Bangla Translations of Latin American Poetry: A Critical Study

The aim of this study is to map the reception of Latin American Poetry within the corpus of the Bangla world of letters for three decades, from 1980 to 2010. In the 1970s and the 1980s, the influence and reception of Latin American Literatures in Bangla was reflected primarily in the introductions to translations, preludes, and conclusions of translations. During the late 1960s and the early 1970s Latin American poets like Pablo Neruda, Victoria Ocampo, Octavio Paz, and Jorge Luis Borges had caught the attention of eminent Bangla poets like Bishnu Dey, Shakti Chattopadhyay, and Shankha Ghosh who started taking interest in their works. This interest soon got reflected in the form of translations being produced in Bangla from the English versions available. The next two decades saw the corpus of Latin American Literatures make a widespread entry into the world of academic essays, journals, and articles published in little magazines along with translations of novels, short stories and poetry collections by leading Bangla publication houses like Dey’s Publishing, Radical Impressions, etc. This period was marked by a proliferation of scholarship in Bangla on Latin American Literatures. By the 21st century, critical thinking in Latin American Literatures had established itself in the Bangla world of letters. This chapter in particular studies the translations of Latin American poetry by Bengali poets like Shakti Chattopadhyay, Subhas Mukhopadhyay, Bishnu Dey, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, Shankha Ghosh, Biplab Majhi among many others. The analysis relates to issues they focus on including themes like self, modernity, extension of time and space, political and poetic resonances, and untranslatability. Through a step by step research of the various stages of translation activities in Bengal and Bangla, it traces how translations of Latin American Literatures begin to take place on literary grounds that had already become sites of engagement with these issues. The chapter further explores the ways in which all these poet-translators situate their translations in relation to the issues of concern. In addition, it also addresses the question of what they hence contribute to Bangla literature at large. I first chose to explore the ways in which these issues are framed in the reflections and debates on translation in India and Bengal in the 20th century. Thereon I have tried to show how these translations of Latin American poetry developed their own thrust in relation to these issues and concerns.

Mirrors, Contradictions and Paradoxes in Los espejos comunicantes, by Óscar Hahn

As in all cultures, the mirror is a recurring symbol in both Latin-American poetry and narratives. It has various meanings when seen in different literary contexts. The most notable poets of the 20th century, such as Jorge Luis Borges, Octavio Paz, and Carlos Pellicer associate it with mystery, horror, silence, emptiness, catastrophe, and everything which is contradictory, paradoxical, and strange. According to some, the mirror itself reveals the source of poetry and literature, a kind of abyss from which something arises out of nothing. It also allows one to see himself through the eyes of the other. In the book of poetry entitled Los espejos comunicantes, Óscar Hahn, the mirror is a constant entity. Like the aforementioned poets, he reiterates the same obsessions, images, and symbols associated with it. However, here the mirror takes on a new dimension which has not been explored by the others. His poems suggest that what is reflected in the mirror, our wishes, dreams, feelings, and fears, are our true reality. The reality displayed in the mirror is beyond our control. It cannot be understood, organized or classified for our own benefit in the name of science and progress. On the contrary, what should be limited by the confines of the mirror escapes and consumes our reality. For Óscar Hahn our true nature is catastrophe, chaos, passion for destruction, and a love of death. This essence emerges from the mirror and devours everything.

19th Century and Modernismo Poetry in Spanish America

The timeline of the long 19th century in Spanish America can be defined by different chronological benchmarks. While some historians mark its beginning with the expulsion of the Jesuits (1767) and the creation of the Viceroyalty of Río de la Plata (1776), others set its beginnings with the wars of independence (1791–1822). Historians also disagree on its ending. Some choose the end of the Mexican Revolution (1917), while others push further to the foundation of the Partido Nacional Revolucionario in Mexico, in 1929. For this entry, it is preferable to signal the beginning and end of 19th century in Latin America with milestones more closely related to poetry: 1805–1916. The former marks the publication of the first issue of El Diario de México, where the creations of the local Arcadia appeared while the latter marks the death of Rubén Darío and the first edition of Ramón López Velarde’s La sangre devota. Even within these strict chronological limits, offering a panoramic view of the poetry written throughout the continent is difficult. Before the advanced printing technologies that allowed the first truly massive newspapers to circulate in Buenos Aires and Mexico City that would spawn the advent of literary Modernismo, it is nearly impossible to speak of poets of true Pan American stature. Andrés Bello (b. 1781–d. 1865) and José María Heredia (b. 1842–d. 1905) are the exception. These two poets exerted considerable influence as is evident in the importance that was granted to them in the first published anthology of Latin American Poetry, América poética 1846–1847, and even much later by Spanish philologist Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo (b. 1856–d. 1912) in his four-volume anthology, Antología de poetas hispano-americanos publicada por la Real Academia Española 1893–1895. Generally, authors had considerable national and at times regional influence but rarely achieved continental recognition. Consequently, this disjointed geography leads to a very large number of critical studies dedicated to local spheres with very few satisfactorily going beyond the realm of the national. This absence reflects a period when the most pressing need was to create national differences.

After 'The Turn of the Screw' / Life’s a Peach Crónica

Hace unos días, I watched “The Turn of the Screw.” Esa famosa versión I’d fetichized for years. Décadas, actually. Years ago mi estudiante Sasha Fariña (creo recordar que she was a CMC science student, enrolled in my Latin American poetry seminar) fisgó en el internido y teorizó que it had actually been a TV special. Me acuerdo que that didn’t sound right to me, and I let it drift back down hacia el ether del olvido. Pero después de trabajar todo el santo día en Operasie Restorasie (as Wim baptised my writing process para Our Ubuntu, Montenegro) me sentí bien burnt out and in the invisible linksy way of things de repente on a whim hice Google el film--for the millionth time. Esta vez, instead of the myriad other versions que siempre he descartado al tiro al ver el cast o el año (“The Innocents” con la Deborah Kerr es bien spooky, pero way too early; la 1999 version con la sublime Jodhi May también es buena, pero too late), bingo, this could be it, me dije.