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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!>
*¡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.
