This book is a critical study of the work of Gregory Rabassa, translator of such canonical novels as Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Cien anos de soledad, Jose Lezama Lima's Paradiso, and Julio Cortazar's Rayuela. During the past five decades, Rabassa has translated over fifty Latin American novels and to this day he is one of the most prominent English translators of literature from Spanish and Portuguese. Rabassa's role was pivotal in the internationalization of several Latin American writers; it led to the formation of a canon and, significantly, to the most prevalent image of Latin American literature in the world. Even though Rabassa's legacy has been widely recognized, the extent of his work's influence and the complexity of the sociocultural circumstances surrounding his practice have remained largely unexamined. In Gregory Rabassa's Latin American Literature: A Translator's Visible Legacy, Maria Constanza Guzman examines the translator's conceptions about language, contextualizes his work in terms of the structures and conditions that have surrounded his practice, and investigates the role his translations have played in constructing collective narratives of Latin American literature in the global imaginary. By revisiting and historicizing the translator's practice, this book reveals the scale of Rabassa's legacy. The translator emerges as an active subject in the inter-American literary exchange, an agent bound to history and to the forces involved in the production of culture.
Maria Constanza Guzman is associate professor at York University in Toronto, Canada, where she is appointed to the School of Translation, the Department of Hispanic Studies, and the Graduate Program in Humanities.
Chapter 1 Introduction Chapter 2 Chapter 1: Why Rabassa?: Theorizing the Translator's Legacy Chapter 3 Chapter 2: Rabassa's Conceptions of Translation and Language Chapter 4 Chapter 3: Del lado de alla y Del lado de aca / From this Side and from the Other: Rabassa's Dialogue with His Authors Chapter 5 Chapter 4: Ayer y hoy / Past and Present: Rabassa's Canon and the Reception of His Translations Chapter 6 Chapter 5: Rabassa's Translations and an Imagined Latin America Chapter 7 Afterword Chapter 8 Appendix I: Personal interview with Gregory Rabassa Chapter 9 Appendix II: List of translations by Gregory Rabassa Chapter 10 Appendix III: Copies of annotated drafts and manuscripts
Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude achieved the status of a classic in the English-reading world because of Rabassa's translation of it from the Spanish. As one of the preeminent translators of contemporary Spanish- and Portuguese-language literatures, Rabassa has introduced Anglophone readers to the works of numerous Latin American and Luso-Brazilian novelists, so this examination of his ideas and views merits serious attention...One is rewarded with fascinating perspectives on Rabassa's relationships with his authors, especially Julio Cortazar, author of Hopscotch; the overwhelmingly positive reception of his translations; and his responsibility for knowledge of the Latin American "boom" in the English-speaking world. Also included are an insightful interview with Rabassa and a welcome complete list of Rabassa's translations, which leaves one in awe of the breadth of his accomplishments. Summing Up: Highly recommended. * CHOICE *
