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Mónica de la Torre, Self-Translated

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2023

Rachel Galvin
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Abstract

A wave of self-translated poetry signals a significant new phase in Latinx literature. This inventive poetry, which seeks to expand translation's creative and theoretical horizons, is attuned to inequities in cultural capital associated with English and Spanish in the United States and to the histories and contemporary contexts responsible for those inequities. My case study is Mónica de la Torre's Repetition Nineteen, which illuminates the complexities of bilingual Mexican American experience and the implications of an author's translating her own work. I argue that Repetition Nineteen is a “transcreation” (Haroldo de Campos's term for creative translation) that critiques transculturation in the United States.

Type
Essay
Information
PMLA , Volume 138 , Issue 3 , May 2023 , pp. 471 - 489
Copyright
Copyright © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Modern Language Association of America

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