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For outsiders, the languages of Latino literature are English, Spanish, and code-switching between the two languages. What is more, code-switching is considered a symptom of not knowing either language well. At the same time, Latinos themselves feel anxiety toward perceived deficiencies in both languages. This essay argues that Latino literature offers a complex use of language that can be appreciated through the lens of translation. This essay explores the forms of translation present in Latino literature suggesting that Spanish and English always exist in the presence and under the influence of each other. Discussions of Felipe Alfau, Junot Díaz, and Urayoán Noel highlight the centrality of translation issues in Latino writing ranging from creative output and expression to the making of subsequent versions of literary texts. Overall, considerations of translation in Latino studies can lead to a more complex understanding of the work of translators and multilingual writing in general.

Part I focuses on the novel Chromos by the New York-based, Barcelona-born writer Felipe Alfau. Alfau’s decision to write in English rather than Spanish, surprised critics not only as an odd choice but also as a unique English, a form of the language with a deep imprint of Spanish. This part postulates that the practice of translation is responsible not only for the extraordinary language of Chromos but also for its main themes, as the novel repeatedly questions the relationship between original and translation in literature and other artistic works, particularly in situations of relocation. This part argues that Chromos suspends the process of translation, rather than defining itself as an original or a translation. This part then discusses Eduardo Lago's novel Llámame Brooklyn which pays homage to Alfau by including him as a character as well as forming other structural and thematic threads with the late author's writing. Both Llámame Brooklyn and Chromos propose a treatment of New York that questions the cultural boundaries of Spain and problematizes the coexistence of the Spanish and English languages thereby setting up some of the critical themes of the parts to follow.

This part studies the New York prose and poetry of José Moreno Villa, one of the most overlooked cultural figures of twentieth-century Iberian Studies. As a gateway to the context surrounding Moreno Villa's New York, this part begins with a prefatory discussion of Federico García Lorca and his epistolary writing in which he assesses travel to New York as one of the most useful experiences of his life while also repeatedly noting the continuous linguistic negotiations surrounding him while in the city. Then, this part introduces Moreno Villa and the fruits of his transatlantic travel: Pruebas de Nueva York (1927) and Jacinta la pelirroja (1929). Overall, it argues that Moreno Villa's past experiences coupled with his vulnerable linguistic position, as a result of travel, tuned him in the languages of photography, jazz, and the careful use of Spanish, English, and other languages. In doing so, this part proposes that Moreno Villa's literary New York brought his readers more than a superficial experience but one that introduced new discourses and considerations of language and its relationship to other media.

The cultural production of Spanish-speaking New York is closely linked to the Caribbean and to Latin America at large, but the city also plays a pivotal role in the work of a host of authors from the Iberian Peninsula, writing in Spanish, Catalan, and English. In many cases, their New York City texts have marked their careers and the history of their national literatures. Drawing from a variety of genres, Translating New York recovers cultural narratives occluded by single linguistic or national literary histories, and proposes that reading these texts through the lens of translation unveils new pathways of cultural circulation and influence. Looking beyond representations of the city's physical space, Translating New York suggests that travel to the city and contact with New York's multilingual setting ignited a heightened sensitivity towards both the verbal and non-verbal languages of the city, garnering literary achievement and aesthetic innovation. Analyzing the novels, poetry, and travel narratives of Felipe Alfau, José Moreno Villa, Julio Camba, and Josep Pla, this book uncovers an international perspective of Iberian literatures. Translating New York aims to rethink Iberian literatures through the transatlantic travels of influential writers.

This part focuses on the travel texts of Julio Camba and Josep Pla, writers from opposite sides of the Iberian Peninsula, who wrote the city for professional reasons. The works of Camba and Pla present curious cases regarding translation and the city given the fact that they both are from regions in which Spanish is not the sole language, they both traveled extensively, and both have at least one entire book dedicated to New York City. In drawing associations between the two writers, as well as between the travel writer and the translator, this part outlines what they were they able to give their readers beyond another description of the cityscape. As Camba's and Pla's New York experience and their resulting texts strikingly marked the timeline of their work, this part argues for travel as an event that sharpens and broadens the creative imagination of writers as well as for a more robust reading of travel narratives as complex texts that carry within them aspects of the city that exceed the visual.

The Coda identifies other translational phenomena related to writing New York that cover the latter part of the twentieth century to the present. More specifically, it highlights the presence of Edward Hopper’s work and potential influence on Iberian literatures. It reflects on the possibility of New York as a motif in Iberian literatures open to multiple re-creations.

The introduction offers an overview of the critical tendencies surrounding Iberian literatures and their relationship with New York City, and situates this book within Iberian literary studies as well as within Translation Studies. Additionally, the introduction presents the theoretical influences and conceptual framework of the book which emphasize the role of translation in travel and the city not only as a physical site but also as an audible one.

Mark Statman is a poet, translator, and educator. His most recent collection of poetry, A Map of the Winds, was published in 2013 by Lavender Ink, and another volume, That Train Again, is forthcomi...

I teach a multilingual translation workshop at my university. Students translate from any language into English and in any given semester there are usually at least six languages represented in a class of twelve students. In the past I have made a great effort to gather engaging essays on translation by literary translators for the students and still was neither completely content with the hodgepodge of material I gave them or the electronic format in which I delivered it. In exchanges with colleagues, I learned that more than a few leaders of translation workshops or practice-based translation courses find themselves in a similar situation. It is for this reason and countless others that the translation community enthusiastically welcomes In Translation: Translators on Their Work and What It Means edited by Esther Allen and Susan Bernofsky. The book’s two parts, ‘‘The Translator in the World’’ and ‘‘The Translator at Work,’’ provide a unified collection of 18 essays by some of today’s most fascinating translators plus an introduction by the editors. Every single contribution irresistibly invites readers to consider broader issues that explore what it means to be a literary translator in the twenty-first century, or ‘‘the age of translation’’ (xix). Although particular cases regarding Arabic, French, German, Hindi, Japanese, Polish, Russian, Spanish, and Turkish are especially interesting to those with knowledge of these languages, in no way do these chapters ignore a larger audience. The specific challenges, solutions, and persistent tensions of certain language pairs never exclude the global conversation that highlights translation as its own language throughout the volume’s pages. Thus, the chapters can be read and taught together effortlessly. In Translation, is a celebration of the absolute necessity of translation since, as Allen and Bernofsky state, ‘‘translation not only brings us the work of those who write in other languages; it simultaneously reveals the limits of our own language