Transcultural memory and literary translation: Mapping the Field (with a case study on Lydie Salvayre’s Pas pleurer and its Spanish translation)

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to map the role of translation in literary and cultural memory studies and of memory dynamics in transcultural contexts. “Translation” is understood both as interlingual translation, that is the rephrasing of a literary text in another language, and in a broader and more metaphorical sense as transfer, transmission and relocation across different kinds of spatial and temporal borders. The first part gives an overview of the state of research, presents basic theoretical and conceptual reflections regarding the intersections of literary memory and translation, and proposes a general framework for analyses of literary texts and their translation that want to elucidate the role of translation for transcultural memory circulation. The second part is dedicated to a particular case study: the translational aspects of the literary memory of the Spanish Civil War, the anarchist revolution and exile in Lydie Salvayre’s novel Pas pleurer and the role of Javier Albiñana’s Spanish translation No llorar as a medium of transcultural memory.