Cultural and Discursive Displacements: Chicano Literature in Translation.

MARÍA LAURA SPOTURNO

St Andrews, Reino Unido

Seminario; Comparative Literature Seminar; 2013

School of Modern Languages, University of St Andrews

This presentation explores two distinct but related aspects of Chicano writing. On the one hand, I intend to revise Tymoczko’s (1999) proposal regarding the similarities that postcolonial and minority writing share with literary translation as these are central to appreciate the underlying mechanisms and displacements in Chicano literature and its translation. On the other hand, I will present and analyse a few examples taken from two paradigmatic Chicano novels, which proceed differently in terms of the cultural and discursive displacements they celebrate, both in their original form and in the Spanish translation. Attention will be given to Pocho by José Antonio Villarreal and its Spanish translation performed by Chicano critic Roberto Cantú and Caramelo or Puro Cuento by Sandra Cisneros and its translation into Spanish carried out by Mexican poet and writer Liliana Valenzuela.