Cannibal Translation Volume 44: Literary Reciprocity in Contemporary Latin America

Cannibal translators in Latin America use collaborative techniques to create a distinct Latin American literary exchange that rejects normative and Anglocentric approaches to translation. Isabel C. Gómez's book explores innovative strategies of collectivity and process, such as untranslation, transcreation, intersectional autobiographical translation, and transpeaking, and invites readers to find fresh meaning in other translational histories.

Format: Hardback
Length: 328 pages
Publication date: 31 August 2023
Publisher: Northwestern University Press

Cannibal translators are a breed of literary artists who take on the task of digesting, recombining, transforming, and troubling their source materials. They are a unique group of writers who have embraced cannibalism as a practice that honors the incorporation of the other into the self. In this essay, we will explore the creative potential of translations that embrace mutuality and resist assimilation.

To make our case, we will excavate a network of translation projects in Latin America that includes canonical writers of the twentieth century, such as Haroldo and Augusto de Campos, Rosario Castellanos, Clarice Lispector, José Emilio Pacheco, Octavio Paz, and Angel Ráma. These authors took up Brazilian theories of translation in Spanish to fashion a distinctly Latin American literary exchange, one that rejected normative and Anglocentric approaches to translation and developed collaborative techniques to bring about a new understanding of world literature.

By shedding new light on the political and aesthetic pathways of translation movements beyond the Global North, Gómez offers an alternative conception of the theoretical and ethical challenges posed by this artistic practice.

Cannibal Translation: Literary Reciprocity in Contemporary Latin America mobilizes a capacious archive of personal letters, publishers records, newspapers, and new media to illuminate inventive strategies of collectivity and process, such as untranslation, transcreation, intersectional autobiographical translation, and transpeaking. The book invites readers to find fresh meaning in other translational histories and question the practices that mediate literary circulation.

In conclusion, cannibal translators are a breed of literary artists who have embraced cannibalism as a practice that honors the incorporation of the other into the self. By excavating a network of translation projects in Latin America that includes canonical writers of the twentieth century, Gómez offers an alternative conception of the theoretical and ethical challenges posed by this artistic practice. Cannibal Translation: Literary Reciprocity in Contemporary Latin America mobilizes a capacious archive of personal letters, publishers records, newspapers, and new media to illuminate inventive strategies of collectivity and process, such as untranslation, transcreation, intersectional autobiographical translation, and transpeaking. The book invites readers to find fresh meaning in other translational histories and question the practices that mediate literary circulation.

Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780810145962