ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses Calvino’s text in light of the critique of the Eurocentricism displayed by World Literature scholars, theories and approaches. The authors perceive the publication of Le città invisibili (Invisible Cities) in Mexico as a clear example of the “cosmopolitan attitude” that predominated in the Mexican (and Italian) literary field in the 1970s. This cosmopolitanism comes to light in the two partial Mexican translations of Le città invisibili, the first one by José Emilio Pacheco and the second by Guillermo Férnandez, both of whom adhered to the Generación de Medio Siglo, a generation of writers that shared typically Western universalist and cosmopolitan ideals. Through a close reading of Pacheco’s and Férnandez’s partial translations of Le città invisibili combined with a comparison of their respective cultural capital as poet-translators, the authors of the chapter show that both reflect these cosmopolitan perspectives.
