Translating Cuba: Literature, Music, Film, Politics

Robert S. Lesman Translating Cuba: Literature, Music, Film, Politics. Routledge, 2021. https://www.routledge.com/Translating-Cuba-Literature-Music-FilmPolitics/Lesman/p/book/9780367456436 Chapter Abstracts Chapter 1: Introduction English speakers have had access to Cuban culture through a variety of translations since the Revolution of 1959. Given that translation is inevitably a rewriting of the original shaped by political, philosophical, and aesthetic presuppositions, the picture of Cuba that comes through in the various English renderings of literary, political, musical, and cinematic works that have been available in the Anglophone world is kaleidoscopic. Ideology often shapes both the selection and presentation of works. Presentations that seek to increase sympathy for the Revolutionary cause tend to select texts that help make a case for the gains made under the country’s newfound progress, with an emphasis on social goals like gender and racial equality. Oppositional presentations tend to employ one of two strategies—making a point of highlighting the experience of exiles or operationalizing a Revolutionary text to bolster strategies of anticommunist contestation. Beyond text selection, translations magnify certain facets and distort or obscure others. By reading a broad and multitextured tapestry of English translations of Cuban intellectual works we hone our understanding of the multiple flows of influence or resistance between Cuba and the English-speaking world. Chapter 2: The Politics and Poetics of the Anthology: Cuban Poetry in English Poetry is well-represented among the genres of intellectual and creative work that have been processed and presented for Anglophone audiences. A survey of anthologies published from the 1960s through to recent years reveals that the reader can derive vastly differing images of Cuban poetry, depending on the volume they encounter. Many collections, whether published in Cuba or in Anglophone countries, declare their allegiance to the Revolution. Others make a point of elevating the status of exile poets as contributors to the canon of Cuban poetry. Whether they are produced from pro- or anti-communist positions, many anthologies seek to increase understanding of the experience of marginalized groups like women, LGBTQ people, or AfroCubans. In most cases the anthology is the vehicle for what translation theorist Lawrence Venuti describes as the creation of communities of interest and action around translated texts. Translations are meant to be put to use in spurring political action, in developing a deeper appreciation for a given set of philosophical ideas, or in expanding the perspectives and techniques taken up by English-language poets who have had enriching encounters with Cuban poetic works. Chapter 3: Marx Goes to Mars? Cuban Science Fiction in Translation English-speaking readers interested in science fiction have had two main sources of translations: Andrea L. Bell and Yolanda Molina-Gavilán’s 2003 collection Cosmos Latinos: An Anthology of Science Fiction from Latin America and Spain, and the series of Cuban sci-fi titles put out by independent publisher Restless Books beginning in 2014. The 2003 anthology includes three Cuban science fiction stories, which are chosen based more on the criterion of stylistic innovation than on cultural representation. Further, the Cuban writings are situated within a collection that includes works from across Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula. As a result, the reader interested in either a conventional science fiction read or in using the fiction pieces as anthropological sources are likely frustrated by both the broad scope and the favoring of technique over content. Restless, on the other hand, highlights the ways that the novels and story collections in their catalogue offer the reader insights into the complexities and problems of Cuban society from the early stages of the Revolution through to the present. The Restless works examined in this chapter also situate themselves more comfortably within the global conventions of sci-fi. Chapter 4: Warrior, Thinker, Human Presence: Translating Che Guevara Images of and ideas about Che Guevara circulate abundantly through the English-speaking world. This chapter seeks to specify the role translation has played in forming different ideas concerning the man and his thought. Focusing on two very different texts—La guerra de guerrillas and El hombre y el socialismo en Cuba—we observe the myriad ways ideology shapes how translations have processed his works for reception by Anglophone audiences. Three crucial questions are considered. Does the intellectual content of his writings shine through in English renderings? Do his personality and pathos survive the journey from Spanish to English? Do translations emphasize or obscure his relatively advanced opinion of the value of women to Revolutionary struggle? Our examination comes to predictable conclusions, such as the fact that anticommunist presentations of his text heavily edit and condense his writings to contain their ideological power. There are surprising discoveries to be made as well, as is the case with leftist translations that obfuscate the communication of Che’s arguments concerning gender equality. Chapter 5: Listening and Reading: Cuban Music on Folkways and Paredon Records The Smithsonian Folkways online audio archive offers the opportunity to examine how Cuban music was packaged and presented to English-speaking audiences during the 1970s and 1980s. During this period, two labels acquired by the Smithsonian—Folkways and Paredon—each put out three albums of Cuban music with extensive liner notes that contextualize the music and render some or all of its lyrics in English. Contrasts between the two labels’ approach illustrate the breadth of experiences listeners may have, depending on the album they encounter. Folkways employs an ethnomusicological approach and privileges the instrumental dimension of Cuban music, whereas Paredon is an explicitly political project that chooses songs for their ideological content and translates their lyrics completely. Whereas Folkways liner notes cloud a listener’s appreciation of the music by often leaving lyrics untranslated, Paredon liner notes at times flatten out the poetic complexity of the words in favor of a clearly digestible political message. The analysis in this chapter is grounded on distinct theories of listening and of the complex relationship between textual translations of sung words to the aural artefact encoded on the recording. Chapter 6: Watching and Reading: Tomás Gutiérrez Alea’s Films Subtitled Depending on the release they have viewed, English speakers have had varying experiences of films by Cuba’s best-known director Tomás Gutiérrez Alea. Subtitles differ greatly in the layers of political and social complexity they bring to the fore. Given how bound they are to the temporal and spatial limitations imposed by their relationship to film image and sound, subtitles often omit information, with varying effects. Concision is an inescapable requirement. Nonetheless, a careful analysis reveals many missed opportunities to communicate the humor, commentary, or affective subtlety of onscreen text as well as words that characters sing or speak. As a result, the viewer can come away from Gutiérrez Alea’s films with a diminished sense of two fundamental characteristics of his work: the way he walks the tightrope of constructive critique of the Revolution from within and the subtle buildup of emotional resonance through dialogue. Our analysis attends to four films—Memorias del subdesarrollo (Memories of Underdevelopment), La muerte de un burócrata (Death of a Bureaucrat), Guantanamera, and Fresa y chocolate (Strawberry and Chocolate)—that vary in tone and approach. In this way, a broader examination of the impact of subtitling choices on the expressive richness of the films is possible. Chapter 7: Conclusion The study of translation proves useful in offering a more detailed picture of how Cuba has come to be understood in the Anglophone world. The present study has paid close attention to both the content and the expressive techniques of Cuban cultural works on the one hand, and the multiple ways those characteristics have been attended to or neglected in English translation on the other. It has not attempted an empirical examination of reception by a variety of English-speaking audiences, a worthy future project. Nonetheless, it has proceeded on carefully formulated hypotheses concerning the expectations and assumptions readers, listeners, and viewers have likely brought to the process of interpreting Cuban works in English. The present study has brought into focus the complex weave of experiences made possible through translation. English renderings of Cuban cultural and intellectual expression have proven to vary greatly depending on the political, philosophical, or aesthetic agendas of translators, editors, and publishers. A significant degree of randomness has also been found, wherein errors, omissions, or refractions occur without any clear agenda being discernable. These effects nonetheless shape the experience of Anglophone audiences just as significantly as those choices that evidence an obvious motive.