Open AccessRole of the Postcolonial Translator
Author(s) -
Isabel Alonso-Breto
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
transcultural
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1920-0323
DOI - 10.21992/tc29533
Subject(s) - grief , audience measurement , meditation , psychological intervention , task (project management) , psychoanalysis , sociology , psychology , aesthetics , history , literature , law , art , political science , psychotherapist , management , archaeology , psychiatry , economics
This essay consists of a meditation upon the emotions, affects and ethical compromises which surround the translation of texts as complex and delicate as Bharati Mukherjee’s short story “The Management of Grief”. This well-known piece of fiction offers a very painful account of how the families of the victims of the Air India Flight 182 attack in 1985 managed to survive the enormous grief of losing their loved ones in such abrupt, violent and unjust manner. The essay author, who decided to translate this story into Spanish so that it could be enjoyed by a wider readership, shares her thoughts regarding the demands of such painful yet necessary task. The whole area of Postcolonial Studies, where she develops her scholarly career, is unfortunately rife with such testing moments, and she wonders about the convenience or even the pertinence of such scholarly/textual interventions.