Corps de l’article

Ricardo Silva-Santisteban (1941) is a Peruvian poet, essayist and translator with a long history in the literary editorial field in his country. Additionally, he is a professor of comparative literature at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru and current President of the Academia Peruana de la Lengua (Peruvian Language Academy). His research activity is closely related to his interest in the publication of translations during the colonial and republican periods of Peruvian history, translations which include, first of all, literary texts translated into Spanish from other Romance, Germanic and Asian languages, as well as literary texts from Peruvian native languages into Spanish. His production regarding translation history can be appreciated in the five volumes of his Antología general de la traducción en el Perú (General Anthology of Translation in Peru), his contribution to the Diccionario histórico de la traducción en Hispanoamérica (Historical Translation Dictionary of Hispanic America; Lafarga and Pegenaute 2013) and the book being reviewed.

Professor Silva-Santisteban’s editorial interest helps us understand both the content and the function of Breve historia de la traducción en el Perú (Brief History of Translation in Peru, Spanish edition) within the framework of Translation Studies. With three clearly-defined sections – a descriptive historical essay, a bibliographic section and a directory of translators and translations –, Breve historia de la traducción en el Perú is a useful consultation registry to obtain names and information about several manuscripts and literary works translated in Peru or by Peruvian translators within the period starting from the Spanish Conquest, through the rise and fall of the Viceroyalty and up to the founding of the Republic and current times.

The first section, the descriptive historical essay, which shares its name with the book title, presentsaccurate historical data about the production of translations in Peru. It includes publication dates for translations, some biographical data of translators and authors, brief passages aimed towards contextualizing the time of production of the texts, and some other passages regarding text style and literary criticism. While the information is organized chronologically, the accumulation of information (particularly dates) renders the essay dense and not easy to read in spite of its briefness. Although few, the passages where the author further elaborates the political or cultural changes that sparked those translations are a breath of fresh air. In these segments of the text, the essay takes a narrative tone that brings it closer to history.

The information on the second and third sections seems to be a supplement to the essay. In the case of “Contribución a la bibliografía de la traducción en el Perú” (Contribution to Translation Bibliography in Peru), the author presents information from a series of studies and anthologies about literary translation. Since there is no introductory note for this section, or for the book as a whole, we can assume that some of the books referenced contain academic-historical prologues or introductions about (literary) translation. The last section of the book “Traductores” (Translators), presents complete bibliographic information about translations performed by Peruvian translators. Unlike the information presented in the first section, the data is organized chronologically according to the date of birth of the translators, whose names are used as subtitles for the group of works they translated.

It is worth noting that professor Silva-Santisteban has been publishing for the past seven years his Antología general de la traducción en el Perú, a monolingual corpus that includes literary translations in chronological order covering the period between the 16th century and the first half of the 20th century. Both works, Breve historia de la traducción en el Perú and the Anthology are resources that complement each other and serve as a tool to continue developing the historical studies of literary translation in Peru. It is important to highlight the adjective literary, since the selection of translators and translations contained in both books maintains a special link to non-contemporary literature (sacred and secular). The exclusion of other types of translators, translations and literature are evidence of professor Silva-Santisteban’s poetics regarding literariness. However, this is not to be taken negatively, but rather as the application of good methodological criteria in selecting the object of study.

Within the structure of translation studies proposed by James Holmes (1988) in his 1972 presentation, history, together with meta-theory, occupies a more recent position than pure and applied studies where the debate space about translation ontology and ethics is concerned. This means that history of translation is necessary for the development of translation studies because it enables us to answer questions regarding the role of translation was through time, how it has been used, who acted in its development and why it now serves certain functions. For example, historical perspectives of translation help us understand how translation has become a globalized service after also being a practice that capitalized on the assets of different cultures, with dominance or positioning as a purpose.

Consequently, historical studies about translation represent a necessary work despite the fact that, depending on their scope and approach, research results collaborate in a differentiated manner. In this sense, professor Silva-Santisteban’s book is an initial work towards addressing the history of translation in Perú. Based on the criteria set forth by Woodsworth (2001), Breve historia de la traducción en el Perú is a compilation of historical data regarding the translating activity and its outputs brought together in an effort to establish a narration. However, as mentioned above, the passages that bring together the information listed and the narrative are scarce and inefficient. To this end, the essay does not constitute real history (understood as the events of the past recounted in narrative form), but rather an archeology work.

As explained by Pym (1998), the archeology of translation implies a valuable and fascinating effort to gather information on who translated what, for whom and when. From a methodological perspective, archeological studies are central since they allow the gathering of information and their results are descriptions that can entail future explanatory or interpretative studies. Undoubtedly, Silva-Santisteban’s work surpasses the description of historical data with some passages that contextualize the translations produced. However, the relationships between the facts, the actors and discourses still need to be established, something that would render this work as a historiography of translation in Peru.

These types of relationships originate when considering the translator as a subject whose position can be intersected by different discourses dealing with culture, economy, and race, among other conditions that arose in the past and are still current. After all, the history of any cultural practice is valuable because it helps understand its current conditions and it distances us, in the case of translation, from any attempt of naturalization or essentialism related to indigenous languages, western languages and their speakers. Only a few years away from celebrating Peru’s bicentennial, it is relevant to view translation from a critical historical perspective. Perhaps the steps to be taken include an approximation to theoretical translation studies, its production related to cultural studies or the so-called socio-translatology. While the academic production in Peru in the area of translation does not show much dynamism right now, other disciplines have very interesting critical categories, such as the coloniality of power by Anibal Quijano (2000). Translation is a field that the Peruvian academia must begin researching more deeply.

Consequently, as a translation archeology work, Breve historia de la traducción en el Perú may be a first step towards critical historiography of translation in Peru.