This document discusses Jessica Abel's graphic novel La Perdida and the themes it explores such as bilingualism, multiculturalism, and identity politics. It touches on how the work translates Abel's personal experiences navigating different cultures and languages. Additionally, it examines the translation process between languages and formats, and how this relates to ideas around representation, authenticity, and understanding across borders.
Diasporic Intertextuality in Jessica Abel's La Perdida
1. LOST IN TRANSLATION:
Autobiography, Bilingualism,
Multiculturalism
and
Identity Politics in Jessica Abel's
La Perdida
Ernesto Priego
University College London
6. Comics in the border(s)
! Comics Scholarship
! Autobiography
! Fiction/Non-fiction
! Social commentary
! Mexico-US relations
! Gender, Class, Ethnicity, Nationality, Origin
! Identity Politics
7. About Me
(not all about me)
About Jessica
(about Carla)
About Mexico
(about perspectives of Mexico)
8. Translation
<Traducción>
o From culture to culture to culture
o From language to language
o Male-female
o Idea-script-layout-editing-draft-comic book series-graphic novel-
translated version
o Text-Interpretation of text
o From publication type to publication type
o From market to market
o From audience to audience
9. Identity Politics & Politics of
Representation
! Bilinguism
! Multiculturalism
! International Relations
! Cultural referents
! Mediation-remediation
! Impossibility-necessity
! Cultural prejudices
20. Bilinguism
! Issue 1: dialogues as "they are spoken": in speech
balloons in Spanish
! Translation at the bottom of the panel between " "
! English dialogues in English, no Spanish translation.
! After issue 1, dialogues in English are represented
between <arrow brackets>.
! Most dialogue is supposed to be in Spanish. Original
Spanish is used for words of Mexican "feel."
! No italics are used for foreign words (non-English). A
glossary of Mexican terms was prepared.
26. La Perdida
<en español>
! The editor asked me to translate dialogue supposed to
be <in English> in the original into continental
Spanish. I always thought this was a terrible idea.
! Translating the dialogues <in English> as continental
Spanish establishes a false and dangerous analogy
between the relationships between the US and Mexico
and between Spanish and Mexico (Mexico was once a
Spanish colony).
! As a result the Spanish edition I translated does not
feel mine. Even less than if I had been happy with it.
! The Spanish edition comes with a glossary of Mexican
terms.
39. [Intermedial Intertextuality]
"En la estación del metro Balderas/una ola de gente se la
llevó."
<"In the Balderas underground station/a crowd took her
away.">
-Rockdrigo González, indie "urban folk" Mexican
songwriter, died 1985 in the Mexico City earthquake
45. Comics as site(s)
for Interrogating Borders
! Coming to terms with constraints and possibilities
! Remembering the past but learning to leave behind
(losing).
! Enrichment through hybridit
! "Loss" as Gain, Charge, Load, Addition, Weight,
Experience.