“Call it my revenge on English”: “Negocios” by Junot Díaz and Its Dissonant Translations

Abstract

Code-switching or, as he calls it, “linguistic simultaneity” characterizes the prose of Junot Díaz. A fundamental trait of his literary project is the insertion of words and phrases in Spanish into texts written mainly in English, without highlighting them or providing translations for readers who do not know Spanish, thus creating tension between the two languages. The objective of this article is to analyze the extent to which that tension is maintained in the translations into other languages. The comparative analysis of translations into French and Portuguese and two Spanish translations of the story “Negocios”, included in Drown, reveals that the translations into French and Portuguese recreate that tension between languages much better than the Spanish versions.

Keywords

• cambio de código
• tensión lingüística
• traducción literaria
• simultaneidad lingüística
• Junot Díaz