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Genre in Translation: Reframing Patagonia Express

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The Palgrave Handbook of Literary Translation

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Translating and Interpreting ((PTTI))

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Abstract

Luis Sepúlveda’s Patagonia Express narrates how he became a political activist, his years in prison following Pinochet’s coup in 1973, his life in exile, and his return to Patagonia many years later. It is thus both a political memoir and a travelogue.

 A look at customer reviews on Amazon regarding the English and the Italian translation of Patagonia Express reveals a noticeable contrast when it comes to the perceived complexity of the text. In this chapter Klinger argues that in both cases a genre disambiguation occurred and that the different ways in which this disambiguation has been achieved can explain this contrast in perceived complexity. For this, it will investigate how textual and paratextual aspects reframe Patagonia Express.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    “… encerraban un intento de comprensión de dos temas capitales muy bien definidos por Julio Cortázar: la comprensión del sentido de la condición de hombre, y la comprensión del sentido de la condición de artista ” (Sepúlveda 2011: 11).

  2. 2.

    This corresponds to the last paragraph of the prologue in the Spanish text , but has been shifted into the past tense to reflect the fact that the paragraph now ends rather than opens the text: “Les invito a acompañarme en un viaje sin itinerario fijo …” (Sepúlveda 2011: 11) (I invite you to accompany me on a journey without a fixed itinerary…; my translation ).

  3. 3.

    Although both the Italian and the Spanish text are published under the title Patagonia Express, the copyright pages in the Italian editions by both TEA and Guanda refer to another title, presumably an earlier title of the Spanish draft : a line from a poem by Antonio Machado that, in its Italian translation, appears on the title page of these Italian editions. This different title is the only indication that the Italian Patagonia Express might not be based on the Spanish book called Patagonia Express. Few readers, if any, will pick up on this, however, and therefore the book is marketed as a translation of the Spanish Patagonia Express, rather than the translation of an unpublished, earlier draft .

  4. 4.

    “È camminando che si fa il cammino” (“Al andar se hace el camino”) a line from the poem “Caminante no hay Camino” (“Wayfarer, the only way…”).

  5. 5.

    The prologue to the Spanish edition , dated August 1995, mentions that the earlier Italian edition is a partial edition, while the subsequent Italian editions by TEA and Guanda make no mention of this fact.

  6. 6.

    “… venía de muy lejos buscando una huella, una sombra, el minúscolo vestigio de mis raíces andaluzas …” (Sepúlveda 2011: 169).

  7. 7.

    Casini argues that this journey to “ninguna parte ”, to “nowhere” (Sepúlveda 2011: 18) is “una forma simbólica de referirse a las cárceles pinochetistas donde ha sufrido el encierro y la tortura” (Casini 2004: n.p.) (a symbolic way of referring to the prisons during Pinochet’s regime where he has been subjected to confinement and torture; my translation).

  8. 8.

    The Superpocket edition, however, highlights the outward-looking travel aspect in its subtitle, “Il Sud del Mondo, i suoi personaggi, le sue storie: lo straordinario universo del grande scrittore cileno” (Carmignani 1998) (The world’s South, its characters, its stories: the extraordinary universe of the great Chilean writer; my translation).

  9. 9.

    One reviewer of the Italian text states that it is difficult to tell what the book is about but continues that it does not matter and that the text flows well (Ilaria C. on 13 February 2015, Amazon.it 2016).

  10. 10.

    Although there are no negative comments for the German translation , one of the readers (who awarded the only neutral rating) comments on the mismatch between paratext and text, remarking that the paratext sells you the illusion of a picturesque travelogue while the text confronts you with accounts of torture (Anonymous on 28 November 1999, Amazon.de 2015). While the inside blurb does not mention torture, it does however state that the book traces a life journey that starts in Chile and then, exiled under Pinochet, continues in Argentina. The fact that Sepúlveda was exiled under Pinochet is also repeated in the short biographical note after the inside blurb.

  11. 11.

    Readers of the English translation were positioned to expect mainstream travel writing from the outset; something similar might have occurred with the readership of the Italian translation as potential readers learn about the book through reviews and recommendations and thus these readers might expect lightweight reading even if it is not necessarily packaged as such. The reviews on Amazon.it date from 2012 to 2016. The first Italian edition was published in 1995; the first Italian edition that did not appear within a travel-writing series was published 1998. It is possible that there would have been more negative reviews due to unmet expectations if earlier reviews by readers of the Guanda editions, the Superpocket edition or the TEA edition had been included.

  12. 12.

    Despite achieving “considerable fame in Europe both as a committed writer an as a political-ecological activist”, Sepúlveda’s main readership is generally to be found in Italy (Maiorani 2004: 466).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hacettepe Üniversitesi, Ankara, Turkey

    Susanne Klinger

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  1. Susanne Klinger
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing, University of East Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom

    Jean Boase-Beier

  2. Independent Scholar, Norwich, United Kingdom

    Lina Fisher

  3. Department of English, Tohoku Gakuin University, Sendai, Japan

    Hiroko Furukawa

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Klinger, S. (2018). Genre in Translation: Reframing Patagonia Express . In: Boase-Beier, J., Fisher, L., Furukawa, H. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Literary Translation. Palgrave Studies in Translating and Interpreting. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75753-7_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75753-7_5

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-75752-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-75753-7

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