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Article In: Translation and Interpreting Studies: Online-First Articles

A star (translator) is born

A view from the archives

ORCiD logo with link | Kent State University
ORCiD logo with link | Kent State University
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Abstract
This article examines a little-known Cold War translation conflict involving a young bilingual editor, Andrée Conrad, and the celebrated translator Gregory Rabassa, whose delayed English translation of Cuban writer José Lezama Lima’s Paradiso Lezama Lima, José. 1974. Paradiso, translated by Gregory Rabassa. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar sparked tensions among the editor, author, and translator. Drawing on a range of archival materials, the article challenges Rabassa’s carefully curated public narrative, which deflected blame onto Conrad to preserve his growing cultural and symbolic capital. By foregrounding the editor’s pivotal but largely invisible role, the article argues that an archival view of translation conflicts of this kind offers a productive lens through which to historicize the contested notion of translator stardom while highlighting it as a multi-agential phenomenon.
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • The Cold War context
  • Situating Rabassa
  • Situating Paradiso
  • Promoting the star translator
  • Protecting the star translator
  • The view from the archive
  • Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
References (52)
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