Perhaps the most rewarding view through the kaleidoscope, however, is that of China’s own story, a narrative of boundless curiosity and discovery. The breathlessly eager China takes us through her sexual re-awakening, her growing awareness of the beauties of her native land, and the broadening of her linguistic horizons, from imperial concepts to indigenous colours, from British English to Guaraní.
All these different views in the kaleidoscope presented us with challenges. Firstly, the poetry: the novel quotes some stanzas verbatim from Hernández’s original Martín Fierro poem, and also devotes one whole chapter to a re-writing of a key scene, maintaining the original poetic form and metre, but radically altering the content. We chose not to use the existing 1935 translation into English by Walter Owen, but to re-translate the original as well as the additional verses, in the spirit of reinterpreting Fierro for a different context, whilst preserving the pace and drama.
Secondly, there is the challenge of the wide vocabulary used for flora, fauna and geographical features, much of which is unique to Argentina or to the Southern Cone of South America. This is frequently overlaid with political, social and historical elements which together produce words and concepts that are rich and dense with allusions, connotations and cultural specificity. ‘China’ posed a particular problem, since the word variously means girl, woman, wife or servant, carrying strong racial and class connotations, yet it is also (when capitalised) the name of the heroine herself, despite it not really being an individual name. Also problematic were the adjectives British, English and Scottish, which are used almost interchangeably in the original; from this side of the pond, these are clearly distinct identities, but not so from the Argentinian perspective.
The introduction of Guaraní vocabulary in the third part of the novel produces a deliberate foreignising effect on the Spanish-speaking reader of the original text, since the words will be unfamiliar to most readers of Spanish. Their appearance increasingly immerses the reader in the indigenous community into which China and her fellow travellers become accepted. The physical journey charted in the novel is thus paralleled by a linguistic journey into new territory. As translators, we consciously maintained this deliberate foreignisation, preserving that sense of going beyond one’s own linguistic comfort zone and embracing new ways of conceptualising and naming the world.
Stylistically, the novel is complex; not only does it allude to all the above-mentioned discourses, but it does so in a voice which combines China’s initial naivety and wonder with her later experience and new-found knowledge. The narrative is exuberant, with many long sentences punctuated only by endless commas; making such structures sound convincing in English is challenging. The dry humour which touches upon the history of Argentinian-British relations is essential to the spirit of the novel, but needs to be worn lightly. Liz, in explaining Britain to young China, says that ‘The land ends abruptly there, as if England had been cut off from the rest of the world with an axe, as if the land had been forcibly condemned to an insularity which those of us who live there, we, the British, darling, try to overcome by dint of force.’ What would Liz make of our attempt to overcome insularity by dint of translation?
We are grateful to the spry talent of our editor Fionn Petch at Charco Press, to Carolina Orloff, and for the support of the School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures at the University of Edinburgh.
Director & Editor: Carolina Orloff
Director: Samuel McDowell
www.charcopress.com
The text was designed using Bembo 11.5 and ITC Galliard.
Copyright
First published by Charco Press 2019
Charco Press Ltd., Office 59, 44-46 Morningside Road, Edinburgh, EH10 4BF
Copyright © Gabriela Cabezón Cámara 2017
Published by arrangement with Agencia Literaria CBQ SL
First published in Spanish as Las aventuras de la China Iron by
Penguin Random House Group (Argentina)
English translation copyright © Iona Macintyre & Fiona Mackintosh 2019
The rights of Gabriela Cabezón Cámara to be identified as the author of this work and of Iona Macintyre & Fiona Mackintosh to be identified as the translators of this work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Work published with funding from the ‘Sur’ Translation Support Programme of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Argentina / Obra editada en el marco del Programa ‘Sur’ de Apoyo a las Traducciones del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de la República Argentina.
World English rights were acquired with funding from the University of Edinburgh.
All rights reserved. This book is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publisher, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by the applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978-1-9164656-6-4
e-book: 978-1-9993684-2-5
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Edited by Fionn Petch
Cover design by Pablo Font
Typeset by Laura Jones
Proofread by Charlotte Coombe
The Adventures of China Iron Page 14