Translating Cuba: Diasporic writing between moving cultures and moving media

• Main Author: Andrea Gremels
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Taylor & Francis Group 2015-04-01
• Series: Journal of Aesthetics & Culture
• Subjects: transculturality and transmediality; Cuban literature in Paris; diasporic writing; cultural translation; moving cultures and moving media; transcultural memory
• Online Access: http://www.aestheticsandculture.net/index.php/jac/article/view/26947/39355

This article discusses the interrelation between transculturality and transmediality with an emphasis on processes of translation. It focuses on two examples of transcultural and transmedial writing taken from contemporary Cuban literature in Paris: Miguel Sales's recontextualization of Cuban popular music in Paris and William Navarrete's ekphrastic reinscription of his island into the realm of French romantic painting. The case studies are significant in this context because they show how cultural borders are simultaneously set and transgressed at medial crossings—between music and poetry, text, and image. Thus, cultural translations go hand in hand with medial transpositions that include forms of rewriting, recomposition, and revisualization. The connection between moving cultures and moving media also points to the question of “travelling memory” in diaspora.