Julio
Cortázar, the best writer-translator
“I would
advise any young writer who has difficulties in writing, if I were a friend of
giving advice, to stop writing on your own for a certain time and make
translations; to translate good literature, and one day you will realize that
you can write with an ease like never before."
Julio
Cortázar, in Conversations with Cortázar,
Ernesto
González Bermejo
Julio
Cortázar is perhaps one of the most known and representative examples of writer
and translator. In fact, he is, interestingly, a translator who, having
achieved great recognition as such became a renowned writer. Even he considered
himself as a translator enlisted as a writer.
According
to Cortázar which helped him most in his work as a translator was learning
foreign languages from a very early age. Furthermore, the fact since the
beginning of his life, as a writer, translation fascinated him.
Julio
Cortázar (Brussels, 1914-Paris, 1984) was born in Belgium during the German
occupation, the son of Argentine parents. The family lived for several years in
Switzerland and Spain and moved to Argentina in 1918. He was a sickly child who
stayed much time in bed, time he spent reading. His mother was always eager to
make reading his son´s main hobby. She offered him very different books
available from many distinctive authors.
That early
love towards letters marked him, and soon he became a voracious reader, a fan
of Jules Verne, Rimbaud, Montaigne and Cocteau, among others. In 1935, he
obtained the title of Professor in Letters, and in later years as a teacher had
several jobs, including that of French Literature Professor at the National
University of Cuyo. Although he alternated teaching with his work as a
translator, gradually this second occupation gained ground in his life.
His first
literary translation was Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe (1945). In 1948, he
graduated as a translator of English and French and began working for
international organizations such as UNESCO and the Atomic Energy Commission in
Vienna. Until 1951, he worked as a translator for the Argentina Book Chamber.
That year, he and his wife by then, also a translator, moved his residence to
Paris. Once in Europe, Cortázar continued working as a freelance translator for
UNESCO, and in 1954 attended as a translator and editor at the agency's
conference held in Montevideo. That same year he traveled to Italy, where he
began the translation of the prose work of Edgar Allan Poe on behalf of the
University of Puerto Rico.
In 1955, he
published his translation of Memoirs of Hadrian, by Marguerite Yourcenar, one
of his most acclaimed translations, and from that year, without ever fully
leaving his job as a translator, he began to pour into writing. He definitely
made France his permanent residence, and in July 1981, President Mitterrand
awarded him with his French citizenship.
A prolific
translator
Among the books
translated by Cortázar, and without being exhaustive, we can mention the following:
Daniel Defoe: Robinson Crusoe (Buenos Aires: Viau, 1945), G. K. Chesterton: The
Man Who Knew Too Much (Buenos Aires: Nova, 1946), Walter de la Mare: Memoirs of
a dwarf (Buenos Aires: Nova, 1946), André Gide: The inmoralista (Buenos Aires:
Argos, 1947), Henri Bremond: pure poetry (Buenos Aires: Argos, 1947), Alfred
Stern: Philosophy of laughter and tears (London: Magnet, 1950), Louisa May Alcott:
Little Women (Buenos Aires: Codex, 1951); Marcel Ayme: The Viper (Buenos Aires:
Sudamericana, 1952); Ladislas Dormandi: The Lives of Others (Buenos Aires:
Sudamericana, 1952), Marguerite Yourcenar: Memoirs of Hadrian (Buenos Aires:
Sudamericana, 1955); Jorge d'Urban: "Preface" to Music in Buenos
Aires, Virgil Thomson (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 1966), Carol Dunlop:
Children Full of trees (Managua: Nicaragua-Monimbó New, 1983), Edgar Allan Poe:
Works in prose (translation, introduction and notes J. Cortázar, Rio Piedras:
Publishing University of Puerto Rico, in collaboration with Revista de
Occidente, 1956, 2 vols.) Edgar Allan Poe: Tales (Havana: Editorial Nacional de
Cuba, 1963), Edgar Allan Poe: Adventures of Arthur Gordon Pym (Havana: Book
Institute, 1968), Edgar Allan Poe: Eureka (Madrid: Alianza, 1972).In February
1984, Cortázar died in Paris.
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