Narratives of Mistranslation: Fictional Translators in Latin American Literature

This book offers unique insights into the role of the translator in today’s globalized world, exploring Latin American literature featuring translators and interpreters as protagonists in which prevailing understandings of the act of translation are challenged and upended.

The volume looks to the fictional turn as a fruitful source of critical inquiry in translation studies, showcasing the potential for recent Latin American novels and short stories in Spanish to shed light on the complex dynamics and conditions under which translators perform their task. Kripper unpacks how the study of these works reveals translation not as an activity with communication as its end goal but rather as a mediating and mediated process shaped by the unique manipulations and motivations of translators and the historical and cultural contexts in which they work. In exploring the fictional representations of translators, the book also outlines pedagogical approaches and offers discussion questions for the implementation of translators’ narratives in translation, language, and literature courses.

Narratives of Mistranslation will be of interest to scholars and educators in translation studies, especially those working in literary translation and translation pedagogy, Latin American literature, world literature, and Latin American studies.