Borges and Translation: The Irreverence of the Periphery (review)

Sergio Waisman offers both detailed textual analysis and theoretical elaboration in his comprehensive study of Jorge Luis Borges's relationship with translation. According to Waisman, it is through translation that readers may understand Borges's reading, writing, and views on literature. While Borges's own translations are certainly central to this story, his fictionalization of translation and reviews of others' translations in world literature comprise an integrated theory of literature. Waisman eloquently justifies the regional locatedness of Borges's work through translation, as other recent work by Beatriz Sarlo and Daniel Balderston have illuminated. In fact, Waisman's titulary concept of the periphery owes a debt to Sarlo's books on Borges published in the 1990s. Waisman's introduction posits the periphery not only as a geopolitical position but also as "a theoretical space delineated to challenge many of our basic suppositions about translation and literature, and the relationships between them" (13). In dialogue with these contemporary interpretations of Borges's work as extremely engaged with Argentine, and often specifically River Plate, culture, Borges and Translation also identifies in his work the basic tenets of critical approaches such as deconstruction, Orientalism, and reader response theory well ahead of their time. The book delivers what it promises and makes a major contribution to Argentine literary scholarship as well as to the field of translation studies.

In Waisman's principal argument, stated repeatedly throughout the book, translation is not an isolated activity for Borges, but rather an integrated way of thinking about literature from Argentina. The "creative infidelities" that Borges both launches and celebrates in his fiction, essays, and translations proper rely on and gain their irreverent potential from the marginal location of the Americas. Borges's irreverent position questions the primacy of "original" texts, which for him are no more faithful or sacred than their translations. Mistranslations and fragmentary translations allow for linguistic displacements and regional transpositions that enrich the original rather than diminish it. Some of these views have been discussed in Borges scholarship through well-known stories such as "Pierre Menard, autor del Quijote," essays on The Thousand and One Nights and on Homer. One of this book's most valiant contributions is the rigorous interpretation of Borges's lesser-studied essays and close examination of his experiments with translation itself.

Waisman begins by contextualizing Borges's cultural context in Argentina with a general review of intellectual history from the mid-nineteenth century through Borges's earliest work. This first chapter is essential for the non-initiated, and intelligently introduces the reader to the political, historical and cultural debates over nation formation and cultural identity. In particular, Waisman highlights the conflictive period of intense European immigration (1880–1920) and the concerns and triumphs over imported versus local culture that fuel the important literary magazines of the region. As Waisman states, "from its very beginnings Argentine literature emerges and thrives in the tension between the foreign and the local" (26). Here translation in the River Plate occupies a central role with Borges on the front lines in Martín Fierro and Sur.

The second chapter delves into Borges's theories about translation through close readings of his major essays on the subject. Detailed discussion of "Las dos maneras de traducir," "Las versions homéricas," and "Los traductores de Las 1001 Noches" places them in the context of Borges life and work as well as within the wider theories of translation. While the close readings lean toward the tedious at times, the section discussing Borges in conjunction with other major theories of translation from the twentieth century is an invaluable contribution. Waisman offers an especially lucid tracing of difference in Borges as a precursor to Jacques Derrida and deconstruction (63–65). Along with Derrida, Walter Benjamin, and George Steiner, the author incorporates more recent theorists of translation such as Lawrence Venuti. In each case, Borges emerges on the cutting edge as elucidated by Waisman's deep knowledge and sophisticated arguments.

The following chapters cover Borges's fiction (chapter...