Transpoetic Exchange

Haroldo de Campos, Octavio Paz, and Other Multiversal Dialogues

Marília Librandi and Jamille Pinheiro Dias and Tom Winterbottom

2020
146 pages
$37.95
ISBN 9781684482160
Bucknell Studies in Latin American Literature and Theory

Transpoetic Exchange illuminates the poetic interactions between Octavio Paz (1914-1998) and Haroldo de Campos (1929-2003) from three perspectives--comparative, theoretical, and performative. The poem Blanco by Octavio Paz, written when he was ambassador to India in 1966, and Haroldo de Campos' translation (or what he calls a "transcreation") of that poem, published as Transblanco in 1986, as well as Campos' Galáxias, written from 1963 to 1976, are the main axes around which the book is organized.

The volume is divided into three parts. "Essays" unites seven texts by renowned scholars who focus on the relationship between the two authors, their impact and influence, and their cultural resonance by exploring explore the historical background and the different stylistic and cultural influences on the authors, ranging from Latin America and Europe to India and the U.S. The second section, "Remembrances," collects four experiences of interaction with Haroldo de Campos in the process of transcreating Paz's poem and working on Transblanco and Galáxias. In the last section, "Poems," five poets of international standing--Jerome Rothenberg, Antonio Cicero, Keijiro Suga, André Vallias, and Charles Bernstein.

Paz and Campos, one from Mexico and the other from Brazil, were central figures in the literary history of the second half of the 20th century, in Latin America and beyond. Both poets signal the direction of poetry as that of translation, understood as the embodiment of otherness and of a poetic tradition that every new poem brings back as a Babel re-enacted.

This volume is a print corollary to and expansion of an international colloquium and poetic performance held at Stanford University in January 2010 and it offers a discussion of the role of poetry and translation from a global perspective. The collection holds great value for those interested in all aspects of literary translation and it enriches the ongoing debates on language, modernity, translation and the nature of the poetic object.

Contributors: Enrico Mario Santí, João Adolfo Hansen, Marjorie Perloff, Antonio Cicero, Luiz Costa-Lima, Odile Cisneros, Charles A. Perrone, Kenneth David Jackson, Benedito Nunes, Jerome Rothenberg, Keijiro Suga, André Vallias, Charles Bernstein

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Reviews

"Transpoetic Exchange offers an homage to the creative relationship between Octavio Paz and Haroldo de Campos in a volume stemming from the eponymous Stanford University event in Winter 2010 that gathered scholars, artists and poets from all the corners of the globe. Celebratory, inquisitive and performative, this dynamic kaleidoscope of a book challenges
the myth of originality and fidelity with regard to the translation of poetry...Recognizing presence and precedence, Transpoetic Exchange journeys across cultures and traditions, languages and geographies, words and the verbal rawness of blank in the page."
-Bulletin of Spanish Studies, Fall 2021

About the authors:

Marília Librandi is a visiting professor of Brazilian studies at Princeton University. She taught in the Department of Iberian and Latin American Cultures, at Stanford University, from 2009 to 2018. She is the author of Writing by Ear: Clarice Lispector and the Aural Novel and of Maranhão-Manhattan. Ensaios de Literatura Brasileira.

Jamille Pinheiro Dias holds a PhD in Modern Languages from the University of São Paulo, where she is currently a postdoctoral fellow. She was also a visiting researcher at Stanford University. As a translator, she worked with authors such as Marilyn Strathern, Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, and Alfred Gell.

Tom Winterbottom has published numerous articles and essays on Latin American culture, including his first book, A Cultural History of Rio de Janeiro after 1889: Glorious Decadence. He teaches at Stanford University.

Distributed by Rutgers University Press

Cloth: $150.00, 978-1-6844-8217-7; EPUB: $37.95, 978-1-6844-8218-4