<p>'This important study challenges the assumption of readers as homogeneous, nationally circumscribed individuals. The author skillfully integrates textual analysis with sociological perspectives on representation, border writing, race, migration and erasure, urging a reassessment of how diverse readers engage with translated texts, including their responses to translation decisions and awareness of hybrid languages.'</p><p><b>Moira Inghilleri, University of Massachusetts (Amherst), USA</b></p><p>'In this riveting, remarkably multifaceted study, Cussel sheds fresh light on the ways in which translated literary texts are read in different settings. Novel and ambitious comparative research allows her to question reading practices governed by ideas of "authenticity" or "identity" â we are, instead, encouraged to recognise reading as a situated and complex encounter.'</p><p><b>Andrew Smith, University of Glasgow, UK</b></p><p>Survival for immigrants requires translation. Yet translation is about impostorship, meaning that immigrants only succeed through the abandonment and reinvention of the self. Cussel attempts to sort out this conundrumâas we move to a new land and acquire a new tongue, are we still one or many? Have we become false versions of who we were? Or perhaps clones ready for an equalizing future?âby analyzing a handful of Latino texts and inviting readers to a poll. The result is a monographâgotcha!âthat is itself a translation. </p><p><b>Ilan Stavans, author of <i>I Am Nobody</i>.</b></p>
Migration Literature in Translation explores the unique case of Latinx literature translated into Spanish, drawing from Latinx studies, sociology, political philosophy and cultural studies. The book focuses on works by Helena MarĂa Viramontes, Achy Obejas, Daisy HernĂĄndez and Junot DĂaz, analysing migration literature and translation as a social practice. Cussel introduces the âintegrated translation critiqueâ, a new methodology that examines the transformation of texts through translation and their reception, while incorporating empirical social research methods. This innovative approach highlights the roles of various actorsâscholars, translators, authors, reviewers, and readersâ in shaping Latinx literary textsâ mobility and meaning across languages and cultures.
Through qualitative research including focus groups, questionnaires and fieldwork in Europe, Latin America and the US, Cussel sheds light on how transnational readers engage with translated migrant stories. By addressing the cultural, social and political dimensions of translation, this interdisciplinary work offers a sociological perspective on literary translation. It is essential reading for scholars and students in the sociology of translation, Latinx and migration literature, and migration studies.
Migration Literature in Translation explores the unique case of Latinx literature translated into Spanish, drawing from Latinx studies, sociology, political philosophy, and cultural studies.
Contents
Introduction
Situating a special case of translation
An integrated translation critique
Translation, migration and identity
Position of researcher
Explanation of terms
Overview
Part 1
Translations and texts
Chapter 1. Theories of migration literature and translation
Chapter 2. Literature and migrant points of view
Chapter 3. Latinx transformations and movements
Part 2
Translations and readers
Chapter 4. Interdisciplinary approaches to translation and reception
Chapter 5. A reader study of Latinx translations
Chapter 6. The reading culture of empathy
Conclusion
Produktdetaljer
Biografisk notat
Mattea Cussel is Research Fellow at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. She is author of âWhen Solidarity Is Possible Yet Failsâ, in Translation Studies (2023), and the book chapters âTransnational and Global Approaches in Translation Studiesâ in The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Globalization (2020) and âLinguistic and Narrative Hospitality in the Translation of Daisy HernĂĄndezâs âBefore Love, Memoryâ â, in (In)Hospitable Encounters in Chicanx and Latinx Literature, Culture, and Thought (2025). She is currently coediting the second edition of The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Politics (with Jonathan Evans and Fruela FernĂĄndez).