CANTORAS by Carolina De Robertis - LitHub "On Rendering My Own Novel Into Spanish"

LitHub | September 3, 2020

“When people ask me which is my mother tongue, English or Spanish, I usually respond that when it comes to language I have two mothers. Just like my own children, I add.

The idea that we can only have one mother is a narrowing assumption, both in our familial and linguistic lives. And yet, it’s also true that our relationships to our mothers—and our mother tongues—can be infinitely complex, nuanced, primal, and ever-changing. This why, when I was invited to translate my own novel Cantoras into Spanish, I knew immediately that the task would be transformative, in ways I couldn’t yet fathom.

I have spent most of my life yearning for more intimacy with the language of my country of origin, Uruguay. I was primarily educated in English; it is the language of my intellect, the one in which I can best vault and flow along the curves of syntax as I reach for meaning. The era of my adolescence and early adulthood that I spent swallowing hundreds of novels—which, unbeknownst to me then, helped make me a writer—all happened in California, and in English.

That said, though English dominates my intellect, Spanish is the language of my bones.”

Follow the link above to read the rest of Carolina De Robertis’ beautiful essay.

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