Translation as a Publishing Project. Analysis of two Translations of Jacques Stephen Alexis’ L’espace d’un cillement

Abstract

In this article, I contrast two translations of L’espace d’un cillement, by the Haitian author Jacques Stéphen Alexis to illustrate how the role of the publisher obeys two distinct cultural intentions in presenting the book, the translators, and the role of the two translators in the respective publications. The first, En un abrir y cerrar los ojos, is a translation into Spanish by Jorge Zalamea, published in Mexico by Ediciones ERA ten years after the French edition. The second, In the flicker of an eyelid, is a translation into English by Carrol F. Coates and Edwidge Danticat, published thirty-three years after the French publication by the University of Virginia in the United States. The publication in Mexico emphasizes the sociopolitical character of the novel as part of a common revolutionary thinking in Latin America at that time, highlighting the historical role of the author as well as the translator. On the other hand, the publication in the United States reclaims the Afrocaribbean literary esthetic through the translation and the accompanying commentary, and gives the translator broad control. The translation strategies employed by the translators reveal the contrasting ways in which the novel is presented into its importing culture; the translation into Spanish is literal, leaving a strange trace in the text that it is up to the reader to address, whereas the translation into English is fluid and explanatory, and eliminates the obstacles between the reader and the text.