Polyphonic Texts: Hanif Kureishi's The Buddha of Suburbia and Zadie Smith's White Teeth, por Karen Cresci

Karen Lorraine Cresci graduated from UNMdP in 2006 and is a member of the research group "Problemas de la Literatura Comparada," directed by Dr. Lisa Bradford. Since 2005 she has been a fellow of the UNMdP and is doing research on translation studies and multicultural literature. She has contributed translations of Diana García’s poetry to an anthology of U.S. poetry in Spanish, Usos de la imaginación: poetas latin@s en EE.UU. (EUDEM, Argentina), that will be appearing in 2008.

Hanif Kureishi and Zadie Smith have been widely praised for their skillful representations of the multiplicity of voices that characterizes post-imperial England. Transposing these multiple voices poses a formidable challenge to literary translators. Since the way a character speaks is key in characterization, translators must strive to render the nuances of the speech of each character in the target language. In this talk, we will explore some of the difficulties that the translation of polyphonic texts entails. The novels The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi and White Teeth by Zadie Smith, and their Spanish translations will be analyzed.