Nancy Morejón and The Translatability of Blackness

• In Event: Translation and Dissent

Abstract

Afro-Cuban poet Nancy Morejón’s prominence both inside and outside the island is linked to translation on many fronts. She is fluent in French and English, and well regarded for her Spanish-language versions of the works of Edouard Glissant, Jacques Roumain, Aimé Césaire, René Depestre and others. The poems Morejón began to publish at age 18 have been translated into many languages, although perhaps the most sustained effort has occurred in the United States, where collections of her works have garnered interest from the popular press and literary scholars alike. In this talk, I will consider the relationship of this multilayered translation success story to the larger context of Afro-diasporic resistance and dissent in Cuba and the Americas. I will ask to what extent Morejón’s own translation efforts have helped shape her poetics and directed her attention outward toward a transnational afro-diasporic “struggle.” I will also consider the ways in which identification with blackness has aided or alternately stymied the translatability of her works for audiences outside Cuba. Besides their inherent literary value, I suggest that her works offer us an exemplary test case with which to weigh the translatability of race and its central role in the history of dissent in Cuba.

Author

• Marilyn G Miller, Tulane University