x, y, z

Abstract

Translators can’t help but to read as translators. This can mean, for example, pausing to ponder over the various lexical choices one could choose from for a single word (and, in turn, how those could allow for new and different readings). In my case, this occupational hazard sometimes means that I read translation into the texts I’m working with. This happened to me while translating Carolina Tobar’s “x, y, z”. To be clear, there’s nothing necessarily about translation in it. Hers is a story about remembering. And yet, I am fascinated by the relationship between memory and translation—we can never access the “original,” only a mediated version of the past, distorted by the veil of our recollection. Tobar’s text is also a road story. Grandmother and granddaughter drive through the Midwest. As one insists on remembering the past, the other tries hard to forget it. They’re working through their stories, carrying them across from one place to the next; another translation metaphor.