Beyond the Monolingual Paradigm: Literary Self-Translation in Indigenous Languages in Argentina

Abstract

Contemporary indigenous literatures in Abya Yala / Latin America are part of an aesthetic, epistemic, political, and linguistic project of increasing visibility. Diglossia and multilingualism in these practices and discourses go beyond the monolingual Spanish paradigm prevailing across the region. In the case of Argentina, the monolingual and monocultural imaginary drawing from educational policies and discursive practices dating back to the consolidation of the State in the 19thcentury, has rendered the multilingual and intercultural reality of the country invisible throughout time, in line with genocidal processes and material and symbolic dispossession that racialized groups and communities have gone through. In this vein, multilingualism displayed by contemporary indigenous literatures tends to challenge such an imaginary, to reference other literary universes (Chacón, 2018) and to stress the landscape of national letters towards the "post-monolingual" (Yildiz, 2012). Self-translation stands, in this context, as a highly central practice among indigenous authors. This work aims to carry out a geographical mapping of the practice of literary self-translation in indigenous languages in Argentina, its motivations, strategies and sociolinguistic contexts. Special consideration will be given to the production of the writers Liliana Ancalao, Mario Castells, Lecko Zamora and Víctor Zárate, who have displayed their bilingualism in writing in Spanish and the Mapudungun, Guaraní, Wichi and Qom, respectively.