Description: "This study offers new perspectives on Jorge Luis Borges's translation theories and his translations from English into Spanish, including of Faulkner's The Wild Palms (1939), Woolf's A Room of One's Own (1929), and Joyce's Ulysses (1922). Borges is famous for his celebration of "creative infidelity" and ability to faithfully recreate other authors' styles in Spanish. However, by studying sources and translations side by side, Leone Anderson reveals transformations in these texts, showing how translation practice can stem from a translator's understanding of literature. She thus makes a strong case for the study of translated literature and its impact"--
Brief description: Leah Leone Anderson is Visiting Researcher in the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies and the Department of Translation and Interpreting Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA. Her research focuses on Jorge Luis Borges and María Rosa Oliver. She has served as a Board Member of the American Literary Translators Association and translates prose and literary scholarship from Spanish and Portuguese. She has taught translation at NYU, John Jay CUNY, UT-Brownsville, Minnesota State-Mankato, and UW-Milwaukee.
Review Quotes:
"Borges's Creative Infidelities is carefully crafted and compelling in its arguments. The author does an admirable job of making the reader feel that they are accompanying her as she thinks her way through translations that at times strike us as idiosyncratic or peculiar but which, more often than not, yield fascinating rewards to those who patiently and carefully unpack them." --MLN
"In this engaging study of Borges's acts of translations of Joyce, Woolf, and Faulkner, Leah Leone Anderson ably shows how translation can enact multifocal dialogues between author, text, and translator. Borges's translations are imaginative interpretations of the base text that waver between creative infidelities and attempted hyperfidelity. Just as Borges attempted to expand the possibilities of Spanish literature by bringing into it translations of Modernist writers, he also expands the possibilities of Modernism through his translational practice. With Borges, translation is the sincerest form of flattery." --Samuel Slote, Professor in English, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland "This book foregrounds translation studies as an instrument to better understand the variations and cultural and political intentions of Borges's work as a translator. Leah Leone Anderson's focus on issues of gender in translation open our eyes to Borges's curious manipulations of James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and William Faulkner into Spanish. An excellent read! And a potential model for exploring aspects of gender in any translation." --Luise von Flotow, Professor of Translation and Interpretation, University of Ottawa, Canada "Sparkling, original, insightful, Borges's Creative Infidelities shows how Borges's work as a translator is central to his creative practice. Through line-by-line comparisons of long form texts, Leone Anderson reveals how makes the chosen texts new. Undoubtedly the most important study to date of Borges and translation." --Daniel E. Balderston, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Modern Languages and Literatures, University of Pittsburgh, USA "Anderson's contribution is distinctive. The book ... [is] enjoyable, and accessible to a wide audience." --Translation and Literature "Her volume bears out the indisputably empirical foundation to her thesis through meticulous explications du texte, leaving this reviewer to applaud her investigative honesty." --Translation Review