Book Excerpt! Incomparable Empires: Modernism and the Translation of Spanish and American Literature, by Gayle Rogers

By de-coupling their translational practices from the national literary traditions and imperial teleologies they were supposed to express and reflect, the writers analyzed in Incomparable Empires carved out creative spaces that radically reconfigured U.S. and Spanish literatures. Rogers’s brilliantly contextualized recovery of their alternative stratagems of translation promises to foster a grand scale re-thinking of the formation, structure, and purposes of our extant comparative literary histories of the early twentieth century.

~ Donald E. Pease, author of The New American Exceptionalism

We’re wrapping up this week’s featured title with an excerpt from Incomparable Empires: Modernism and the Translation of Spanish and American Literature. In this work, Rogers uncovers the arguments that forged the politics and aesthetics of modernism. He revisits the role of empire—from its institutions to its cognitive effects—in shaping a nation’s literature and culture. Check out Chapter 5, “Negro and Negro: Translating American Blackness in the Shadows of the Spanish Empire,” in which Rogers analyzes the origins, translation, and evolution of literatura negra (black literature) from Spain to the Americas and beyond.

Enter our drawing for a chance to win a copy of the book. And, if you missed it, check our Rogers’ guest post about Langston Hughes’ difficulty embracing his role as the voice of the modern black experience during his lifetime.

 

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