Foundational Scenes of Translation

Abstract

Translation does not usually garner the prominent role it deserves in Argentine literary histories. We maintain, however, that translation has always been at or near the core of Argentine literature. From the end of the colonial period, through the movements of independence and the processes of nation formation in the nineteenth century, through literary movements such as the avant-gardes of the 1920s and 30s, to the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, translation in Argentina has functioned as a dynamic source for founding, developing and expanding its literary tradition. A closer study of scenes of translation in Argentina reveals that the act of translation is constitutive of Argentina's tradition and of the multi-faceted peculiarity of Argentine identity.