New York: Riverhead Books, 2023. 448 pages.
Retrospective is the title of the English translation of Volver la vista atrás, the latest novel by Colombian writer Juan Gabriel Vásquez. Vásquez, who is also a journalist, essayist, and translator, has won awards that include the Alfaguara Prize for the Novel (The Sound of Things Falling), the Gregor Von Rezzori-Cittá di Firenze Prize, and the Award of the Real Academia Española, among others. In general, his novels explore the effects of history and violence on people, effects that are almost always so devastating that not even love can repair them.
The contrast between Volver la vista atrás and Retrospective (translated by Anne McLean) exposes the semantic differences between the two languages and the difficulty of literary translation from Spanish to English if we keep in mind that retrospective and retrospectiva can mean “after the fact” in both languages. On the other hand, “volver la vista atrás,” or “looking back,” in addition to being a poetic turn of phrase in Spanish—as the title is taken from a famous line by the Spanish poet Antonio Machado—does not necessarily indicate a retrospective but connotes a nostalgic look at the past.
This difference in meaning suggests the complex cultural negotiation involved in the process of linguistic transference from Spanish to English. But what is lost in translating Vásquez’s novel to English is not relegated to language, but is also semantic and cultural, as the universal and human elements are fully preserved in McLean’s masterful translation. In the English version, the Spanish is domesticated by the precise use of English with active verb forms and the lack of the subjunctive and the preterite-imperfect opposition, all of which are essential in Spanish. Here it is important to note that Vásquez’s narrative style, his concise, economical prose, his preference for the active voice and succinct paragraphs, evoke a linguistic compatibility with English.
Volver la vista atrás is a metaphor for a space where the influence of historical and political events that are out of their control affects people’s intimate lives. In the novel, the burden of history weighs on the protagonist, the Colombian filmmaker and screenwriter Sergio Cabrera, and his family, especially his father, Facundo Cabrera, and his sister, Marianella. The Spanish Civil War, the Cuban Revolution, the Chinese Revolution, Colombian political history, and exile are historical moments from the twentieth century that drive events and these characters’ personal decisions. The novel is biographical and historical, and it centers this family’s gravitation and its political commitment. Vásquez’s meticulous historical documentation was born of conversations between the author and the protagonist that lasted almost a decade. For the Hispanic reader, this novel serves as an invitation to take a “look back,” a look at our historical past, and, in fact, to reflect on these events and their effects on our own lives. The absence of fiction and of imagined scenes is supplemented by imagined dialogues that the author created from his conversations and interviews with Sergio Cabrera.
“The bilingual/bicultural reader can trace the cultural and idiosyncratic differences between the Spanish novel and its English version.”
Retrospective, on the other hand, acquires a new semantic and cultural identity. McLean does an exemplary job of recreating the tone and the rhythm of the prose without foreignizing the characters’ intimate experiences or the universal elements of the text, such as the experiences of loneliness and exile. For the English-speaking reader, Retrospective can be read as an adventure novel, a nonfiction novel (such a revered genre in English-language literature). Similarly, the novel in English exposes the story of a family and its political beliefs. The personal story of Sergio and his sister, Marianella—as two Western adolescents who were raised in Communist China—stands out, and the real historical events are perceived with greater emphasis placed on their European experience. The central theme of Retrospective is the protagonist’s dilemma in not returning to his ailing father’s side in Bogotá. In October 2016, Sergio Cabrera was invited to Barcelona for a “retrospective” of his work as a filmmaker. During the first public event, he received news from South America that his father was near death. His decision not to return to see him for the last time remains a nebulous element that the reader must clear up throughout the novel, weaving together the details of the lives of the characters in this family. The fact that Cabrera is a real person, and not fictional, and, moreover, is a well known Latin American filmmaker, remains in the background. In Volver la vista atrás, reality supersedes fiction; in Retrospective, the opposite occurs. English-speaking readers find themselves in a narrative based on personal experiences, a memoir, a nonfiction novel, due to the lack of imagined scenes and the impossibility of entering into the minds of the characters.
On the other hand, the bilingual/bicultural reader can trace the cultural and idiosyncratic differences between the Spanish novel and its English version, as the protagonist’s life is interwoven with historical events, and can also trace these events from Latin American and European viewpoints, as well as their effects on personal experiences and decisions.
The two versions of this novel remind us that literal translation requires a degree of creativity. For those who are interested in the field of translation, Volver la vista atrás and its English version, Retrospective, are extraordinary novels that demonstrate the complex and malleable cultural, semantic, and linguistic processes involved in translating from Spanish to English and the colossal work of literary translators.
Translated by Karen Martin
