Creation, Translation and Self-Translation in Juan Ramírez Dawkins’ Literary Work

Abstract

The collection of poems Naked Skin/Piel Desnuda (1996) and the book of short stories Short Stories/Cuentos cortos The Soldier Dem De Come/Ahí vienen los soldados and/y The Mango Tree/El Palo de mango (1996) written by the San Andrean writer Juan Ramírez Dawkins are undoubtedly two singular literary productions in the literary landscapes of Colombia and the rest of Hispanic-American countries in which the dominant language is Spanish. Their heterolinguistic dimension illustrates in the linguistic field the tension of the cultural field that frames the writer´s literary universe. On the other hand, translation not only transfers these two books in another language but also splits them into two originals. Thus, these two works constitute an interesting case of “semi-self-translation” (Dasilva, 2016, p.16) in the Caribbean literature since the limits surrounding the fields of translation and self-translation meet and cross and overlap each other. The Spanish version of these books, variations of a previous version (as in the oral tradition), calls into question the way of seeing the identity that there is supposed to be between the translation and the original.