In times of diaspora, noises in the language, crossings: an experience of translation as dance

Abstract

The close listening to the noises of language, the noises of time, within the process of translation/transcreation into English of Cristiane Sobral's short story "Cândido Abdellah Jr.”. Echoes of crossings and diasporas in the act of translation, from an intercultural perspective. Translation as dialogue with diasporic temporalities that appear in the noise between languages, in the Jetztzeit, the Benjaminian time, what is there to be heard. In conversations of identitary worlds in that constant becoming. The task of the translator circling with diverse times that collide, and with debris and folds, in Benjamin's image. Homi Bhabha speaks of the Benjaminian "'present': that moment that explodes out of the continuum of history". In an intercultural translation, to work with attentive listening and inquiries, so that these noises speak and impact the original in intensity and desire to listening. So to perceive, in translation, gaps as clues - and in Cristiane Sobral's short story, openings within the text present a character in dialogue with the pain of crossings and departing. Performing the act of survival, let us think of Homi Bhabha’s "time of the body in performance". Sobral’s short story and my translation/transcriation of it were presented at the SELCS Brazilian Translation Club Workshop, in a partnership between the University of London, Festa Literária das Periferias and Escritório Modelo de Tradução Ana Cristina Cesar/Uerj.