ABSTRACT
Manuel Esposito is not particularly enamoured of translation. In Roberto Bolaño’s novel 2666 we learn that, though he ended up as the Spanish translator of the German writer Benno von Archimboldi, his initial attraction was to the work of Ernst Jünger. The narrator notes:
Meanwhile, many of his acquaintances weren’t just Jünger devotees; some of them were the author’s translators, too, which was something Espinoza cared little about, since the glory he coveted was that of the writer, not the translator. (Bolaño 2009:6)
Esposito wants the coveted originality of the writer, not the secondary lustre of the translator. He loses interest in Jünger, however, discovers a passion for Benno von Archimboldi and finds, if not glory, a least a modicum of success as translator and expositor of the work of Archimboldi. What translation provides for Archimboldi is a kind of symbolic passport. Not only does his work offer the writings of the German author a passage into the world of Spanish speakers but Esposito’s work as translator and commentator brings him into continuous contact with translators and commentators in other European languages. The novel charts in dizzying detail the wanderings of the translator-nomads. What I want to explore in this essay is how the linguistic restlessness of the translator
and the spatial and cultural flux of late modernity are linked in important ways and how translation offers a way into thinking about what might constitute a notion of sustainability for cultures and societies.
