Washington Post:
For the record: I don't believe in translations; there is, I've
concluded, no such thing. There are only adaptations that compress or
expand or sift a whole culture into another, while trying to retain
its shine.
...
Here's how it happened: English is my real language. Better said, my
mother tongue. It's the first language I ever spoke. You see, I used
to speak in that perfect Valley English of Encino, Calif. But then I
returned (went for the first time, actually) to Chile, the country of
my parents. I didn't know Spanish at all and was just starting puberty
-- a bad time to be an immigrant. We went south on vacation and never
came back. I had to learn Spanish fast.
Then I noticed something.
In Chile, I was a gringo. To be American in a continent where
Americans are regarded as bullies, imperialists and fast-food cowboys
was not what a young boy wanted to be, but there was no doubt about
it: In this new language with its puzzling accents and weird letter ñ,
I had an accent. I quickly realized that when you write, there is no
such thing as an accent. So I guess I became a writer not because I
wanted to tell stories -- I became one in order to survive, fit in.
To not have an accent.
But before I became a writer, I had to become Chilean, and, to be a
Chilean, I had to conquer the language, excel in it. Not just the
written one, but the spoken one, too. Along the way, I met people with
accents. Older people. A Jewish grandmother of a friend in California
spoke with a thicker accent than Henry Kissinger. In Chile, I bumped
into an old Lithuanian who, after 50 years, spoke as if he had arrived
yesterday.
Didn't accents ever go away? Was this a sort of curse for leaving home?
I worked hard, did my best to erase the English from my head, heart
and tongue. Eventually, I succeeded. I began to talk in perfect
Chilean, and, as an unexpected side-effect, I began to write, think
and dream in what people down here call "the language of Cervantes."
Am I bilingual?
Not at all. I only wish. I'm unable to translate myself, and I'm very
bad and slow at translating others.
Do I know English?
Yes. Some people believe there is such a thing as bilingualism. I have
my serious doubts. One can speak, even write in different languages,
but one of them must dominate. And in my case, by now, it's Spanish. I
am a Spanish-language author and, more important, a Chilean. In the
United States now, I have an accent. I stumble on spelling and, though
I may talk all day in English, at the end of the day, I will need to
revisit things in Spanish.
...
For me, English is a lost paradise. A place I don't associate with
books or loss or loneliness or violence. As you can guess, I've had a
rougher time in Spanish, which, of course, is neither the language's
nor the country's fault. It has everything to do with timing. I
transformed myself into a Spanish-speaking person at exactly the time
when I began to grow and things around me began to crumble. So English
remains there, far away, and yet close, untouched, unblemished --
smelling of sprinklers, Slurpees, summer sweat and the aqua-blue
chlorine of swimming pools that perfume the California night.
By Alberto Fuguet
The Washington Post, May 13, 2007
http://tinyurl.com/2jv5gj
