INFLUENCE OF TRANSLATION ON
CORTAZAR’S WRITING STYLE
For the readers of any place in the world who want to read a piece of
literature originated in other country translation is required. In the case of
Cortazar, an Argentinian writer whose works have been translated to tons of
languages, we can perceive some changes on the way his stories are written.
When a translator rewrites the story in a different language his main
objective consists on making the reader feel the same as if he/she was reading
it in the original language. This is why translators are needed to be experts
on both languages. In the original language to understand perfectly what the
author wants to say. And also experts in the “target language”, the one they
are translating into.
The writing style of Cortazar is really complicated for the readers to
understand. Not only because Spanish is one of the most difficult languages to
learn in the globe, but also because his stories tend to talk about representations
of a surreal, metaphysical, horror-filled world that prevailed upon his
imagination. It’s not something tangible and easy to describe the thing that is
going to be translated, all the contrary. The job of any translator that wants
to do something with Cortazar’s works is not something easy to do. They have to
get inside his head and completely see thing the way he does, or used to do.
His kind of writing is so creative it makes it harder for the translator
to transmit the same original idea. Actually, he also made works based on the
relationship art can have with our daily life, human rights and other themes.
This creativity that makes hard to translate his works was like a way of life
for him. He even said that it was a writer’s responsibility:
“never to recede, for whatever reasons, along the path of creativity.”
I really like some of Cortazar’s stories, but some others are very difficult for me to understand, to abstract them. His mental universe is so personal and so strange that sometimes it looks like only Cortazar himself would be able to imagine what he wants to transmit. I prefer to read him in Spanish because it is easier to understand what he wants to say. The beauty and the tone in which he tells it is characteristic of his Spanish and whenever his work is changed into a new language it gets lost.
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