As a fitting theme for Valentine’s Day, the University of Connecticut’s Humanities Institute held a fellows talk titled “Solidarily in Translation: Virgilio Piñera’s Love Letters to Aimé Césaire.” Hosted by Katerina Gonzalez Seligmann — an associate professor in the Department of Literatures, Cultures and Languages at UConn — it dives into the work of both Virgilio Piñera and Aimé Césaire.
Piñera was an openly gay Cuban author, poet, playwright and translator from the early to late 1900s. Some notable works include “The Furies” and one that Seligmann focused on, “La isla en peso” or translated as “The Whole Island.” Césaire was a francophone Martinican poet, author and would later on become the President of the Regional Council of Martinique. Some of his writing was translated by Piñera, and Seligmann described the solidarity displayed in these translations.
To start off, Seligmann let the audience know that there are no known love letters that Piñera sent to Césaire; the title of her presentation is meant to reflect the nature of the translations that Piñera wrote for Césaire’s work, not actual letters addressed to him.
Seligmann began by reading an excerpt from her book project. “Solidarity as a verb has become a recent political slogan in the United States. It is a false claim of course, solidarity is a noun,” she stated. “But the slogan indicates a push for action, it reminds the reader, viewer or listener that solidarity may be a state of benign but it comes to be through action.”
In Cuban literature, Césaire has such a strong influence that he may almost be considered a Cuban author, in addition to a Martinician one. But Césaire could not enter the Spanish language or Cuban arts and literature on his own.
Department of Literatures, Cultures and Languages Associate Professor Katerina Gonzalez Seligmann
Seligmann goes on to describe how in solidarity studies, the concept of solidarity is viewed as a feeling or orientation rather than action-driven. She argues that the act of translating can be seen as a form of solidarity, especially in the case of Piñera. “It is broadly understood that translation as a practice can take many forms, including erroneous manifestations. It is often considered either faithful or unfaithful,” Seligmann stated. “I argue that actually existing solidarity and actually existing translation involve polymorphous and creatively productive complexities.”
Her book project “Solidarity in Translation: Aimé Césaire and his Cuban Comrades in Art” centers around his publications in Cuba, which include his collaborations with Cuban artists in 1968. A photograph of Césaire alongside Pierre Mabille and Pierre Naville La Habana was shown in the presentation. “Discourse on Colonialism” is likely Césaire’s most notable work, Seligmann suggested. In it “He argued that colonialism and slavery were antecedents to Nazism,” Seligmann noted.
“In Cuban literature, Césaire has such a strong influence that he may almost be considered a Cuban author, in addition to a Martinician one,” Seligmann asserted. “But Césaire could not enter the Spanish language or Cuban arts and literature on his own.” This is where the role of translators comes into play.
Seligmann defined solidarity as “an umbrella term for actions taken out of a sense of unity and partial identification with another person or a group of people.” She takes the act of translation also as an act of rewriting; an example she showcased was Piñera’s translation of “Conquete de L’Aube” forgoes some aspects that are present in the French version. Seligmann focuses on the use of gender.
It is broadly understood that translation as a practice can take many forms, including erroneous manifestations. It is often considered either faithful or unfaithful. I argue that actually existing solidarity and actually existing translation involve polymorphous and creatively productive complexities.
Department of Literatures, Cultures and Languages Associate Professor Katerina Gonzalez Seligmann
“Parfait, je m’éveille, je m’éveille. Mais c’est que je suis furieusement éveillée.”
“Perfecto, Me despierto, me despierto. Pero es que estoy furiosamente despierta.”
“Perfect, I wake, I wake. And it’s just that I am furiously woken as her.”
Essentially, the speaker awakens from their slumber as a woman in the French version. It displays the feminine article in the verbs, but Piñera purposely chose to keep the subjects genderless in his Spanish version. It is difficult to detect when looking at the English version since English is not a gendered language. But, this choice reflects how Piñera displayed agency in the act of translating, his usage of genderless subjects — or undermining the status quo of gender — is also shown in his own work.
In “La isla en peso,” Piñera concludes the poem with “el peso de una isla en el amor de un pueblo,” or in English, “the weight of an island in the love of a people.” Seligmann argued that “this grand finale concludes the poem’s rehearsal of colonialism and its proposition, that eroticism and sexuality can be avenues for healing colonial trauma and undermining colonial hierarchies of race and gender.” Other excerpts from Piñera’s book-length poem describe the two subjects as genderless, metaphorically rendering them as an ocean and land, meeting at a beach, Seligmann mentioned.
The presentation concluded with a response by Serkan Gӧrkemli, an associate professor of English at UConn. He commended Seligmann on her research and her nuanced perspective of Piñera’s work, stating “I like to imagine a world beyond the narrow interpretation of love,” and suggested that it was worthwhile to view it in different contexts like Piñera. Gӧrkemli commented on how each poet has a sense of self-reflection and self-interrogation in their work, through their race, status and for Piñera, sexuality.