Tales from 1,001 Nights: Translating The Posthumous Book of Shahrazad

Abstract

This article discusses the translation of the poetry collection El llibru póstumu de Sherezade by Raquel Menéndez, published by Skein Press in a bilingual English-Asturian version as The Posthumous Book of Shahrazad. Taking its cue from the collection’s title, the article borrows the structure of the work The One Thousand and One Nights in order to tell three ‘tales’, each of which analyses a different point in the translation process, and a different aspect of the translation. ‘The Tale of a Poem’s Absence’ describes the process of finding an English-language publisher for the translation, with the aim of demonstrating some of the difficulties literary translators may face when navigating the often-opaque anglophone publishing industry. It is hoped that the description of this process may be useful both to writers in Asturian curious about how Asturian writing finds a home in other languages, and to translators from Asturian, or indeed other minoritised languages. ‘The Tale of Two Sherezades’ discusses, in detail, two specific decisions made during the translation process, and how these were influenced by the translator’s own subjectivity. The aim is to demonstrate how, rather than attempting to erase themselves from the text, there are times when the translator can use their own subjectivity as a tool in the translation process. Finally, ‘The Tale of the Lingering Voice’ gives an account of the translator’s experience of reading after translation; how the poems of The Posthumous Book of Shahrazad continued to resonate in the translator’s own reading life in the months after working on the translation. This, in turn, serves as an example of how translation adds a new dimension to the collection’s intertextuality.