Both Verónica and I could see Lizzie’s point about reducing the interruption into the text. From my viewpoint:
The implicit Yo in the Spanish is in fact active—she paints the plywood boards, she organizes Marisa’s stuff, her grandmother’s medicine chest, etc. Yo(Y) usually appears when the narrator is describing her position within the various sets and relationship to other sets. So the absence of the I in I(I) somehow reflects that it is the I in the diagram that is being referred to.
Verónica’s response was: “I understand what you say: if she is ‘inside’ the brackets, then she is ‘inside’ the drawings by using just (I). I like it!”
However, there was no essential correspondence between the occurrence of Yo(Y) in the source text and the occasions when it would be necessary to include I in the English-language version, so the next step in my process involved where (I) should in fact appear:
I’ve been thinking about only using it in sections that have an image containing Yo(Y): the only problem with this is that all the other characters/things referred to in the diagrams are bracketed whenever they appear, and it feels a bit too much to do the same with them . . . So maybe best only use (I) when referring to the drawings. What do you think?
Verónica then suggested only using (I) in paragraphs immediately preceding drawings, and my final decision was whether to use it only once, or throughout the preceding paragraph.
Problem solved!
As I read, reread, and refined the translation, progressively removing the first-person pronoun, a slight change in the rhythm of the English-language text occurred, one that I felt to be quite natural. I also had the sense that I was going through a mirrored refraction of Verónica’s own creative conceptual process, and also, to some extent, taking the risky path she herself favored. This sense became so strong that I asked Verónica if she could produce images that would work with this afterword in a way that parallels their use in the main text.
This whole conversation, involving three voices with overlapping subjectivities and individual concerns, sums up for me what translation is about, and I hope this note offers readers an insight into the wider dialogue involved in the production of literary works in translation.
Christina MacSweeney
Norwich, April 2017
Artwork: Verónica Gerber Bicecci
AUTHOR’S ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Infinite thanks to the Premio Aura Estrada and to Francisco Goldman. To the Ucross Foundation; the Ex Hacienda de Guadalupe, Oaxaca; and Ledig House for providing me with the space and time to write. To Guillermo Espinosa Estrada, Juan Pablo Anaya, Luis Carlos Hurtado, Elisa Navarro Chinchilla, José Aurelio Vargas, and Néstor García Canclini for reading and commenting on the many Spanish drafts, and, of course, to Christina MacSweeney for the original English-language manuscript of this work.
Part of the book was written with a grant from FONCA’s Jóvenes Creadores program (first period, 2012–2013), under the tutorship of Jorge F. Hernández.
A number of the drawings are in homage to: Cy Twombly (page 39), Ulises Carrión (page 105), Alighiero Boetti (page 106), Jacques Calonne (page 107), Marcel Broodthaers (page 107), Carlfriedrich Claus (page 108), Mirtha Dermisache (page 108), Roberto Altmann (page 109), Clemente Padín (page 110), Vicente Rojo (page 110), and Carlos Amorales (page 111). Many thanks to them all.
TRANSLATOR’S ACKNOWLEDGMENT
I would like to thank Verónica Gerber Bicecci not only for the many insights she gave me into her text, but also for the friendship and hospitality she and her partner, Guillermo Espinosa Estrada, offered me during two trips to Mexico City, which coincided with the translation of Empty Set.
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LATIN AMERICAN TRANSLATIONS FROM COFFEE HOUSE PRESS
Among Strange Victims
Daniel Saldaña París
Translated by Christina MacSweeney
Camanchaca
Diego Zúñiga
Translated by Megan McDowell
Comemadre
Roque Larraquy
> Translated by Heather Cleary
Faces in the Crowd
Valeria Luiselli
Translated by Christina MacSweeney
Sidewalks
Valeria Luiselli
Translated by Christina MacSweeney
The Story of My Teeth
Valeria Luiselli
Translated by Christina MacSweeney
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