My first book, Trumpets in the Mountains: Theater and the Politics of National Culture in Cuba, was published by Duke University Press in 2012. The book is based on years of ethnographic research conducted in and about theatre artists and artistic culture in Cuba, and it was awarded Honorable Mention for the Best Book of 2012 by the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE). The IPCCR funded part of what was needed to hire a professional translator to convert the book into Spanish. Translation is a specialized skill. It is very difficult to do well, and it is exceptionally time consuming. Academic books are even more challenging, given the amount of detailed information, discipline specific terminology, and theoretical analysis. The English version of Trumpets in the Mountains contains 296 pages of content, with an additional 50 pages of front matter, bibliography, appendices, and index.
Translation is essential in order to share research about Cuba, since most Cubans do not speak or read English. This translation allows me to share the material with those who are the subjects of the book, as well as those who have collaborated with and assisted in the work for over 20 years. It will also make the research available for other Spanish speaking artists and scholars in the rest of Latin America and in Spain. I will be publishing it with a Cuban press so that the book is first distributed in Cuba. This element is important, since Cuban academics and theatre artists are often not able to travel off the island, and the cost of foreign press books is prohibitive for them even if they become available locally ($30 is the average monthly salary in Cuba).
The process of translation was very interesting, since one’s words, even in academic writing, can never be translated literally: interpretation, cultural nuance, linguistic differences by country, and author style must be adapted as accurately as possible.
The Spanish-language translator, Julio Durán, is a writer from Peru. He holds a Master’s degree in Literary Translation from Universidad Pompeu Fabra of Barcelona and also in Specialized Translation at Universidad Menendez Pelayo of Sevilla. He will be listed as the translator on the published version, titled: Trompetas en las Montañas: Teatro y la Politica de la Cultura Nacional en Cuba. I will be presenting the original book and its translation in November 2019 in Havana, Cuba, and also at an international conference in Baracoa, hosted by the University of Guantánamo. I am extremely grateful to the IPCCR for helping me complete this project. Without its support, I would not have been able to translate or publish the Spanish version of the book.