Arte de Traducir

by Juan Antonio González-Iglesias

Debemos celebrar las traducciones afortunadas.

Como el Précis de décomposition

de Cioran, convertido

en Breviario de podredumbre.

En momentos de máxima inseguridad cultural

el arte de traducir se erige

en última forma de conocimiento.

Ahora que la torre de la historia

sufre asedios que pueden ser los definitivos,

hemos de recurrir a los especialistas

y a quienes los traducen

sin prisa y con audacia

intuyendo el sentido final de los escritos.

Para comprender todo

lo que ocurre estos años,

basta con este libro

de Arnaldo Momigliano

que trata de otra época:

The Alien Wisdom, que alguien bellamente

ha traducido La sabiduría

de los bárbaros.

The Art of Translation

by Juan Antonio González-Iglesias

We should celebrate the fortunate translations.

Like the Précis de décomposition

by Cioran, turned into

Breviary of Putrefaction.

In those moments of maximum cultural insecurity

the art of translation extends

into the ultimate form of knowledge.

Now that the tower of history

suffers sieges that can be definitive,

we should appeal to the specialists

and to those who translate them

slowly and boldly

intuiting the essential meaning of the writing.

In order to understand everything

that has happened these years,

it’s enough to look at this book

by Arnaldo Momigliano

which is about another time:

The Alien Wisdom, which someone

translated beautifully into La sabiduría

de los bárbaros.

translated from Spanish by Curtis Bauer

Juan Antonio González-Iglesias is Professor of Latin Philology at the University of Salamanca, Spain. He has translated Ovid, anonymous Romans, Horace, Catullus, James Laughlin, Stendhal and Sebastiano Grasso. In addition to Eros es más, his other collections of poetry include Del lado del amor (collected poems, 1994-2009), La hermosura del héroe (Premio Vicente Núńez, 1993), Esto es mi cuerpo (Visor, 1997), Más hermosura (CELYA, 2002), Un ángulo me basta (IV Premio Internacional de Poesía Generación del 27, Visor, 2002) and Olímpicas (El Gaviero Ediciones, 2005). Eros es más was selected by El Cultural, El Mundo as the best collection of poetry in Spain in 2007.

Curtis Bauer is the author of two poetry collections, most recently The Real Cause for Your Absence (C&R Press, 2013). He is also a translator of poetry and prose from the Spanish; his publications include the full-length poetry collections Eros Is More, by Juan Antonio González Iglesias (forthcoming from Alice James Books in 2014) and From Behind What Landscape, by Luis Muñoz (forthcoming from Vaso Roto Ediciones in 2014). He is the publisher and editor of Q Avenue Press Chapbooks, the Spanish Translations Editor for From the Fishouse, and “Emerging Spanish Poets” Series Editor for Vaso Roto Ediciones. He teaches Creative Writing and Comparative Literature at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas.