lost in translation: autobiography and identity politics in jessica abel's la perdida

LOST IN TRANSLATION:

Autobiography, Bilingualism,

Multiculturalism

and

Identity Politics in Jessica Abel's

La Perdida

Ernesto Priego

University College London

La Perdida Comic book series, 2001-2005

Graphic Novel, 2006

México DF, 22 million inhabitants

La Perdida/<La pérdida> The Lost One/The Loss

Comics in the border(s)

!   Comics Scholarship

!   Autobiography

!   Fiction/Non-fiction

!   Social commentary

!   Mexico-US relations

!   Gender, Class, Ethnicity, Nationality, Origin

!   Identity Politics

About Me (not all about me)

About Jessica

(about Carla)

About Mexico

(about perspectives of Mexico)

Translation <Traducción>

o  From culture to culture to culture

o  From language to language

o  Male-female

o  Idea-script-layout-editing-draft-comic book series-graphic novel-translated version

o  Text-Interpretation of text

o  From publication type to publication type

o  From market to market

o  From audience to audience

Identity Politics & Politics of Representation

!   Bilinguism

!   Multiculturalism

!   International Relations

!   Cultural referents

!   Mediation-remediation

!   Impossibility-necessity

!   Cultural prejudices

Comics (Scholarship) at the border(s)

!   Objectivity/Subjectivity

!   Authenticity

!   Resentment; mobility

!   Migration; exile; diaspora

!   Multireferentiality

!   Indexicality/Connotation/Denotation/

The Archive: Collaboration & Process

Mainstream Historietas ("Sensacionales")

US-Mexico: Joan & William Burroughs in DF

First Notes on Joan Burroughs for La Perdida

Mexico-US: Frida Kahlo

The Archive: Process & Collaboration

["The Mexico Diaries": Diasporic Intertextuality]

The Archive: Process & Collaboration

The Archive: Process & Collaboration

Bilinguism !   Issue 1: dialogues as "they are spoken": in speech

balloons in Spanish

!   Translation at the bottom of the panel between " "

!   English dialogues in English, no Spanish translation.

!   After issue 1, dialogues in English are represented between <arrow brackets>.

!   Most dialogue is supposed to be in Spanish. Original Spanish is used for words of Mexican "feel."

!   No italics are used for foreign words (non-English). A glossary of Mexican terms was prepared.

The Archive: Plotting

The Archive: A Room of Carla's Own

The Archive: Laying Out the Scene(s)

<Translation> !   Symbolic Violence of Inaccessibility to the

Represented Other

La Perdida Spanish Edition

(2007)

La Perdida <en español>

!   The editor asked me to translate dialogue supposed to be <in English> in the original into continental Spanish. I always thought this was a terrible idea.

!   Translating the dialogues <in English> as continental Spanish establishes a false and dangerous analogy between the relationships between the US and Mexico and between Spanish and Mexico (Mexico was once a Spanish colony).

!   As a result the Spanish edition I translated does not feel mine. Even less than if I had been happy with it.

!   The Spanish edition comes with a glossary of Mexican terms.

Original(es)

Authenticity/Fidelity

Authenticity/Referentiality

Exotic/Natural

As Real as Fiction

Traveling Perspective

Mexican Food,or the (im)possibility of Translation

<¿De qué van a ser, güerita?>

From <México> to Spain

Feeling like an Exile

Arriving/Leaving <Home>

Arriving/Leaving <Home>

[Intermedial Intertextuality]

"En la estación del metro Balderas/una ola de gente se la llevó."

<"In the Balderas underground station/a crowd took her away.">

-Rockdrigo González, indie "urban folk" Mexican songwriter, died 1985 in the Mexico City earthquake

Arriving/Leaving <Home>

Migration & Change Time & Memory (comic book)

Migration & Change Time & Memory (graphic novel)

Arriving & Leaving Home

Getting Lost & Found <in translation>

Comics as site(s) for Interrogating Borders

!   Coming to terms with constraints and possibilities

!   Remembering the past but learning to leave behind (losing).

!   Enrichment through hybridit

!   "Loss" as Gain, Charge, Load, Addition, Weight, Experience.

<Cheers!>

efpriego@gmail.com

*¡Salud! or gracias (not the same in Spanish)

La Perdida and all La Perdida artwork is © Jessica Abel. <http://jessicaabel.com/> Images used and distributed under Academic Fair Use. With thanks to Jessica Abel.