Octavio Paz, Thinker of Translation: Versioning Matsuo Bashō and Fernando Pessoa

Elguera C.; Saravia D. · The Routledge Handbook of Latin American Literary Translation (2023) · DOI: 10.4324/9781003139645-16

Resumen

Octavio Paz was one of the foremost Mexican thinkers and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1990. Notwithstanding his many translations from English, French, and Portuguese to Spanish, scholars have ignored his meaningful task as a literary and cultural mediator. This chapter delves into Octavio Paz’s theory and practice of translation through a profound analysis of two authors translated by him. First, in partnership with Eikichi Hayashiya, Paz published the first Spanish translation of Oku no Hosomichi (1702) by Matsuo Bashō. Entitled Sendas de Oku (FCE, 1957), this volume provided a way to understand Japanese poetry (haiku) in Latin America for a half-century. Second, between 1961 and 1962, Paz translated and organized an anthology of Fernando Pessoa, an unfamiliar Portuguese poet for Hispanic readers during that time. Translating Matsuo Bashō and Fernando Pessoa, Paz advocates for circulating “other” or “exotic” systems of knowledge in Latin America’s literary fields, transforming foreign authors according to his conception of modern European literature. Frictions, misrepresentations, and Western ethnocentrism defined Paz’s acts of translating.

Instituciones: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú; Universidad Tecnológica del Perú