If This Be Treason: Translation and its Dyscontents (review)

In If This Be Treason: Translation and Its Dyscontents Gregory Rabassa sails around the literary worlds of the Portuguese and Spanish languages, regaling us with tales of his serendipitous encounters with some of the greatest (and lesser) authors of Iberia, Latin America and the Caribbean during the 19th to the 21st centuries. This small volume hopscotches around the Ibero-American world introducing the scholar and aficcionado of this literature to the essays, literary criticism, poetry, fiction, and drama on which Rabassa has plied his translating art during the past 60 years.

Through his English-language versions Rabassa has been credited with introducing many Latin American authors to the wider literary world. While best known for his translations of "boom" novels such as Rayuela and Cien años de soledad, the full depth and range of his translations is perhaps best exemplified by the Brazilian and Portuguese works he has rendered into English. From António Lobo Antunes to Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis to Clarice Lispector, the works translated criss-cross the Atlantic, including a midway port of call for the Azorean author, João de Melo. Allusions to the sea, in fact, appear frequently in the Luso-Brazilian works to which Rabassa has turned his talents: from Ipanema beach in the poetry of Vinicius de Moraes to the caravels of Lobo Antunes to the title sea in the novels of Jorge Amado and José Sarney.

The first section of this memoir recounts Rabassa's discovery of language/s and relates his academic and personal path to the literary worlds of Cervantes and Camões. The anecdotes and asides in this section may be interesting for those curious to know whether a translator is born or made. It is possible to glean details about the translating process throughout the book, which includes insider references to literary agents, small presses, major publishers, author consultations, language references works, native speaker assistance, literary conferences and editorial oversight. The difficulties of bringing even prize-winning authors or works to publication are acute, even for such a widely praised translator. The most striking admission here may be that often the translation proceeds as Rabassa is reading a novel for the first time, as his critical and translating faculties combine to produce the new version in English.

The remainder of the book is composed of brief individual texts for each author Rabassa has translated. The longest and most illuminating of these conversational stories are for Gabriel García Márquez and Júlio Cortázar. Rabassa does not attempt to introduce the author, style, work, or literary qualities; instead, he gives an anecdotal history of his encounter with text and/or author and some telling detail about his experience, always assuming the readers' familiarity with the literary works. He mentions how he came to translate a particular author's work and includes some details about the translation experience. Often the process may have included getting to know the author, and we learn a little of the relationship that developed between the two writers. This section is best appreciated by admirers of the original literary works. I would have wished for fewer metaphors and more introspection here.

Beyond a discussion of translation choices involving a work's title, or character and place names, there is little reflection on the pitfalls or pleasures of the English version. A reader looking to learn more about the characteristics of a good (or great) translation, or the mechanics of working between Portuguese (or Spanish) and English, will be disappointed here. Rabassa reveals little of the art or craft of translation. The modest, somewhat forced humor throughout the volume disguises the very real accomplishments and contribution the author has made to the fields of Luso-Brazilian and Spanish American literatures.

The one-page final section reminds us of the difficulties faced by any translator. Many important literary works in Portuguese and Spanish remain untranslated, or perhaps simply unpublished, as even Rabassa mentions having several completed manuscripts awaiting...