Transatlantic Translations: Dialogues in Latin American Literature

by Julio Ortega

Christened the New World, Latin America represented a new beginning for Spanish colonists. In fact, the discovery of Latin America was only part of a continuing, worldwide search for new fertile land, precious metals, and slave labor. Nevertheless, this idealized image of Latin America continues to dominate interpretations of “natives,” who are transformed into marginalized, romanticized figures, either unusually wise or wildly heroic.

Transatlantic Translations refigures Latin American narratives outside of this standard postcolonial framework of victimization and resistance. Julio Ortega traces the ways in which Latin America has been represented through the works of many “native speakers,” including Juan Rulfo, Gabriel García Márquez, and Juan Maria Gutierrez. Language, Ortega reveals, was not solely a way for colonizers to indoctrinate and civilize; instead, it gave Latin Americans the means to tell their own history. Spanning literatures from the early modern period to the present day, the essays in Transatlantic Translations demonstrate the rich history of shared language between old and new worlds.

240 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Escritor, crítico peruano y profesor de la Universidad de Brown en Estados Unidos. Autor de "Una poética del cambio" (1992), "El principio radical de lo nuevo" (1997), "Trasatlantic Translations" (2006) y "Rubén Darío y la lectura mutua" (2004), entre otros textos. De su trabajo más reciente destaca "El hacer poético" (2011) en colaboración con María Ramírez Ribes.