and that of the Americas is admirable, especially considering the numerous frustrations to realizing this. They have included nearly impossible communications with writers on account of poor or no Internet access, the disruption of travel plans due to the denial of U.S. visas, and even a period when the Treasury Department challenged publishing works by authors living in “enemy nations.”
As a translator and a close scholar of the Cuban language of the special period and beyond, might you comment upon how the larger politics of US-Cuban relationships penetrate the relationships of Cuban writer-US based translator as well as the circulation of writing?
In my experience each writer has his or her own position with regard to the larger politics you mention. I have to be flexible, respecting the fact that there is no “mastering” these relationships. History will always be larger than any of us.
As a translator, I try to draw out the benefit of this difficulty. Releasing oneself from the expectation of mastering cross-cultural relations can be good for translating. One has to learn how to keep asking questions. This is because literary translators don’t deal with clear limits on vocabulary or subject matter, unlike some kinds of specialized translation. Expression is infinitely open-ended in our area, so asking questions reveals entire issues that weren’t obvious up front.
I’ve written essays remarking conceptual issues wrapped up in US/Cuban relations. These often turn on questions about what we desire from Cuba and its writers. It’s my sense that when US readers take an interest in Cuban literature, we’re still often looking for a revolutionary alternative to the ills of capitalist society (who doesn’t need that?), or a writer who can help to formulate a positive new vision, a “Yes! / Sí se puede!” for replacing the aged machinery of US/Cuba opposition. In the 21st century these desires may be vaguely nostalgic since the Cold War is over. For instance, a poet whose great achievements are tragic, who throws his or her weight toward the “No!,” is not immediately useful for these purposes. I need to articulate those uses in English for audiences who aren’t aware of them at all.
Moving to a very broad level, I find it helpful to remember that Cuban literature – like other literature from Latin America –was not much translated into English until the 1960s and later. The political fact of the 1959 Revolution in Cuba drew attention to the presence of cultures throughout the hemisphere. For better and for worse, but always as a result of that historical fact, I still see that English-language readers in the US tend to expect Cuban writing to model “other” political ideas.
The better side of that expectation, for me, is when we allow politics to be diverse and flexible while listening to hear what people really want to say. The worse is when we leap to conclusions. Initially most US readers arrive at the literature without much background in Cuban expression or history: our media culture rarely puts out much imagery of Cuba that doesn’t still call up Cold War oppositions. As a result I see English-language audiences, including other poets, striving to map out the politics embedded in contemporary Cuban literature in ways that can be too automatic / programmatic. A Cuban writer who makes a critical statement about Cuba’s government or society may be immediately assumed to be pushing a specific brand of conservative politics. Or, a writer who says something positive may immediately be assumed to function as an ally or informal representative of the government – again, representing a specific brand of politics, but now from the left.
As some of the aforementioned obstacles and expectations are grappled with and become part of history, “Translation Magic” wishes to demystify some of the “magic” of either/ or perspectives and introduce critical perspectives on how to think about translational misunderstandings and impasses.
PDF/PRINT/EMAIL
